Japan Nuclear Situation: Does Human Mind lend itself to Sustained Existence?
Tragedy facing the Japanese today with the Nuclear Reactor is a tragedy that is common to us all.
This is just one reactor and we have such a huge tragedy staring at us. All because something that one of most developed nation thought it had taken care of, didn’t work out quite its way. What could happen if the calculations of the Not-so-developed nations didn’t work out. Chances of which are pretty high. Worse still, if there is a nuclear war. Again, chances of which are very high.
As we move more and more into a world which is powered by energy in every way, we also have a situation where either the energy sources are limited, or dangerous.. or dependent on Nature’s whims and fancies. So, whatever we are trying to do is a solution for the limited time span. Instead of moving the world into a direction where we can ensure self sustenance, we are busy pushing it towards our own destruction.
In many societies, God and Nature have been used synonymously. Since man hasn’t completely understood both, he has taken one for the other. Over the years, our relationship to God has developed in three ways –
One, we have assumed God in our own image, then God assumes the exact same lunatic fringe and limitations as we have. He responds positively to praise and gets angry at being ignored. Seems to have his own idiosyncracies when it comes to doling out favors – which are clearly linked to how much of benefits we provide him. You give more donation in his name, your good is guaranteed. God, in this framework is a lunatic and a megalomaniac. This is the most common religious framework – specially in the Abrahamic ones. To this bunch, the God and his (do you notice this God is always a “male”? Male pastors, Male Maulvis.. male God.. coincidence?) intelligence is the driver of this creation. And this Intelligence is of course, just a bigger replica of man’s own intelligence. Sometimes it see Earth as the center, but when the obvious insults the “intelligence” so much that there is no way to run away from the fact, then this “God’s intelligence” gets a paradigm shift and makes Sun as the center. You see, this God’s intelligence is a factor of the intelligence of men of that era. As thinks the Master (Man, in this case)… so thinks the “master” (God).
Second, is the Atheist. He believes there is no God. Only physicality and some properties to it. There was a time, when everything in this Universe occured because of Newton’s laws of Force and the laws of Thermodynamics, until Bohr came across his quanta which blossomed into the Quantum Mechanics and Einstein came up with his concept of relativity. Then all hell broke lose. But, as a reaction Atheist scientist calls the inherent balance in the creation as a random occurence which seems coordinated because of Creation’s inherent physical properties. That gravity is the inherent property of the most fundamental existence, Hawkins argued, we couldn’t have gotten anything else except this Universe. So, this property, which some call “consciousness” and some call “gravity” – is an inherent part of the Universe, which was responsible for its creation, sustenance and repeated destruction.
Third, is the definition where the Divine, the inherent rules of the Creation, the energy that is Creation, and the Nature are all rolled into ONE and called – for the sake of semantic simplicity – is called God. And since, this combination of Creational Rules and Its foundational energy pervades (and defines) the entire Creation, then every component of it will also be Divine and God. So, this concept assumes it is unimportant what you call God, since the Creational Rules and the Creational energy, both are manifest in everything. The only aim of those who follow this path is to get to experience that Creational Rules + Creational Energy as a living experience. This attempt / exploration is continuous one and has its own science.
The first concept doesn’t lend itself to any science or exploration since the decision of what and who God is has already been made. Even his entire definition – what he eats, what he thinks, how he thinks, etc – has already been decided. Nothing is left to decide. The only way any thinking changes is when the stupidity of one’s own beliefs are too big to ignore.
The Atheist – who are also scientists – epitomized the birth of science after the Dark Ages. Their reaction to Dark Ages was to disprove God of the first group. If they could define the Creation in terms of its own physical properties, then one could push the God off his mantle. In this sense, whatever Nature came up with, the Atheist minds sought to interpret it in physicality and in a show of “doing better than God” – recreated things that Nature had provided, albeit not in the form that was always to the liking of everyone. So, tweaks was made to nature. Intervention became a way to culminate the understanding of the exploration.
While the first group wanted to annoint an unknown (but totally defined) God (in Man’s own image) as THE Interventionist Force; the second group didn’t have a need to take such a circuitous route and be evasive about the real goal – they annointed themselves as THE Interventionist Force. The second group also provided “proof” in terms of creation and gadgets. Whether God was used as a ‘go-between’ or directly, Man became the Interventionist in any case.
The last group either rejected the entire creation as the truth or embraced every part of it. And in both the instances, this group envisaged ways to introduce least interventions to the nature for living a lifetime. Whether it was Yoga, or Ayurveda, or Accupunture, the aim was to use minimum intervention for maximum impact and in no way do things that can tamper with the nature or creation itself. No matter what the urgency or need, no matter what power or understanding that one got, the goal firmly remained to not tamper nature and creation.
Where we are today – is a multiple of all these frameworks.
Man has worked hard. Very hard. To get to this point. The high of man’s achievements to reach where we are is intoxicating. But sometimes, one needs to take a stock of where we are. As of 2007, IAEA reported that there were 439 nuclear power reactors operating in 31 countries. What if what happened in Japan happens in just 10% of the world reactors, many of them are decades old. The needs for energy are increasing manifold. India and China are nowhere near per capita consumption of energy as US or Western Europe. If the world lives like the developed world, the entire world will finish within a few decades. Yes, the world at large will never live like US lives. The world at large will never destroy the world like US does.. but that simply delays the final date. Is that any reason to feel elated? Is that even a point for discussion?
But it is telling that the mankind is simply debating about how the dates of the Global warming are exaggerated. It took millions of years to perfect a species of human by nature. Man, sadly, will take just a couple of thousand years to completely finish its species. Can there be a more lunatic species? Its a wonder that we are the best that nature could come up with.
When the nuclear reactor in Japan has taken its toll or when the workers there have declared victory on restricting its radiation, the world will go on as usual. The experts will also declare that all the other reactors are safe. This will be the third to be in such a situation. It won’t take many to mess this planet up.
It won’t take many people to live in a certain way to mess it up either – nuclear power or no nuclear power. For, its not about Nuclear power, the malaise is somewhere else. Its in our mindset. Its the very essence of an Atheist Science – which has installed Man as the only definition of intelligence, when – if one were look at the mess he has created on this planet – he is anything but! Its not my argument to go to the world of Dark Ages ruled by an Interventionist God, who was in the image of man. That is also installing a man at the helm, who is without any logic. This man at helm is worse than atheist man at the helm.
When we realize that we are simply borrowing our existence from this entire Universe. When we have a feeling of reverence to every inch of the Universe, then we will be responsible for it in terms of posterity. Then a few decades here or there won’t mean an issue to debate. The only issue to debate would be – does my act lend itself to perennial existence on this planet and no intervention in the flow of the Universe?
The more we intervene and tamper, which ever way we use to install ourselves at the helm – direct or using God as a proxy – to do it, we will mess the world for future generations.
We not only have the opportunity to stop the world moving to the disaster, we also have the opportunity to roll back the mess already done. Very soon a generation will be faced with a situation, when roll back will be impossible. It will be enough if they could delay their end.
Once a frog was put in a boiling water, but it promptly jumped out of it. Then, the frog was kept in water at room temperature and the water slowly heated. The frog died in it.
Not that I wish bad for Japanese, or other victims of tragedy, but I hope the tragedies play out bigger than they do, so we, as a speies, do not meet the fate of the latter frog!