One Knowledge Gene

Scientists believe that human gene must have started in Africa 60000000 (6 million years ago) and crept into other parts of the planet earth. That must have been great achievement for early humans – who had not yet discovered natural forces, nor the laws of nature. And yet to work out how to avoid hostile environment and save themselves, the early humans (Created in the image of God) had to design the ways of protecting naked body from extreme hot and cold climates. They had to learn how to swim floating in gushing waterways, and survive in surrounding jungles – full of wild beasts and creepy crawlers in the rocks, and river waters on Earth.

Yet – undaunted human spirit of Adventure gene (AG) made our ancestors to spread out, explore and utilize nature’s bounties – that included natural resources and non-human living beings. At that early Age (Satyuga) humans faced problems and threats from natural forces. But since humans were not yet too many, struggle in early age was mainly focused against animal world. Fight of man against man had not yet necessitated.

Besides the adventure gene – the second most important factor that helped and distinguished humans from other species is Knowledge gene (KG). In the post-modern stage of our knowledge of physics – as we today know the Laws of Universe – would there still be the scope for the First Cause?

The KG – “Kinder garten” – literally it was that put humanity on a high pedestal. Human mind assisted by adventure gene – moved on to explore the world – everything living and non-living, moving and non-moving, small and big, high and low, above and under the sea. In due course of time – the KG created knowledge enterprise: social, political and economic systems – cultural infrastructure – language to assist in discoveries, preservation, and sustenance and perpetuation of life and liberty of human gene.

The very first discovery was the law of ‘cause and effect’. Once we knew causation, Man created God in his own image. Attempting to know what is this creation, how and why, the two fundamental questions came up to his mind:

as the inquisitive mind looked up to bright Sun, Moon and Stars, we assumed that some one like us must be somewhere above us – more powerful – all pervasive – the First Cause of Creation. And thus began human history towards philosophical reasoning that followed scientific investigation. And thus was created ‘Culture’ In due course of time ideological conflicts, religious wars and territorial fights became integral to human culture. But historically all the conflicts were rooted in the fundamental belief that “we are on the right side of God” or that “the God is on our side”. Followers of the Meditarian faiths, in time to time, tried to dominate the world with their soldiers.

Thus belief in ideological truth strayed the nations (tribes, people) from the scientific path of knowledge. Belief in God or spiritualism became arrogant paradigm that the believer knows total truth. Open ended knowledge journey that had began in the earlier times with the scientific enquiry, became close – ended by invention of God – as total and final truth concept.

We had aimed to know, discover, and investigate the vast world before us.

But with God entered as the fundamental principle in knowledge territory – the search ended in the proclamation that “If you know the ONE, you know All and everything” ….. (the Upanishads). And for a million years – humans fought among themselves claiming that the particular view of a group about that One – unknowable – was final and true. No further investigation was required to test the validity of Faith, because the Lord, Himself had sent the Commandment and the Lord’s Messengers. King and the powerful muscle-musters became representatives of heavenly gods on this earth – and for thousands of years – knowledge search – was kept in the closet of temples, churches, monasteries and the museums.

Any questioning was considered ‘blasphemy’; dissenting the traditional wisdom was punishable by excommunication, imprisonment, exile, beheading – or killing by ‘fatwa’. Even for Indian (Hindu) pantheons, the Vedas were divine wisdom, that constituted final and ultimate truth. And the Vedic wisdom required no human questioning. In the name of God and Faith, Ignorance had, thus ruled the human society. The popes, priests, the mullahs and the acharyas were divine speakers of the Ultimate Truth on earth.

In the 17th century, however, the Newtonian Scientific revolt challenged the divine authority. The modern era of Scientific Enquiry began with Galileo and Newton. The Newtonian Theory of Mechanics and the Theory of Gravitation provided the first break through in the human struggle for knowledge (science). In the 19th century, Karl Marx restored the scientific paradigm to all aspects of knowledge enterprise. Those who had insisted on the earlier discovery of Almighty as the final and ultimate truth, had ignored the call of knowledge gene. Pursuit of the KG – very basic to human nature –may had been suppressed but the gap between our knowledge and knowable – is constant. Therefore, the path of human scientific investigation is endless, an eternal journey to infinity.

We must remember that observations of natural physical processes were the basis of the inference of causation theory. God was inferred as the First Cause of Creation. Today, the philosophical question is not whether God exists. But whether the laws of physics today are the same as they were in the beginning of universe. If knowledge of physical phenomena was inferred from observation of the laws of physics prevailing at the early stages of creation, say at the time of Big Bang, have the laws of physics – the nature of electromagnetic and Time and Space, e.g., since changed? Is universe expanding since the Big Bang? I With ever expanding universe, the means (technology) knowledge had also expanded. So, not so much nature had changed as much human knowledge had expanded. And in the post-modern level of our knowledge of physics – as we know the Laws of Universe – would there still be the scope for the First Cause?

Today, we ask another question: Is nature of physics mathematical? Or the humans devised mathematics to understand and explain the complex universe to manage the knowledge affairs? Theory of knowledge, in fact, concerns everything in the physical world of Matter and Energy. Mathematics is the method that describes the universe and whose significance lies in usefulness of creation. Stephen Hawking in A Brief History of Time (1988) wished to “know the Mind of God”. But the mind consists of neurons made of Matter and Energy, in Time and Space. And God was created by the Mind of Man.