Anupam- The Dreamer

The world we look around seems to be very complex juxtaposition of several things, entangled with each other in a very intricate and multifarious manner which makes it sometimes very difficult to understand.  We may try to simplify things to ease our understanding, yet it does not change the nature of things that exist in reality. We will try to understand this proposition with some simple examples.

Take for example, the different academic subjects- humanities, arts, engineering, medical science, accountancy etc. These specialized subjects are an attempt by humans to study the world that existed earlier, or that exists today, or that will come into existence in future, in a very simplified, parochial, and single-dimensional way. However, the reality that happens around us does not happen that way. For example, when we study history of India- then we come to realize that India’s geography is co-related with its culture, with its economy, with the food and clothing and other habits of the people. The development of society is also influenced by the economy of the region. The level of development of science and technology, engineering, humanities, arts etc. is dependent on multiple factors like economic prosperity of a region, religious considerations etc. Like in conservative and poor societies, people are so engrossed in meeting their basic survival needs and their outlook is so narrow that they cannot think creatively. This impediment inhibits their thinking which is required for the development of expertise in these areas. The creativity and freedom to think is one of the reasons why Renaissance happened in Europe and not in other parts of the world.

So, overall, we see that the developments in different fields happen in the world at the same time, however for ease of understanding we classify them from the lens of different specialized subjects. In reality, the subjects don’t come after one another, the things that they explain happen simultaneously, whether or not we are able to understand them. We have developed subjects for our own ease of understanding, but that does not mean that we have completely deciphered the code of any one particular subject with great expertise. Still there are many things, e.g. in mathematics where we say that keeping other things constant, the equation for the movement of a body (say under projectile motion) will be like this. But in reality, many things are not constant, so what we essentially end up studying is a very simplified version of reality, which actually is not a true picture of reality. True reality is sometimes far from the simplified sciences. There are many factors which are not taken into account while designing complex machines due to this constraint of knowing every variable factor. But at the same time, it must be admitted that the simplified version of reality is the only effective way to understand otherwise complex things.

Similarly, there are many natural laws that govern life around us. The laws of physics, chemistry, mathematics, etc. existed even before the times the humanity uncovered them. The relative motion between the earth and sun and other planets, happened for billions of years, even before we knew the Kepler’s laws. The gravitational force and the Newtonian laws existed even before Newton theorized them. The motion of electrons around the nucleus of an atom, the behavior of materials at nano scale, the functioning of a tiny cell in human body, the genetics etc., all continued to happen the same way even before their discovery. The humans have not made the laws, we have only “discovered” them. There is a difference between “discovery” and “invention”, you see. We can invent machines, we can invent technologies to venture into space, but we can never change the laws that govern our universe around us. We can at best discover them. Still after calling ourselves an advanced civilization, we are far from unraveling many mysteries of this universe. We are still trying to make more sense of the world that exists around us, but we cannot change the fundamental laws of nature. That way, humans are subservient to the laws made by God (or nature, if you are an atheist).

There is an interesting story that comes to my mind at this juncture. Once, a human who was overflowing with arrogance of knowledge and intellectual superiority challenged the God to take part in a competition of who can make a better clone of an animal. The God was smiling at a distance, on being challenged by his own creation, and did not say anything. To this, the human started humiliating God by saying that the God was afraid to compete with him. After sometime, the God said only one thing- “First, you get your own self-made atoms, then we will think about competing!”. The human realized his folly immediately and had to hang his head in shame. Because we can never create our own atoms, we can disintegrate the existing elements around us, we can combine two or more elements to create a new one, but we can never go to the level of creating our own atoms in this universe. The atoms have been created once and forever by the God (or nature, if you may want to call that). It can only change form. This is the age old adage that we have grown listening to- “Matter can neither be created, nor destroyed, but it can only change its form”.

When this realization will sink deep inside you, you will realize how small we are in comparison to the nature and its forces. We can create ships, rockets, aeroplanes, but we can never tinker with the forces of nature that are beyond our control. Can we stop earthquakes, if we are so powerful? Can we stop solar flares? Can we stop the motion of the planets orbiting the sun? Can we change any natural law? I am afraid, the answer to none of the above questions is affirmative. We are very very small entity in comparison to the things happening around us.

We can at best try to make sense of the things, so as to enhance the quality of our lives by creating something good out of the existing things. The fundamental nature of things is not for us to change, rather even if we try to change them, we cannot. So, it is in our own self-interest that we adhere to the laws of God (or nature), so as to better align ourselves with them. If we think we can change them, then our position is not any better than the mortal human challenging the God in the above story.

Till next time….