Tuesday, January 16, 2007

The Begining Of Everything


In the beginning their was helium and hydrogen. Oh! and there were gaseous clouds floating about. They collided causing a huge reaction of chemical elements and dust particles, which condensed, eventually resulting in a massive nuclear explosion; from which the sun and the planets were formed. We are all made from star dust according to scientists.

It must have been some spectacle, shock and awe on a magnificent scale. Imagine the magnitude of an explosion that created an entire universe. It's almost incomprehensible; as incomprehensible as the the origin of all those gases that just happened to be floating about, in a space and time that did not apparently exist, prior to the Big Bang! So where did they come from? Were they the residue of a previous universe perhaps or did they just sort of materialise as if by magic from nothing out of nowhere? This is of course, the billion dollar question scientists avoid, in order to make their equations add up.

If those gases were the residue from a previous universe and why shouldn't they be, one must assume it had collapsed in on itself. This may have happened countless times, in which case universal evolution stretches back aeons upon aeons further into the distant past than we had hitherto imagined. But it still does not answer the fundamental question, how did it all begin? The only certainty as far as I can see, is that it did not begin with the Big Bang. That was a consequence of pre-existing matter. The Big Bang may explain the birth of our Universe but it does not explain the conception.

In fact it explains precious little and it certainly fails utterly to prove or disprove the existence or otherwise of a God. What we can say without fear of contradiction is that the forces of good and evil are present in the minds of man. However, these forces may simply be our interpretation of the interplay between the forces of construction and destruction which are visible in everything we see. That which destroys, we regard as evil and that which constructs we interpret as good.

The solar winds for example, destroy the atmosphere of some of the outer planets but the Earth's magnetic field shields us from its malevolence. Paradoxically, without the energy supplied by the Sun, there would be no life either. The Sun is therefore both a destroyer and a creator of life as are water and fire and all the other elements and every living thing.

It is so because life could not evolve any other way? It is so because without these opposing forces at work there could be no evolution and no enlightenment. Knowledge is born of experience and observation from which comes wisdom. But what good is the acquisition of knowledge, if in the end there is nothing but death and ultimate universal destruction? To serve any purpose knowledge has to evolve continuously as does life. Temporary knowledge like temporary life, is an exercise in futility.

These are the questions the scientists cannot answer and until they can, we should not place too much emphasis on their assertions anymore than we should believe Popes, Archbishops or Mullahs who have allowed power and politics to corrupt their "truths". We are as far away from understanding the origins and mysteries of life as we ever were. I just have a feeling that even now, with all the scientific knowledge we have, we will not believe our eyes or any of our other senses when and if, all is finally revealed.

Perhaps the key to this eternal mystery might be better understood if we spent less time looking through telescopes and more looking at the nature of life itself. We need to try and understand what we can see, before we try to understand what we cannot. The purpose of life cannot be found through a telescope or in a laboratory, nor is it explained by a big bang. These tools can tell us how life has evolved but cannot, I believe shed light on the purpose of life or the objective of enlightenment. These are the questions we all want answered above all others. I hope that when and if we get the answers, it will be shock and awe on an unimaginable scale. I just hope that we do not find that life is nothing more than a ridiculous exercise in futility.

My head is hurting now, so I'm off to bed to ponder all the ramifications in my sleep! Goodnight.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well I don't know any scientists who claim to know how the world completely started going back to the first elements. We simply don't know. I don't really see what is wrong with that though. It doesn't change other scientific facts that we know for sure.

speakeezie said...

Thanks for your comment which I do not dispute. I'm trying to highlight the philosophical questions that science seems unable to answer and these are the questions that ultimately need explanation.

Anonymous said...

Good post and I do agree. when you speak of enlightenment are you talking in the Buddhist sense or something else?

speakeezie said...

Dan, by enlightenment I mean the acquiecense of knowledge leading to wisdom which I think is reflected in Buddism perhaps more than some other belief systems. It's perhaps time I took a closer look at Buddism though.