Every so often it seems, someone emerges from among the din of human assumptions to make a radical claim, that turns our view of the world upside down. It started out with religious and philosophical figures, and in more modern times the baton has been with scientists.
The word Messiah, clearly has a specific religious connotation, and more specifically, a Judeo-Chrsitian one. However, I would like to take the liberty to usurp the word for a much broader use. A Messiah is someone, who takes stock of the current human understanding of our place in the world and offers a completely new vision. Back in antiquity, Gautama The Buddha, Jesus Christ come to mind. And in Indian mythology, the Avatars.
But stepping into the modern world that we understand, the mantle has belonged to the scientists. And modern science, at least modern astronomy starts with Nicolaus Copernicus.
His helio-centric cosmology was the first devastating discovery that changed forever, man's understanding of our place in the universe. It is quite stunning to imagine that for all of humankind's existence up to that point it was plain for everyone to see that the Sun went around the Earth. And to wake up one day and be told the exact opposite! In the fog of history, we think of that as a singular event. While in reality it was probably building for a while and took longer for the larger world to accept it. Nevertheless, it is an astonishing development that was a quantum jump in our understanding.
Another such epochal contributor to our understanding was Isaac Newton. If one deems success as the jump made in the context of one's time, then it is fair to argue that Newton was the greatest scientist ever. Newton definitively and once and for all confirmed Copernicus' helio-centrism. His laws that we all learned in school, are amazing in their brevity and their explanatory power. What applies here, applies there (anywhere in the universe!). Boy, when we were studying for exams in school, these were formulas to be memorized and applied. With each passing year, I am moved to contemplate what extraordinary explanatory power they contain. And to imagine that a person could develop these laws from scratch.
While the two scientists above were crucially instrumental in explaining our place in the universe, physically speaking, we were still floating in all sorts of mythologies about how actually we came to be. All sorts of 'Gods' were responsible for creating us - everything from the Sun, the Moon and the Winds somehow magically made us (upon reflection - they did! But not in the way mythology purports).
Charles Darwin's unified all of the life sciences through his work on 'The Origin of Species' by proposing the theory of evolution. In a masterstroke, he placed mankind's origin here on earth and put us on a level playing field with everything living from the amoeba to the ant! How liberating! How frightening! Darwin's proposal turned our view of man upside down, as much as Copernicus's did 400 years prior.
Between these three greats, the role of the super natural has been banished. The universe is organic, and out of it come beautiful things.
In the last one hundred years human knowledge and technical advances have been accelerating. We may have come a full circle to the earlier thinkers. What I mean is that in antiquity a scientist and a philosopher were all bundled into one. Earlier than that, one might speculate that a religious figure and a philosopher were bundled into one.
It is only in recent times that specialization has gone to an extreme, such that even within a given field, there has been micro-specilization. And example being a 'pediatric, sports, orthopedic surgeon'
But in terms of understanding our place in the world and in the universe, in the Copernican sense or the Darwinian sense, such specialization won't do. One can begin to see the cross-sharing amongst disciplines already. Schrodinger who was an as eminent a Physicist as any, wrote and talked extensively about life and morality. Richard Dawkins the geneticist talks broadly about science and (anti) religion. Ever since Einstein's light bending, space bending, mind bending proposals, we have been yet again experiencing the beginning of another turnaround of our view of the world.
As I read developments, there is a bubbling in the fertile soil of the human mind a variety of startling insights. In Physics we talk about dark energy and dark matter and something coming out of nothing. In biology we talk about manipulating genes. In information science we talking about exponentially growing computing power. In sociology we are connecting in ever so new ways with social networks.
There is so much development and insight in so many fields, and so much ferment, that I have this feeling in my gut. That the world is ripe for a new Messiah.
If you take the word Messiah, in the way I am describing it here - it is not necessarily a religious figure. But rather one among us who can draw various strands together and describe the world in a brand new way that upends our assumptions up until this point.
It has happened, many times before - and astonishingly quite regularly.
And in the last century there has been so much development in science, in engineering, in technology, in social norms that the soil of human knowledge if fertile. Fertile for a new Messiah.
A friend of mine cautions that we are on the razor's edge. On the one hand, we have the prospect of exciting developments and insights. On the other hand there has been fundamentalist trouble brewing around the world as well. And we have seen plenty of examples of that as well. The world risks a real danger of receding to the dark ages, if there were to not only be an untoward event but a vast over reaction by governments in fear that shuts down unhindered scientific exploration.
So on the occasion of this new year, here is a wish for mankind. May the dark forces that injure innocent lives be held at bay. May they find peace.
May the forces that drive human insight and development flourish. May the children of this new generation frolic in the sciences and the arts.
May there be a new Messiah!
Happy New Year!
The word Messiah, clearly has a specific religious connotation, and more specifically, a Judeo-Chrsitian one. However, I would like to take the liberty to usurp the word for a much broader use. A Messiah is someone, who takes stock of the current human understanding of our place in the world and offers a completely new vision. Back in antiquity, Gautama The Buddha, Jesus Christ come to mind. And in Indian mythology, the Avatars.
But stepping into the modern world that we understand, the mantle has belonged to the scientists. And modern science, at least modern astronomy starts with Nicolaus Copernicus.
While the two scientists above were crucially instrumental in explaining our place in the universe, physically speaking, we were still floating in all sorts of mythologies about how actually we came to be. All sorts of 'Gods' were responsible for creating us - everything from the Sun, the Moon and the Winds somehow magically made us (upon reflection - they did! But not in the way mythology purports).
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| A great scene from 2001 Space Odyssey |
Between these three greats, the role of the super natural has been banished. The universe is organic, and out of it come beautiful things.
In the last one hundred years human knowledge and technical advances have been accelerating. We may have come a full circle to the earlier thinkers. What I mean is that in antiquity a scientist and a philosopher were all bundled into one. Earlier than that, one might speculate that a religious figure and a philosopher were bundled into one.
It is only in recent times that specialization has gone to an extreme, such that even within a given field, there has been micro-specilization. And example being a 'pediatric, sports, orthopedic surgeon'
As I read developments, there is a bubbling in the fertile soil of the human mind a variety of startling insights. In Physics we talk about dark energy and dark matter and something coming out of nothing. In biology we talk about manipulating genes. In information science we talking about exponentially growing computing power. In sociology we are connecting in ever so new ways with social networks.
There is so much development and insight in so many fields, and so much ferment, that I have this feeling in my gut. That the world is ripe for a new Messiah.
If you take the word Messiah, in the way I am describing it here - it is not necessarily a religious figure. But rather one among us who can draw various strands together and describe the world in a brand new way that upends our assumptions up until this point.
It has happened, many times before - and astonishingly quite regularly.
A friend of mine cautions that we are on the razor's edge. On the one hand, we have the prospect of exciting developments and insights. On the other hand there has been fundamentalist trouble brewing around the world as well. And we have seen plenty of examples of that as well. The world risks a real danger of receding to the dark ages, if there were to not only be an untoward event but a vast over reaction by governments in fear that shuts down unhindered scientific exploration.
May the forces that drive human insight and development flourish. May the children of this new generation frolic in the sciences and the arts.
May there be a new Messiah!
Happy New Year!
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