Dear Asha, Ajay, Ravi, Ariana, Roma,
This is the second and the final section of the idea I wrote about in the previous blog. I hope you will read this when you are older and think hard. May be, you will find an unifying principle which our human mind can grasp.
During my
walking meditation, I was reflecting on a statement in a book written by a
Norwegian philosophy teacher. The name of the book is Sophie’s World. Those of
you who want to learn western philosophy without too much effort should read
this book. You can always go deeper if you wish. (A good source to get the
original writings in western philosophy is a website from Stanford University –
plato.stanford.edu)
Here is a
thought experiment. Suppose there is a planet in the Andromeda Galaxy and it
supports intelligent life. Suppose that one of those life-units ( it may not
resemble humans at all; but “man” is all
our imagination can conjure up) just invented a machine that can “see” deep
into space. Suppose that life-unit (let us call IT by a name: LU) stumbles upon
earth while looking through the scope. What
will LU see?
Since the
distance between our galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy is 2 million light years
away, the image LU sees has to be 2 million years old! That means LU is not
seeing the present world. That will take 2 million more years to happen.
The first
fact then is the lack of concordance of time. There is no simultaneity. My
present is LU’s future. LU’s present is
“my” past. In fact, even within short distance, your time is not the same as
mine. By the time I type these words, my thoughts that initiated these words
are a few seconds old. The sun we see is 8 minutes old!
If what LU
sees is 2 million years old, will he be seeing a world full of Neanderthals?
Using the same logic, if LU were in a galaxy 5 billion light years away, will
he not see the world at all since it had
not come into existence! Or, may be , he
will see “pangea”.
That is
spooky enough. Imagine LU’s machine able to generate details similar to the
images we get from the GPS or from the Hubble Telescope. If so, LU must be able
see the Neanderthals. Why not? We can see tiny pebbles from the surface of the
moon and the mars. LU is receiving image signals from 2 million light years away. But, the
puzzle is that the neanderthals died millions of years ago. How can you see
them “now”?
It is
possible because the photons generated 2 million years back are still travelling
in space. Why not? We see through Hubble Telescope events that occurred
millions of light-years back. We are still receiving radio signals from events
from the early moments of the “big bang” which occurred billions of years back.
There are
photon signals from several TV stations all around me. There are radio signals
from several AM and FM stations all around me. I just need a device to capture
those waves for me to see them or hear them, as the case may be. Those images
from 2 million years must be there in space. Those images should, at the least,
carry the gross image of the world as it was 2 million years back, if not the
details of every life form on earth. That is the spookier part.
Am I saying
that even after the Neanderthals have died, their “form” is still floating in
space in the form of photons. Yes, that
is my conjecture. However, those forms
are not real. They are only in a potential form. They cannot be actualized into
form unless there is AN OBSERVER at a distance! If there is no observer with an
instrument, there will be an “appearance” of “ nothing”.
This goes
into both philosophical and scientific speculations. In Philosophy, some have
argued that what we observe is not as reliable as what we can reason with and
imagine. In the scientific field, quantum principles suggest that an observer makes
a particle take a definitive position and form by the act of observation.
Without an observer and a measurement, particles are indeterminate.
Physicists
say that matter and energy can be converted but do not perish. Quantum
scientists also say that information created cannot perish. It will be there in
another form for ever, somewhere. They just are. They become realities once
there is an observer.
If I believe
this idea, I have to believe the Indian philosophy which defines all animate
objects of this world, including man by their three components - gross body,
subtle body and causal body. Indian philosophy also says that it is only the
gross body that dies. Subtle body stays on till the energizing principle (atman) merges with the primordial source
(Brahman). Isn’t that possible?
My head is
spinning. We will never know. It is a mystery. What a delightful mystery-drama
the Universe is! I am getting curious. What does the last page of this book of
mystery say?
