The Butterfly

Watching brown bears at Brooks Falls, I found myself wondering whether humans are any different from bears. In a debate over reality, no theory is strictly speaking true (1). A theory of everything stands as a paradigm shift to a more inclusive view in the hope of being upon the Earth in the right way. 

On a map of increasingly large scales, self-locating efforts extend the reach of human consciousness to chains of events and non-events. They lay out a stronger form of realism by underlining what stands across time and space — the causal ingredient — and its crucial weight in a balanced picture of reality. 

A theory of everything aims to express an uncentered belief. Yet, doing so, it collects and builds upon the centered beliefs held by specific agents at specific times, all instant observers, to see things diachronically and give a deeper meaning to each and every role in the process. 

In the context of motion and communication that applies to all that which feels — a star, a planet, a cell, or even a neutron around the periphery of the nucleus, each has and is a vantage point. Each is a resident of a spatiotemporal dwelling. A theory of everything describes self-locating efforts in terms of their relationships across time and space. Engaged in a self-ascription of their properties, each displays four attributes across four components of time in and out of the realm of Nothingness.

From the little red dots of the early Universe to those painted with circles and spirals, the instant observer stepped into an observation mode and attempted to mimic what they observed. Did they feel connected to the starry sky, the red planet, an eclipse or a celestial object flashing red in the Milky Way? Motion is the bond between the Universe and Consciousness. Yet, the mind freezes the movement to make sense of it all and capture its meaning. 

Motion is a form of expression. A butterfly is a cruciform shape in motion. As it begins its flight, it serves as a visual representation for a very small cause which escapes our notice. And while it is intrinsically dependent upon initial conditions, the exact spatiotemporal location where the butterfly began its flight may be unknown. 

At this very moment on June 2nd, 2026, the solar system is comprised of 8 planets, 460 planetary satellites, 1,543, 474 asteroids and 4,065 comets. What an instant observer is not yet aware of is hidden in the folds of spacetime out of which future events will be born. The butterfly dream stands for where reality lies and how spatiotemporal entities are all interrelated.

Rare earth elements and critical metals are butterflies flapping their wings to unforeseen destinations in their journey through the Universe. At first — if the concept of beginnings ever made sense — there was mostly hydrogen and a smaller quantity of helium. Heavy elements beyond iron (Fe), such as tantalum and the REE element europium, came later. 

Today what makes them ‘precious’ is their industrial application in the manufacturing of computers, cell phones, medical devices, jet engines, nuclear reactors and in space engineering, etc. Can we tell their vantage point by following their footprints across spacetime? Their abundance and scarcity in the Universe reflect stellar processes.

The Earth’s geological process occurred at later stages and is more complex than the tracing of a straight line. Yet, the distribution of natural resources and raw materials isn’t the product of the Earth alone. The Universe’s chemical evolution and that of the Milky Way can be traced back to massive outflows of debris pieces from celestial bodies forming and growing and their remnants colliding and ejecting minerals and metals in the interstellar medium… to the hidden depths and rocky layers of the Earth. A mining site isn’t the end of the story It is only an episode in the meandering history of the Universe.

A core-collapse supernova, that may leave behind a neutron star or a black hole, is a great expeller of heavy elements. Another cosmic event, a magnetar giant flare, may be an early source, contributing at least about 1 to 10% of the total galactic abundances at earlier epochs. Other sites of heavy elements production include neutron star mergers. 

The butterfly brings about a significant effect that is impossible to overlook. The ‘overlook’ aspect may be temporary until time has come for its discovery. It is suggested that a point in time and space, like a galaxy merger, may have eventually led to a binary that itself evolved into a neutron star merger that was the source of the gamma ray burst GRB 230609A detected on September 6th, 2023 in the Pictor constellation.

The butterfly is a concept with an echo effect. It is the Sun’s magnetic field waxing and waning. It is the Universe with dark horizontal gaps. While a cause beyond our purview has brought into light the obvious outcome, we cannot predict either with precision the effect in the future of a cause presently unfolding. Chance appears at play until cause and effect become clear, the absence of light ceases and the dust comes off. 

The Earth’s deep-ocean crust reveals deposits of heavy elements such as iron, plutonium and curium, that may provide clues about the timing of cosmic events.  Heavy elements were gathered and concentrated in the solar nebula before the Sun and the Earth were formed. Even an essential biomolecule of sugar was recently discovered in the interstellar medium. 

The butterfly may materialize across time and space into tantalum forms.Tantalum is generally distributed on the global scale but in low concentrations in a variety of igneous rocks, inside pegmatites and granites, bound in minerals such as tantalite and columbite, within regional structures such as faults and shear zones, as a consequence of tectonic evolution.

Central African countries, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), have an almost 100-year-long history of tantalum production. Coltan (Columbite-tantalite) is one of the raw materials that are reinventing the world (2). The Congo craton sits on the African plate that was part of the west Gondwana supercontinent.  Over millions of years, plates inch apart, as it is the case at the East African Rift at the margin of the African plate. 

While some metals are rare relatively to the overall content of the Earth’s crust, they appear to be readily available in Eastern Congo, notably in belts along the large Congo cratonic block, on the site of ancient tectono-metamorphic events where lavas rose from magmas underground and formed the crust following multiple stages of magmatism. There remain ancient igneous landscapes and plumbing system of extinct volcanoes such as Tshibinda, Sabyinyo and Mikeno, where the Albertine rift — the western part of the Eastern African Rift — runs through. As lava was transported upward, it brought up heavy metals and vapor crystals from the deep fluid source toward the surface.

“Who owns the Earth?” A piece of coltan-refined tantalum just dogged out of the mine asks. Through a series of interconnecting arrows, the self aka Tantalum, embodies the theory of vantage points that is not limited to a spatial awareness. It is a butterfly-like experience of time and space. 

The DRC, comparable in size to the European Union, is a major source of timber, oil, gas, gold, diamonds, copper and holds 70 % of global cobalt reserves, with 85% of the population living in extreme poverty and an increasing number of adults and children working in the mining sector.

“Who owns the Earth?” ask the miners. Industrial mining employs about 7 million people worldwide, whereas artisanal and small-scale mining is the primary source of employment for at least 45 million people across 80 countries. Earnings are ranging from US$70 a month to over US$1,000 a month, yet well above any rural income alternative. 

The Kivu regions in the DRC contain 60–80% of global niobium-tantalum (Nb-Ta) reserves. Its extraction from coltan ore (in blue on the map below) has been at the center of major hostilities and violent clashes for the past three years, with a growing number of drone strikes — as it is now common in modern warfare — between armed militia backed by Rwanda and armed forces of the DRC, resulting in undiscriminated civilian casualties and widespread forced displacement. 

A map of artisanal mining in the eastern part of the country, followed by a map of the area influenced — if not ruled de facto — by M23 (March 23 Movement)/ AFC (Alliance Fleuve Congo), show shifting borders as of the second half of May 2026. Both parties fight to gain and regain control of mines, in particular the coltan mines around Rubaya. 

Is our intense competitiveness really different from that of brown bears at Brooks Falls if we allow the killing of fellow humans, child abuse, and wage wars on the population? Warring forces and their economic international partners are engaged in, and feud over the control of, labour-intensive artisanal and small-scale mining. 

Fraud, corruption, and mining smuggling, but also the lack of appropriate tools and technologies for the local processing of natural resources are at the root of the paradox of a country like DRC that remains poor economically. Because tantalum does not occur naturally as a pure metal, the co-occurrence of beryllium and fluorine in coltan mining and processing is a concern for environmental health. It requires to be properly separated and disposed of, for potentially radioactive residual waste may accumulate on the surface of the soil or integrate with aquatic systems. 

When a butterfly flaps its wings, it carries far-reaching consequences across distances and acts as a boomerang with long-term repercussions. The commodification of public goods makes it harder to achieve sound policymaking. Responsible sourcing practices imply that human activities don't lead to biodiversity loss and the degradation of ecosystems. 

Who owns the Earth? The mighty, the fattest bear, the giant corporate conglomerate whose size gives them a competitive advantage.

While war rages, across the border, shareholders of three separate, privately held entities joined forces in neighboring Rwanda to form Trinity Metals Ltd and secure the technology metal supply chain of tin, tungsten and tantalum. Techmet —Trinity Metals’ majority shareholder —works with a number of investment partners including the US Development Finance Corporation at the Nyakabingo Mine notably. 

In 2022, Rio Tinto and their largest customer globally, China Baowu Steel Group Co. Ltd, entered a $2 billion joint venture to develop the Western Range iron ore project in the Pilbara, Western Australia.  In 2024, it acquired Arcadium Lithium and, consequently, became one of the leading lithium producers globally. In 2026, Resolution Copper, a joint venture between Rio Tinto (55%) and BHP (45%), and the United States Forest Service (USFS) initiated a historic land exchange for the exploitation of the world’s largest untapped copper deposits. 

While Rio Tinto acknowledged in 2020 that they fell far short of their values as a company and breached the trust placed in them with the destruction of the 46,000 year-old Aboriginal site, the Juukan Gorge caves, why, then, would the same scenario repeat in Arizona, as part of the land exchange agreement, at the Native American sacred site Chí’chil Biłdagoteel (Oak Flat)? Heritage once lost never comes back…

Whether it is a mineral or the resin of a tree, natural resources are public assets for the common good. Mining, and, most definitely,  illegal mining in Brazil, Sudan and in the DRC,  raises the question of ownership, fair trade and the importance of traceability,  as it directly impacts public budgets through lost and diverted funds, adding to the root causes of poverty and social vulnerability.

In the past, Mitaperotin (3), the Queen City of paper, wrecked the habitat of the River King, the Atlantic salmon. Floating logs down the Tapiskwan Sipi (4) into the Micta Sipi (5) are replaced today by new trends in human consumption. Gum arabic  (E414) is now predominantly produced from acacias’ resin of the war-striven Sudan. Its high demand in food and beverage, cosmetic and pharmaceuticals around the world has caused the displacement of nearly 15 million people over the past four years.

Yet, nature finds a way… As log booms stopped down the Susquehanna river to the sawmills, the Conowingo dam has transformed into a place where hundreds of birds gather today.

The circle seems almost complete as the little butterfly flies back out…The search for rare element and rare metal mining sites enables and motivates space exploration. Ongoing land and marine exploration studies for the discovery of new mineral deposits in Africa and around the globe proceed together with a more in-depth understanding of the chemical and mineralogical features of the Moon and Mars whose familiar features — great craters, giant volcanic provinces, rift zone and polar ice caps — remind those on its sister planet, the Earth.

The first detection of boron on Mars was made ten years ago. Hundreds of rocks were collected as meteorites. Samples were most recently provided by the NASA Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission, including from the Jezero Crater floor. Before future mars missions are launched, long-term lunar bases are being established for in situ resource, such as access to lithium for battery production.

Robotic missions, and especially deep space human exploration missions rely on highly advanced materials and technologies for structural integrity, radiation protection, operational efficiency and building of aerobots. The field of space materials include high-strength aluminum alloys, lithium-based batteries, beryllium-aluminum motors, hydrogenated boron nitride nanotubes. Tantalum is used today in rocket nozzles.

Humans are marching forward, convinced of their inalienable right of conquest that did not start with the 1493 Papal Bull "Inter Caetera" nor with the United States’ 1823 Supreme Court ruling in Johnson v. McIntosh. Their superior genius is only a tool, like the dominant bear best at catching fish at the Falls. To claim a natural resource, on Earth and beyond, as a private property and actively take part in their takeover is being in the wrong way.

The Dialogue between Consciousness and the Universe stumbles on a conundrum around “Who owns the Earth?” and “What does it mean to be human?” If we ask directions on the road to global commons to all the fluttering butterflies, will we be given the right information ? Will we find our way if the road is shattered by conflicts and fogged by smoke? If imbalance and inequity deepen, does it mean that we made the wrong turn?

Time flows… While concepts and standards evolve, there are core enduring values. One hundred thirty-five years after Pope Leo XIII wrote on the Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor in the Gilded Age, Pope XIV pleads for safeguarding humanity in the age of technological dominance. The common thread is the call for an economy that values dignity. 

While the living experience of an embodied consciousness feeds on its inner and outer worlds,  what makes humans stand out is their struggle to extirpate themselves, in the course of their brief existence, from the entanglements of bodily sensation, mental cognition, and physical matter and to transcend to a stronger sense of empathy, sensitivity, and intuition.

A theory of vantage points touches upon the role of consciousness in the evolution of everything and the place of humans in the evolution of consciousness. Like the sunspots’ unique pattern of waxing and waning, the butterfly flies above and below the legacy of the past and the unfolding causes of the future.

From diamonds and gold to tech metals, at the heart of the physical universe lies the fragile human ego and within the mountain of the ego lies the ore of passions (6)… Green technologies and the high-tech industry carry an environmental cost. Their dependence on mining is a zone of avoidance for the wider audience. Therein lies the reason for this August post.

(1) Newton-Smith, W. (2002). The Rationality of Science. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis.

(2) Badie, B. (2018). Quand le Sud réinvente le monde: Essai sur la puissance de la faiblesse. Canada: LA DECOUVERTE.

(3) Trois-Rivières, city in Québec, Canada

(4) Saint-Maurice River

(5) Saint-Laurent River

(6) See Huineng's commentary on the Diamond Sutra: “Au cœur de l’univers corporel, il y a la montagne de l’ego. Dans la montagne de l’ego, il y a le minerai des passions. Dans le minerai des passions, il y a le joyau de la nature bouddhique. Dans le joyau de la nature bouddhique,  il y a l’artisan de sagesse. Usez de l’artisan de sagesse pour que s’effondre en la creusant la montagne de l’ego et voir le minerai des passions afin que le feu de l’illumination le fonde et l’affine et qu’apparaisse la nature propre de bouddha, adamantine, claire et limpide. C’est pourquoi le diamant est considéré comme son symbole puisqu’elle en porte le nom.”