image: nasa 

This is an image taken by the Hubble telescope. It shows a star exploding in deep space. What’s particularly fascinating about this is that the image is one of a sequence that were taken over some years. The explosion was so huge that it took years to happen. That’s unlike the comparatively small scale of things here in our bit of the Universe which means that explosions happen relatively quickly.

Perhaps even more remarkable is the fact that we can access images like this, which provide us with windows into dimensions that had hitherto only been speculated upon by philosophers, theologians, mystics, theoretical physicists, mathematicians, and science fiction writers. An eclectic group of individuals who have punctuated the human story with uncomfortable speculations and ‘dangerous’ ideas that have destabilised the established order.

The established order, the status quo; that state of being that always comes to pass and finds its grip on the windpipe of human awareness loosened by the passage of time. Things that once constrained us are gone, passed over in the urge to grow. Ideas that once held the human race in thrall, Christianity kept the uneducated masses petrified of thinking or acting out of turn with such ideas as hell and purgatory and the proliferation of a belief system that guaranteed eternal damnation for certain thoughts for millenia. Outrageous thoughts like: was the Universe really made in a week? Is it really acceptable that I can ignore all the tenets of Christianity, pay an indulgence to the church and be given a clean slate? Surely living a life of debauchery can’t be erased by engaging with jihad and dying a martyr?(thus ensuring your place in heaven lounging on silk cushions with forty virgins to attend your needs. Whatever you do don’t ask what the virgins think of this arrangement.)

Such thoughts made your sphincter muscle twitch and your choice of friends a very serious matter indeed. Yet now we are free of that kind of oppression. Or at least in the enlightened and liberal West we are. There are religious fundamentalists of every stripe at large in the world and they would love to set up a Global Taliban or a Fundamentalist Church that takes the collection of writings still included in the bible as the literal word of God. The problem with fundamentalists of the proactive order is that the Universe isn’t big enough for more than one of them, never mind the small planet we are whizzing through space on.

It’s strange to think that even by writing this I am the perceived enemy of certain fundamentalist coteries, all too eager to issue a fatwa or a papal bull.  Fortunately we have escaped from all that, haven’t we?

Aside from the madness of the machinations of, what appear to me, disturbed minds there is a whole Universe going on. What’s remarkable about Hubble is that it shows us things that broaden our perspective exponentially. Also it demonstrates what an enormity we find ourselves wrapped up in.

The greatest wisdom I have concerning this state of affairs is to be happy to be lost in it. How can any of us expect to understand it all? Perhaps the time will come when we do, I believe that it is a distinct possibility that the human apparatus may ultimately fire on all cylinders and be able to free itself of the rigid and ungainly thinking that keeps us locked where we are. But for the moment that remains a dream.

The greatest of our thinkers expound theories that involve string, multi-dimensional constructs, quarks, light, dark matter and so on. Now these are huge insights, truly they are and each person should make it their business to try to keep as well informed as possible concerning the cutting edge of where our sciences and technologies have shone their light.

Where the problem begins is when we consider things like what was going on before the Big Bang? What existed prior to that fateful morning, or was it afternoon? What state of affairs held sway in the Universe before then? And is it fair to describe it as a big bang? Perhaps we are part of something completely different to what has been imagined? We have a talent for creating reputable institutions, academies and the like; and they go on to champion certain ideas but really none of us knows beyond eloquent semantics what is going on. 

Where do we find clues to illuminate the darkness of our situation? There is only one place, that is nature, the natural worlds. Completely unbiased without an agenda, no spin, no angle, no axe to grind, no constituency to please. Are you not startled at how pictures of deep space look remarkably like pictures of inner space? How the far off nebulae look so similar to the swirls of plankton in the oceans or how the macro-verse resembles the micro-verse? There is an ancient saying, it goes like this: all that is above is like unto that which is below. So if you want to understand the Universe study nature as it manifests close by and if you want to understand yourself, study the Universe. 

We exist within a fabric of interconnectedness. Like a hologram when it is broken, if you study one part thoroughly you will see the replication of the same image contained within all the others albeit on a different scale according to the size of the piece. Understand what you are peceiving in one piece and you will understand what is contained in all the other pieces. Naturally, there is the caveat that you must be open to understanding in the first place.