Modern science, based on atomism and mechanism and established in Western Europe in the 17th century, has successfully revealed the minute structure of natural components and relationship between energy and matter by means of laboratory experiments and mathematical expressions. Apparently, however, science has failed to recognize the dynamic movement of the earth's materials which involves the endogenic and exogenic cycles accompanying complex phase changes of matter.
Take basalt, a common volcanic rock existing on both the earth and the moon, for instance. Any basaltic rock now resting on the moon should last for the next billion years without the slightest change in shape, position or composition, unless a meteorite hits the rock. However, any basaltic rock exposed on the earth's surface is subject to weathering. Water dissolves ions away from the rock-forming minerals, and ice in the rock cavities breaks the rock into smaller fragments. The dissolved ions and clastic grains are transported by running water to the ocean, where the ions precipitate to form chemical deposits such as rock salt, limestone, and chert, and the clastic grains settle down to form sedimentary rocks, such as sandstone and mudstone. These rocks may be uplifted onto the land again to undergo another exogenic cycle, may be depressed deep into the crust and transformed to metamorphic rocks, or may be transported into the mantle by a subducting plate and put into the endogenic cycle, which may produce the basaltic rocks on the land again. These cycles are maintained by energy from the sun and the earth's interior. The biosphere, unique to the earth and containing the cycle of biosynthesis and biodegradation, can be regarded as a subsystem of these cycles, because the photosynthesis, for example, is maintained not only by carbondioxide, water and the solar energy, but also by many dissolved inorganic materials produced by the weathering. Thus, the most distinctive property of matter on the earth is not derived from its composition nor structure but from cyclic, dynamic movement and phase changes.
Since technology is a way to utilize nature for human life, the understanding of nature is an essential factor in technological developments. Take the invention of earthenware for example. The Jomon people, one of the ancestors of the modern Japanese, must have understood thermal hardening of a certain type of clay before they invented the first earthenware about 12, 000 years ago. Because present knowledge on nature derived from modern science is restricted to the physical properties of matter under a certain condition, modern techology, an application of the scientific knowledges, uses only those of exotic materials under the controlled conditions, and neglects the fate of industrial products and wastes which will eventually enter the natural system. Therefore, the more technology advances, the more exotic materials and the more amount of energy are required, causing exhaustion of the precious materials and a shortage of fossil fuels on the earth. In addition, the products and wastes disturb and interfere with the exogenic cycle, because these materials are not transformed nor disintegrated into simple, nontoxic compounds by nature when they undergo the weathering. They eventually damage the biological cycle and cause much harm to the ecosystem, resulting in environmental destruction.
In order to overcome the problems caused by the modern technology, technological improvement is important. However, more importantly, we must change our view of the earth in order to lead us to a better comprehension of the actual conditions on this third planet of the solar system.
As the Japanese Islands are located on a mobile zone, their geologic setting is quite different from that of Western Europe, which is on a stable continental crust. Under their particular conditions, the Japanese have appreciated the cyclical, dynamic changes in the natural phenomena and
抄録全体を表示
