RE: Scuba (was FITNESS)

From: Greg Burch (gregburch@gregburch.net)
Date: Mon Apr 14 2003 - 19:51:47 MDT

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    > -----Original Message-----
    > From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
    > [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org] On Behalf Of Lee Daniel Crocker
    > Sent: Monday, April 14, 2003 3:54 PM
    > To: extropians@extropy.org
    > Subject: Scuba (was FITNESS)
    >
    >
    > > (natashavita@earthlink.net <natashavita@earthlink.net>):
    > > One of many things I fancy about Greg is his candor. (Psst
    > - I'll be
    > > checking him out in a few weeks on our scuba diving vacation. :-))

     [the whole scuba thing is just an excuse to see Natasha in a skin-tight
    black rubber suit ...]
     
    > I'm curious about the attraction of Scuba.

    Well, you've pushed one of my buttons. Scuba is a VERY extropian sport:
    It's a melding of human and machine for the purpose of experiencing new
    things and developing new abilities. If it's not THE most extropian
    sport, it's got to be in the top two or three. There's lots to learn in
    terms of technique and background information in physics and biology
    and, for the gadget-head, there's no end to the cool STUFF you get to
    play with.

    > If danger is part of the attraction, why not do something
    > that gives a more intense sensation of danger with lower
    > risk, like skydiving or bungee jumping (my father and I did a
    > jump from a railroad bridge over Feather River canyon
    > once--that was an experience I am glad to have had but feel
    > no compulsion to repeat)?

    As you saw from the figures you just posted, basic recreational diving
    isn't very dangerous at all. Almost every accident of any kind or
    fatality I've ever read or heard about in the realm of recreational
    diving has been a result of bone-headed stupidity. (I read technical
    reports of dive accidents to keep myself sharp, and there's a definite
    evolution-in-action effect in most accidents that happen to open-water
    divers in depths above 40 meters.) "Technical diving" -- i.e. diving in
    more demanding conditions -- has a higher accident rate because the
    margin for error is smaller and the result of mistakes or equipment
    failures is more quickly problematic.

    At any rate, the "thrill" aspects of diving come and go, but the
    satisfaction (for me, at least) is never-ending. Especially the feeling
    of weightlessness and flight is, for me, the capture in real life of
    experiences we only have in normal life fleetingly in dreams. Now that
    I'm a more experienced diver and the basic technique can drop into the
    background of my consciousness for many minutes at a time, I often allow
    myself to drift into a state of utter serenity that is very hard to
    recreate on dry land down here at the bottom of Earth's gravity well.
    One very cool thing about scuba is that being good at it requires
    careful breath control for fine buoyancy adjustment and, ultimately,
    submerged duration. This naturally causes you to become calmer and
    calmer as you get better and better. The result of being truly in
    control of your breathing as a diver is very much the same as the
    breath-control of the accomplished meditator. In fact, on a simple
    dive, the challenge is to keep sharp on the technical things when the
    lure of weightlessness and flight is there. But then, one can always
    "up the ante" with some new technical challenge. In the last couple of
    years I've split the price of a god digital video rig and running that
    at 120 feet keeps me sharp and focused.

    Then -- especially in tropical diving -- there's the incredible new
    living world you're exposed to. Seeing a tropical aquarium just doesn't
    convey the experience of gliding above a shallow coral reef, or
    exploring a deep wall. The density and diversity of life just can't be
    comprehended from a flat video screen. Every square inch of a mature,
    healthy coral reef is a microcosm of life on the planet, with a depth of
    ecology that plays out before your eyes in a way that nothing on land
    can equal. Then there's the occasional encounter with a big pelagic or
    sea turtle or ray or giant grouper that gives you a sense of the
    immensity of some of the life in the ocean. When you surface from a
    dive like that, you can't believe the biological poverty we experience
    most of the time. You've got to be there and see it to believe how
    wonderful this is.
     
    > So why Scuba?

    I guess I'd answer -- why not?

    Greg Burch
    Vice President, Extropy Institute
    http://www.greburch.net



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