Hi, this is Against Everyone with Connor Habib.

Friends, this is the seventh and final episode in a series of episodes on science

and how science intersects with our lives in surprising ways.

On this episode, I go into a very fundamental question with a historian of science,ina Velman and that question is what is

motion or maybe another way to ask that question is what is stillness or what is movement and what are

they especially in relationship to life and death?

Janina is the author of two incredible books that you should all read from Zone books.

One is called Biological Motion and the other is called The Form of Becoming, which is about rhythm.

I love asking fundamental questions, and I think, you know, you can do some experiments before you even listen to this episode or maybe after or

even during, with motion and movement. Unina has written that the study of movement is a science of the imperceptible.

That might sound a little strange to you because maybe you think movement is completely perceptible.

Well, let's try it. Hold up your hand and move it.

Create motion with your hand.

What are you seeing?

What exactly is taking place?

What's happening with your perceptual apparatus, your eyes, and what's happening with your hand?

Are you just following your hand with your eyes?

In other words, to kind of fix it, keep your eyes at the same pace or in the same spot

as your hand. What's happening behind your hand? Are you seeing your hand? Are you seeing a blur?

Are you seeing a rush of color? How might that change if you move your hand faster or closer or farther away from yourself?

Now, you can also move your hand against a background that's moving. A slow moving background.

Maybe you have a fish tank or there's some leaves blowing in the trees or a fast-moving background.

...