Jonah Inside the Belly of the Great Fish (Jonah 1–2)

experimentNo. 0085categoryRituals & ceremoniesrecordingpendingdataCC BY 4.0

The fly is Jonah: it boards a ship at Joppa, sleeps through the tempest, is cast overboard and swallowed by the great fish, spends three days and three nights in its belly and is vomited onto dry land, following the text of Jonah 1–2.

What the fly saw

Frames rendered from the fly’s eye camera at four points in the timeline, each with the 32-column retinal input the connectome model receives at that moment.

Timeline

13 steps, with their times in the experiment

1. 0:00
   A ship at Joppa

   “He found a ship going to Tarshish: so he paid the fare thereof” (1:3). The fly walks up the gangplank while mariners load amphorae.

2. 0:10
   Down into the sides of the ship

   At sea. “Jonah was gone down into the sides of the ship; and he lay, and was fast asleep” (1:5). The fly lies among the cargo in the hold.

3. 0:18
   A mighty tempest

   “There was a mighty tempest in the sea, so that the ship was like to be broken” (1:4). Black waves rise, rain drives and lightning strikes; the ship pitches and rolls.

4. 0:32
   Wares into the sea

   The mariners “cast forth the wares that were in the ship into the sea, to lighten it” (1:5). Amphorae and crates go over the side; the shipmaster wakes the sleeper.

5. 0:42
   The lot falls on Jonah

   “So they cast lots, and the lot fell upon Jonah” (1:7). Pebbles scatter from a jar across the deck; the dark one rolls to the fly’s feet.

6. 0:52
   Cast forth into the sea

   “So they took up Jonah, and cast him forth into the sea: and the sea ceased from her raging” (1:15). Two mariners hurl the fly over the rail; the waves fall flat.

7. 1:00
   A great fish

   “Now the LORD had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah” (1:17). The fly sinks through green water; a vast shape rises beneath it, opens its jaws and swallows.

8. 1:12
   Down the gullet

   The fly tumbles down a ribbed, slick throat into the dark.

9. 1:20
   Three days and three nights

   “Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights” (1:17). A cathedral of ribs, heaving gastric folds, pools of bubbling digestive fluid, glowing spots, and the wares from the ship.

10. 1:42
    The weeds about my head

    “The weeds were wrapped about my head” (2:5). Kelp coils around the fly’s head while it struggles in the fluid.

11. 1:52
    Out of the fish’s belly

    “Then Jonah prayed unto the LORD his God out of the fish’s belly” (2:1). The fly kneels with forelegs raised; the stomach walls begin to heave.

12. 2:02
    Vomited upon the dry land

    “And it vomited out Jonah upon the dry land” (2:10). The fish rams the beach, gapes, and blasts the fly out in a torrent of slime, weed and half-digested fish.

13. 2:10
    Dry land

    The fly lies in a steaming puddle on the sand, gets up and shakes off the slime. The fish slides back into the sea.

Setup

• 13 seekable stages over 142 seconds: a ship at Joppa, down into the sides of the ship, a mighty tempest, wares into the sea, the lot falls on Jonah, cast forth into the sea, a great fish, down the gullet, three days and three nights, the weeds about my head, out of the fish’s belly, vomited upon the dry land, and dry land.
• A Phoenician-style merchant ship with a round hull, a square striped sail and steering oars carries a shipmaster and four mariner flies. In the tempest it pitches and rolls under black waves, driving rain and lightning, and the lots scatter from a jar until the dark one rolls to the fly’s feet.
• The eye camera passes down a ribbed gullet into the belly: a nave of bone over heaving flesh, a pool of glowing yellow-green digestive fluid with bubbles, pulsing blue-green spots, hanging mucus, fish skeletons and the wares from the ship. A day counter runs through three days and three nights within the 22-second belly stage.
• Controls: Great fish (whale-like, default, after a later tradition, or a giant fish, the Hebrew dag), Gore (Low / Standard / Extreme, default Extreme; it also scales the regurgitation torrent) and Fluids (the fish’s yellow-green digestive slime, default, or film red).
• Seven cameras: a director that follows Jonah, the ship in the storm, on deck (riding the ship), under the sea with the great fish, inside the belly, dry land and the vomiting, and Jonah’s eye in first person. A replay control restarts at the vomiting.

Measurement

• Retinal-only input: the eye camera’s 32 luminance columns reach the fixed connectome model, measured spikes drive the neural display, and no direct stimulation is sent.
• Inside the fish the glowing nave, the fluid and the spots are world content and reach the eye; while the fly sinks, a green-water veil around its head tints the eye image. The day counter, cue text and the viewport’s underwater backdrop and haze are excluded from it.
• The voyage, the swallowing and the regurgitation follow a pre-programmed timeline; measured spikes do not move the fly.

Limitations

• From the text: the ship from Joppa to Tarshish and the fare, the tempest, the wares cast overboard, the shipmaster waking the sleeper, the lots, the sea ceasing, the great fish prepared to swallow him, three days and three nights, the weeds about the head, the prayer and the vomiting onto dry land.
• The ship’s design, the cargo, the fish’s anatomy, the ribcage nave, the glowing spots, the passage down the gullet, the regurgitation torrent and the fish skeleton are not described in the text.
• The text says “a great fish” (Hebrew dag); the whale is a later reading (KJV Matthew 12:40, “the whale’s belly”), offered as the default option.
• Three days and three nights are compressed into a 22-second stage with a counter.

Sources

• Jonah 1–2 and Matthew 12:40, King James Version (Project Gutenberg plain text)