MY PHILOSOPHY

The following is an excerpt from my book,

NECESSARY ILLUSION,

Looking Through the Kaleidoscope of Existence.

Please refer to the "Publications" for more information on this book.

It should not come as a surprise that preoccupation and concern to define life’s purpose, or the need to find a higher meaning for existence as a whole, are not cultural manifestations of our modern times; highly sophisticated approaches to solving these philosophical problems have been pursued for many centuries among the post-literate civilizations of the world. What is uniquely modern in the true sense of the word is the average person’s rather easy access through new technologies to not only the vast archives of the knowledge of the past, but also to the exponentially advancing currents in science and discovery. As the process of demystification of so much that baffled the human mind for generations continues, also much that intrigued the mind, inspired awe, and appealed to human aesthetic senses, is losing ground, or so it seems, to the unweavers of the rainbow. We now find scientific, and quite material, explanations for many of the mysteries of nature, as well as our own cognitive faculties that perceive, interpret, and react to, our observations and encounters. We now know what causes the colorful arch of the rainbow or the grandeur of the aurora. We know how art and physics go hand in hand to bring about sensations of pleasure and pain in our psyche. We know what chemical reactions within our system are responsible for the emotions of rage, hatred, depression, anxiety, joy, and even passionate love. We also know the molecular makeup, and the seat on our genetic double helix, of a mother’s selfless dedication to her child, or the child’s smile of recognition of its mother’s smile. We have recently discovered centers within the brain that, when stimulated or damaged by disease or accident, trigger spirituality, contemplative self-reflection, or, perhaps, dispassionate objectivity, even total abandon.

It is not too difficult to see that joy, beauty, tragedy and ugliness do not have separate, independent existences apart from the human cognitive faculties. What creates beauty, for instance, is the reaction of the human brain to a certain stimulus, as dictated by the brain’s circuitry or hardware, programmed by its genetic codes that gave it the propensity to be revamped by and respond to certain environmental influences. Sounds dry? It should, at least to most people who witness the ruthless dismantling of perhaps their most cherished emotional treasures, their beloved rainbow, hoping that someone, something, would reassemble the broken parts and reweave their rainbow. Children are fascinated by the miraculous displays of colors in symmetrical and ever changing patterns in a simple kaleidoscope. To them there is a wondrous world inside that tube, as though with a life of its own, rearranging colors and patterns in totally unpredictable fashion with the slightest touch. As children grow, kaleidoscopes inevitably break, some by accident, others deliberately by the more inquisitive children. Inside the broken paper or plastic tube they find shards of mirrored glass and a thimble full of assorted debris in different colors. The younger kids refuse to accept that the magical world inside that tube could suddenly cease to exist; they continue to look through the broken tube, one way, then the other, hoping, indeed expecting, to somehow reconnect with that world. Slightly older children are first surprised, then disappointed, at the realization that their world of fantasy and wonder could be no more than a few glass shards and some meaningless colored chips. But they know that, if they could just put the parts back together the right way, their world of magic and fantasy will be recreated, less mysterious this time, but no less enjoyable to play with. Older kids seem to be more intrigued by the mechanism that creates the illusion than the illusion itself. To them, the excitement of discovering the internal workings of the kaleidoscope far exceeds the simple pleasure of mindlessly gazing at the colorful patterns. How many adults can enjoy playing with a baby rattle, or immerse themselves in the psychedelic allure of a child’s kaleidoscope?

But, even adults, many of the best-educated and culturally sophisticated people in our societies, delight in the charms and magic of their larger versions of life’s kaleidoscopes. The Vatican is currently attempting to verify the evidence for certain miracles attributed to the late Mother Teresa, in consideration for her sainthood. What is a miracle? The word miracle gained usage in the 12th Century, implying unexplainable or extraordinary phenomena, reflecting divine intervention in the affairs of man. For thousands of years before, and centuries after this word entered our vocabulary, miracles, as manifestations of the divine order, have intervened in human affairs. On many occasions the sick were suddenly cured, the blind gained sight, the lame began to walk, and even the dead came back to life. Religions have been structured and shrines erected because God spoke or revealed Himself to his chosen messengers. In the Islamic faith, a requirement of any prophet of God is his ability to perform some miracle as proof of his privileged connection. Unlike Islam, in Catholicism performance of miracles is not restricted to the founder of the faith; holy devotees of the faith can achieve sainthood by demonstrating this ability. Interestingly, this is another reason why during the zenith of Islamic civilization, between the ninth and the sixteenth centuries, scholars were encouraged, indeed obligated, to rationalize and explain their awe-inspiring experiments and discoveries through scientific methodology. Not doing so could have been construed as attempts to perform miracles, if the outcome was viewed as beneficial, or magic and witchcraft if otherwise; which meant blasphemy, in the former case, and sorcery in the latter; both often punishable by death!

It is quite significant to appreciate that the great achievements in the applied and theoretical sciences in the Islamic civilizations during those centuries were doubtless, at least to a great extent, due to the abandonment of the concepts of miracle and magic in the formulations of their methodology. This is how astrology yielded to astronomy, alchemy to the science of chemistry and metallurgy, and prayer-healing and witchcraft to medicine, as we know it today. This, of course, is not to say that the average citizen on the street or the farm had traded in the superstitious mindset for scientific inquisitiveness, or that the scholars who were engaged in the pursuit of scientific knowledge no longer believed in miracles within the religious tradition. What this points to is that, given the opportunity, man’s natural curiosity inevitably leads to the unraveling of mysteries of nature, and given the option, the pleasure of knowledge and understanding of the machinery of existence exceeds the innocent delight in the fantasies generated by the magical kaleidoscope undisturbed.

The European military superiority on land and seas, and the subsequent widespread global colonization, brought the glory of Islam to its final demise. The systematic pursuit of scientific scholarship was thus transferred to the emerging civilizations of the West, equipped with the tools of science, mathematics, and philosophy, inherited from their older counterparts.

The ball of scientific progress is still in the Western court. While the anachronistically liberal attitude of scholarship in the world of Islam of the Middle Ages has regressed into an archaic dormancy, the advancements of science and discovery in the Western world is enjoying a geometric growth.