The Path to Spiritual Enlightenment

Dr. GURU speaks,

Stephen Jay Gould [1941-2002], esteemed palaeontologist, once eloquently stated: if our planets’ beginning is the end of your nose and its present your outstretched fingertip, then a single swipe of a file on the fingers’ nail wipes out all human history. Not just the history of civilization, but the entire presence of Homo-sapiens – and indeed, the history of all our primitive hominid ancestors.

Similarly, our Planet may be totally annihilated by a giant colliding body from outer-space...

It is known that there is an asteroid, named 1950 AD, a kilometre wide and due to collide with Earth in 2880. If luck remains on our side then Earth will live a full life, another 5 billion years. Then our Sun will “toll the bell”, engulfing our planet as it expands.

Long before this happens though, our planet will be inhabitable to anything but the most robust organisms. Astronomers believe that in a billion years from now our Sun will be over 10% brighter than it is today. Global climate models indicate that the Earth will react to this increase by at first becoming a "moist greenhouse".
Looking even further ahead, the Sun will increase its luminosity by about 40% in three billion years. This will force the Earth into a "runaway greenhouse" state, such as exists currently on the planet Venus.

Having said that, once life takes a-hold it is almost inextinguishable. We have the same innate drive in us, as all living things do. We, however, have the potential to outlive our mother-planet. This sets us apart from "Gaia". We can choose to live outside of Gaia. In a sense, humans are Gaia’s true children; we can outlive her and go further, taking with us her memories and lessons. The only way for us, human beings, to live forever is through the careful use of science and technology. If not, then we may be little more than a glimmer, a memory in the cosmos, especially if we are responsible for our undoing.

However, we are ahead of ourselves here, scientifically speaking. Gaining more knowledge is an exponentially progressive process. Our achievements in the last 100 years alone are testimony to that. The development of a good and moral society however takes a great deal longer. We should first learn how to treat ourselves and others. We should be able to turn this planet into our utopia, before we look further ahead. Only a select number of us will go on this one-way journey through to our space generation; living on a home in space, looking for a home like Earth. We need to, by that point, have established a good, moral society.

The GURU must now sleep.

Dr. GURU speaks...

“Consider this…” Light spoke to Darkness,
unfurling its wings of illumination
“…consider these thoughts I reveal to you,
these shadows which are essentially your own,
essentially the unmanifest ideas you hold.
It is not clarity, but perception that is the issue,
as like shadows cast it varies with each position.”

Unsettled, Darkness shifts to find its place of rest.
“I understand only what is within me,
as do you my friend.
As you grow, so does my understanding blur
and become re-defined.”
Darkness spoke with equal wisdom, and
looking upon what he could see remarked,
“I possess no legs, so cannot walk,
no arms to grasp the fullness of objects cast.
You must move if we are to see all sides.
Only then can we come to understand all things.”

The GURU must now sleep

[The Scholar]
"Where does ‘God’ stand in the sensible reasoning of today’s World? Show me a soul, and I'll define ‘precarious’”....

Dr. GURU speaks...

[The GURU]
“Define ‘precarious’ and I'll show you a soul”...

[The Scholar]
“All things come to an end, all things will eventually want to...immortality is for the 'spiritually' hopeful, who like to make up stories to satiate their appetites of insignificance”...

[The GURU]
I take it you're more 'science-orientated'...and, if you don't mind me saying, a tad science-isolated. The soul is something which science cannot explain...so it is dismissed. Yet, our endeavours to explain the world around us in the physical, chemical and biological, has left science with an extrapolation (which in many people’s minds is unacceptable)....

"Our genes and our environment mould our developing brains, which in their complex and intricate neuro-chemical networking form our personality and character. "

This is a poor explanation of consciousness. Science cannot explain how we understand that we exist. Laplace, a French scientist, presented the simple question that if we knew the positions and speeds of all the particles in the Universe, then could we not calculate their behaviour at any other time, in the past or future. There is the opinion that Laplace’s scenario is undermined by the Uncertainty Principle. I do not believe this is the case. Laplace’s scenario should be looked at as hypothetical. The 'Uncertainty Principle' is based on observation; it is more practical. Even if we couldn’t know (measure) the exact positions and speeds of particles, the real question is that (hypothetically) would our known laws, including space-time warping, account for their later or earlier positions? I thought of this question in my early teenage years and reached a conclusion which I still hold today…“no”. There is the argument that “the complexity that we see around us may only seem divine because of our simplicity”. This may work with inanimate subjects, but life cannot be explained so simply. Laplace’s scenario cannot explain a localised formation trying to survive in its environment. It definitely cannot explain consciousness and the ability for something within the scenario to understand the scenario. Once we introduce life we also introduce chaos, in the sense that things can no longer become predictable. This accepts the premise that particle interaction within energy fields can account for the structure of our Universe, and not just leave us with a homogenous soup.

The Uncertainty Principle combined with Laplace’s scenario leads me towards the idea of Life as being inexplicable to science. Laplace’s scenario is valid, until we look into it. By our choosing to try and locate particles we change their speed and position. Particles moving around in a ‘dead space’ will follow Laplace’s conclusions; we would, hypothetically speaking, be able to calculate their positions in past and future. The fine movements and actions of living organisms, however, are unpredictable and will change the positions and speeds of particles around them…potentially affecting particles throughout the Universe. This is commonly known as the ‘Butterfly Effect’. Those that believe in ‘determinism’ (be it specific or general) are carried into the opinion that Laplace’s conclusions would still hold true…but with the omission of God’s influence. Those that don’t believe in determinism are carried into the conclusion that life must be inexplicable to science. Either way, science falls well short of an explanation.

Furthermore, your comment on all things wanting to come to an end seems selfish and pessimistic. An individual may not want to live forever, I sure don't, but how can you transpose that opinion on to our civilisation? Life fights for its continuation. I would hope that in many years to come we will discover that even though we are capable of doing and thinking bad onto others and to ourselves we have the ability to make this planet a worldly paradise. Then do you think all our great-great etc grandchildren will want to die without having families? The life-span of our civilisation doesn't have to be determined by the life-span of our planet; especially when commercial space travel is becoming more accessible (to the ridiculously rich)...and we only took to the skies around 100yrs ago. Moreover, even if we begin to destroy ourselves here there will be some that want to move on into space. Either way, I believe our terrestial civilisation is destined to move into a space-civilisation (looking for another home).

Finally, your comment of our being "insignificant"...we understand our own existence, we differentiate between good and bad, we strive to understand what is around us, we philosophise, we change the very canvas of the planet we live on, we purposefully move out of our own planet's atmosphere, and we try to create order in our world. This is hardly insignificant. We are step aside from nature. The Gaia theory explains nature (a super-organism) but does not explain why we are here. Indeed, we act as parasites on this planet. If we did not exist this world would flourish. This is our significance...nature has given birth to us, and our gift back must be that of an intelligent and moral society. Indeed we must out-live our 'parents'...moving on with found memories of our Earth. We our it's 'true' children. This is what makes us special. This is what make us Godly.

The Scholar has fallen asleep.