Pushing Fire's Buttons
On causes physical, abstract, distal, proximal, micro, macro and lost
As I mentioned 30 odd days ago, I’ve been (re-, as it turns out) reading I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter. Keen readers will know I am a big fan of Hofstadter, even going so far as to write a fire-themed Onegin stanza in the early days of this blog, inspired by Hofstadter’s rendition of Pushkin’s classic.
In the early parts of I Am A Strange Loop, Hofstadter talks about the many potential levels one might study in order to understand the brain, from amino acids and neurotransmitters, up through synapses, dendrites and neurons, on to columns and areas of the a cortex, right up to an entire cortex and even a hemisphere. While acknowledging the legitimacy and importance of these items as objects of neurological study, Hofstafter argues that the list betrays a limited point of view.
Saying that studying the brain is limited to the study of physical entities such as these would be like saying that literary criticism must focus on paper and bookbinding, ink and its chemistry, page sizes and margin widths, typefaces and paragraph lengths, and so forth. But what about the high abstractions that are the heart of literature - plot and character, style and point of view, irony and humour, allusion and metaphor, empathy and distance, and so on? Where did these crucial essences disappear in the list of topics for literary criticism?
Herewith Hofstadter introduces a series of abstractions that researchers of the brain should be just as interested in as things you can kick (i.e. physical things): the concept “dog”, the associative link between the concepts “dog” and “bark”, onto object files, frames and memory packets, up again to long- and short-term memory, then memes (contagious ideas, not silly pictures), Freud’s id, ego and superego, finally topping out at sense of humour and “I”. Oh me oh my! He hastens to add that some of the items on his list are unlikely to have lasting validity but his point is clear. If we are interested in who pushes whom around in the cranium, we will be missing the forest if we dwell too long on the trees (and leaves). And abstract forces like these can have real causal power, ‘reaching’ down and pushing atoms around.
I spent my Honours year on the physical side of Hofstatder’s dichotomy, peering at the cytoskeleton of the growth cones of embryonic mutant mouse neurons. But I’ve always had a soft spot for concepts, ideas, and essences. I gave some half-hearted thought to doing a PhD in a ‘wet lab’, but I was more interested in finding somewhere that tackled these abstractions so central to the self. There were plenty of labs around that did precisely this - generally under the banner of cognitive science - but sadly none of them really sparked my interest. (Perhaps I should have picked up the phone and tried Hofstadter!) Little did I know, but that was to be the closest I’d ever come to the world of neuroscience (and biochemistry), as I pivoted to environmental management, joining the state government of NSW and being drawn into a project on the impacts of climate change on fire weather conditions in Australia.
Now Hofstadter’s riffing on the physical vs abstract and the spectrum of scales of investigation is coming home to roost in my day job of future fire fellow. Just as we know fire is a chemical reaction, just as we know it spreads from leaf to leaf and tree to tree, we also know it is driven by people and their motives, be they pure and true, malign and odious, accidental or unintentional, harmonious or hubristic. It is driven by vast abstract forces like history, climate change and healthy (or unhealthy) Country.
Fire is an epochal force.
Fire is a biocultural landscape feature.
Fire is a disaster.
Fire is an ecosystem service.
Fire is a herbivore.
Fire is a disturbance.
Fire is a perturbation.
Fire is a pulse. (A quickening one?)
Fire is a wave.
Each way of looking at fire implies a new set of objects of investigation. Part of the appeal of joining the FLARE Wildfire Research team here at the University of Melbourne was their recognition of the many scales at which fire operates. FLARE is a (slightly forced) contraction of FLAmes to (fire) REgimes, meaning we need to go big and small to understand fire. Happily, Melbourne University is home to an even broader collection of perspectives (and hence objects of research), about which I have already waxed lyrical not once but twice. Yes, to really understand fire we need to look at it from many perspectives and many scales. From all the perspectives and scales, even!
But that’s a bit indulgent, isn’t it? Wasteful, even? Ask any individual researcher and they’ll tell you all perspectives are not equally important. They’re undoubtedly right. They’re probably partial to their own area, and will be well versed in the skill of writing grant applications that highlight exactly how their specific field - and specifically their potential project, if only you’d come to your senses and fund the dang thing - could hold the key to unlocking and solving this dastardly fire problem once and for all. But even if that particular researcher is barking up the wrong tree (and I would never include you, Dear Reader, in that erroneous group), just how do we narrow down the most forceful forces in the field of future fire? Does matter matter more or are abstractions ascendant? Do we go gargantuan and global or leave it light and local? How the Dickens are we supposed to decide?
I’m not sure there is an answer (but I wish I knew what it was). My preference is clear. I think we would be better off if more scientists recognised the many faces of fire, and if they came together more to share ideas. We could even try talking to the public and leaders about it from time to time. Trying to dance between too many different disciplines makes me a poor (and tired) academic, but it’s fun and it’s my way of fighting back against the dark forces of hyperspecialisation and disconnection.
Still, it seems at least possible that there are some firey folks out there that have cracked the code and found just the right level at which to study fire. They might be working on stuff right now.
Stuff that will change the way we see fire.
The stuff they’re working on will not only change the way we see fire, but also yield practical insights that can be parlayed into power by those who act.
Not just any power, but real power, power enough to change the way we live with fire.
What news! Those feisty scientists have done it again! I wish I could tell you, Dear Reader, just what it is that they are working on, but you will have to wait. We all will, but it is a certainty that we will find out eventually, as we watch our relationship with fire transform on the back of these revolutionary breakthroughs.
And yet… I have this nagging feeling that understanding and power are only distantly related. Understanding toils away out the back, while Power runs the shop, moving and shaking and operating on a whole ‘nutha level. Meanwhile poor cousin Wisdom sips tea in a cave. This is the plight of scientists who would engage with the Impact Agenda. It’s not enough to just do science, they need to demonstrate impact and that means understanding not only how their work fits into the bigger fire picture, but also how science moves through society and the possibility of their work transforming the world into a better place. That’s a lot to ask, isn’t it?
If you can help with any of these questions, please send a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your answers to Future Fire.