Circumambulations of a rhinoceros
20:54
Before
I share with you the ideas that struck me about 20 minutes ago, I would like to
specify that this is not meant to be a ‘stick to the point’ post. One thing,
here, is meant to lead to another. Thoughts are meant to conflict each other,
paradoxes are meant to born and rediscovered.
This post is an experiment, to investigate the
profound connections and subtly disheartening truths, handpicked from the
enormous ocean I like to call thought.
An ancient Greek scholar, thousands of
years ago asked himself what would turn out to be the world’s most influential
and powerful question. ‘Who created the universe?’ if you think about it, we
are still miles away from answering that question- one that has bewildered
thinkers for several millennia. The scholar applied all of his intellect on the
question, and devised a theory that would be accepted universally till
thousands of years after its devisal. A creature. Similar to us humans. Created
the universe. This specific entity is popularly known today as God. However
sketchy and unsatisfying this solution may seem, it is pretty much the closest
we have got to answer the big question. Some of you might object saying that we
know the world began with the big bang. But then, what existed before the big
bang? Like E. Veryp Erson famously said, you can’t make something out of
nothing. A more real life example, you can’t start a business without capital.
Similarly, you can’t make a universe out of nothing.
On that note, the idea of god seems to
satisfactorily satisfy the question. Today scientists have devised more
accurate theories that fit slightly better than the idea of god. That leads to
a reframing of the original question, ‘How was the universe created?’ since we
don’t know if ‘someone’ created the universe.
The idea of god creating the world sounds little more than ridiculous
with today’s advancement. Looking at the bigger picture, in a few millennia,
our current ideas of the creation of the universe will probably be equally ridiculed
by the future generations.
That probably has changed you previous
perception of how much we, as a race, know. The thing is that knowledge and
ideas have a clear connection. An idea is something that seems to solve a given
problem to at least some extent or satisfy a situation at least to some extent.
Knowledge is what is created when an idea is promoted to a state where it
completely satisfies a situation or answers a question. Having cleared that, I
would like to quote Thomas Alva Edison, “We humans know 1% of a millionth of
anything.” Now that is a powerful statement, one that nearly mocks the human
race as an intelligent one. It turns out, though, we have not the faintest idea
as to how much we know out of everything, quite primarily because we don’t know
how much everything is, for if we did, we would have known everything. My work
here is complete- a paradox is formed.
Another bewildering question that has
bothered our race for thousands of years is whether or not time travel is
possible. Now consider this, you time travel to the past and killed your
parents before the time when you were born. That erases your existence
completely. But then, if you never existed, then no-one killed your parents.
This is called the time paradox, something that should clearly point at the
impossibility of time travel. But then again, we never know if it does.
This world of questions are merely answered
by unsatisfactory ideas, and not powered by facts. I believe on the other hand
that nothing in the world is answered by facts. The base of our knowledge is
incredibly weak. Because of which we do not know if any of what we ‘know’ makes
any sense at all. For example, we don’t know if our dreams are actually reality
and if our ‘real life’ is actually virtual. We don’t know if anything we see is
real or virtual.
To conclude, I would like to say that there
are only two questions worth asking. Why we are here and what should we do
about it. To present a reply for that, I would like to quote two very
influential philosophers of the 20th century. One, a mathematician
and engineer who said, “I don’t know why we are here, but it’s definitely not
to enjoy ourselves.” Hell of a cheerful man he was. And the other, a poet who
said, “We are here to help others, what the others are here for, I have no
idea.” I am Daksh Gupta, and as always, never stop asking questions.
0 comments