The Mystery of the Sliding Rocks and the joy of problem solving

The following is from an article on the website, geology.com (see link above):

"One of the most interesting mysteries of Death Valley National Park is the sliding rocks at Racetrack Playa (a playa is a dry lake bed). These rocks can be found on the floor of the playa with long trails behind them. Somehow these rocks slide across the playa, cutting a furrow in the sediment as they move. Some of these rocks weigh several hundred pounds. That makes the question: "How do they move?" a very challenging one. "

Nobody knows the exact reason (simply because nobody has seen it happen in person), although there are a few theories (some rational and some mystical or downright stupid). Some people want to think that Aliens must have moved the rocks. Others want to think that it must be some kind of invisible spirit of the desert. Still others think it must have something to do with the wind or some other natural process. And now a rhetorical question: which theory type would you be most likely to believe? Why?

I wanted to bring attention to this mystery because there are a lot of mysteries in the world (and by mystery, I only mean something that we can't explain just yet). But that doesn't mean there is no explanation--it just means that we need to search a little harder and do more experiments before we find what is behind the reasons of the explanation.

Thomas Jefferson said, "He is less remote from the truth, who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." We could believe aliens moved the rocks, or some mystical spirits, but we couldn't really perform any experiments to verify those theories. Or, we could devise a hypothesis relating to testable variables and perform experiments to find what really makes the rocks move.

In the first case, we are excused from thinking about the mystery and our troublesome left hemisphere (the keeper of the status quo) is allowed to rest because the answer, "aliens made it happen" seems to explain all of the mysteries. But as human beings, our brains are hard-wired for problem solving. If you think about any game you have played recently, there has almost certainly been some aspect of problem solving involved. Deep down, we thrive on the act of solving problems, and we even enjoy it! So while the lazy side of us as humans would like a neat and tidy solution that explains everything (so our keeper of the status quo can take a break), the right hemisphere of our brains is what is continually questioning and challenging things that don't make sense. If we silence that hemisphere of our brains enough, it eventually begins to "atrophy" in a sense, and defer to the by now more powerful and authoritative Left hemisphere. When that happens, we pull into our shell and refuse to question anything that conflicts with our existing world view. The part of us that is most deeply human has fallen into a deep sleep.

I hope I at least raised the question in your mind, "what does make those rocks move?" And I hope the mystery bothers you, because that is truly one of the great joys of being alive.