Ice on Mars: Good for the Jews?
I have always been only slightly embarrassed by my avidity for reports of UFOs, ETs, new planetary systems, semantic transmissions across the galaxies and every other kind of disruptive wow.
My embarrassment stems not from a reflexive belief in reports of bright lights flying low and fast over Stephenville, Texas or Chilliwack, British Columbia; I am as skeptical of tabloid headlines, and as cautious about the madness of crowds, as any other child of Voltaire or Mad Magazine.
No, what makes me sheepish about this stuff isn't my intellectual credulousness; it's my yearning for some indisputable event that will bust up our paradigms, some unruly discovery that will force us to remake from scratch our stories about who we are, where we come from and where we're headed.
Now that the Phoenix Lander has confirmed the existence of ice on Mars, and soil you can grow asparagus in, I'm rooting for them to find amino acids. I want it to be conceivable that Mars is a mere billion years behind Earth on the path to evolution, or maybe, sadly, a couple of billion years ahead of us on the road to extinction. And if they don't find organic molecules, I'm rooting for some strange silicon-based information-rich chains in that Martian soup.
I want what's found to make us say, Whoa! I want us to experience the kind of radical amazement that will require sending conventional cosmology to the repair shop. I want data that upend our accepted accounts of origins and evolution. I want scientific cover for the most boldly creative re-imaginings of the nature of life and of our own place in the great chain of being. I want to see the concepts of meaning and purpose up for grabs. I want new discoveries about stardust to make both ancient texts and current textbooks wholly inadequate for understanding the mysterium tremendum of the physical universe.
I want the discovery of extraterrestrial life -- or "life" -- to change everything. I don't mean an eruption of "War of the Worlds"-style paranoia or of "Close Encounters"-style romanticism. I'm thinking instead of that 4-million-year-old black monolith that astronauts find deliberately buried on the moon in the 1968 movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, an object identical to one in the movie's opening "Dawn of Man" sequence. Forget the middle part of the movie, the voyage to Jupiter to examine a third monolith circling that planet, a trip sabotaged by the mutinous supercomputer HAL; think instead about how the movie ends.
There is an amazing light show, followed by actor Keir Dullea's accelerated aging in a weird Louis XVI-furnished room, followed abruptly by Dullea's transformation into the Star Child, a fetus in a glowing orb looking down from space on the Earth. If you're of boomerish vintage, you know that plenty of stoned debates about the meaning of the movie's strange conclusion followed its initial release (I know, I know: you didn't inhale). The interpretation that worked best for me was that, basically, we humans don't know nothing.
Is evolution the merely pointless, meaningless consequence of having world enough and time, or is our current state of consciousness just too embryonic to grasp the telos of the universe? If cosmologists are right about the Big Bang, what's the difference between the essential preposterousness of that account of ontology, and the "tsimtsum" -- the great contraction -- of kabbalah? If a starry night or a baby's finger can make you marvel at the sheer existence of anything at all, why should God be a less plausible account of materiality than quantum physics' favorite theory: superstrings vibrating in 11 ineffable dimensions of space-time? If scientists believe, as they do, that invisible dark matter and unobservable dark energy make up the vast majority of the universe, then why should mystical accounts of an unseeable cosmos be any more inconceivable?
Jews -- my particular tribe -- don't need monoliths, or Martian ice water, to set them off in these speculative directions. Jacob was renamed Israel because he wrestled with God, and his descendants still spend their days wrestling with the idea of God, no matter what the news might be from the Large Hadron Collider, the SETI Arecibo Observatory or the Phoenix Lander on Mars.
Nor do I underestimate the capacity of fundamentalist literalism -- in my tribe, orthodoxy -- to assimilate even the most alien of singularities that scientists may turn up. Should instruments examining a soil sample from the fourth planet's northern arctic plane reveal a Martian version of Horton's Whoville, there will no doubt be exegetes aplenty who will calmly conform such a disorderly discovery to the literal narrative of Genesis.
But for those who despair about the postmodern dead end that the history of consciousness has led to (and I include myself among them); for those too undisciplined to reliably integrate yoga, meditation, beginner's mind or other spiritual technologies into their daily lives (yes, my hand is up); for those who can sleepwalk past a rose, forget to say a morning thank-you for existence, or succumb to anti-mindful pathologies like boredom or killing time (guilty, guilty and guilty) -- for us garden-variety broken vessels, a thrilling we-interrupt-this-program bulletin from the scientific magisterium is arguably not too childish to ache for.
* * *
A version of this post appears as my weekly column at www.jewishjournal.com.
Follow Marty Kaplan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/martykaplan
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
So, “What's the difference between god and science if both give you a sense of awe and wonder that makes life exciting and meaningful?" Well let me tell you.
First, scientists believe dark matter exists NOT because it is some fantasy that people want to hear, like for instance that there is an afterlife (so priests, rabbis and mullahs can take people's money and never have to get a real job). No scientists believe dark matter exists because there is evidence that it exists, and in the history of science, understanding how the universe works has led to an incredible wealth of benefits for mankind. Interesting that things that technology provides us today would have been seen as miracles in biblical time, yet we still look to the fantasy miracles of a crazy old book to get a cheap thrill.
Science does not tell you that god wants you to strap on a bomb and blow up yourself and a bunch of other people because they don't believe what you believe. In science, disagreements are resolved with experiment, logic and evidence, and no one ever claims their knowledge is absolute.
In the context of your post, the worst thing religion does is make people believe that their real lives are insignificant, that the real wonders and beauty of the world are worthless in comparison to the fantasy that there is something better waiting for you after you die.
Exactly. Science and religion can both provide a sense of awe and wonder, but one of them is verifiable and dynamic, and thus can serve as an even greater source of inspiration.
In terms of awe and wonder, how can one compare knowing that everything around you is the result of a process many billions of years old; that the basic components of everything you see were produced by exploding stars long ago; that the statistical odds of you or I existing are so astronomically small as to be unbelievable; let alone the theory that there are 10 spatial dimmensions, many of which we can't perceive--how can one compare that to "God did it"???
The shear enormity and beauty of this universe are inspiring, humbling, and wonderous enough--God is superfluous.
Infostream:
You are nto ocrrect when you lump Rabbis in with Priests and other relgious leaders.
Almost all Jews believe that when you die, you are dead.
I, as a Jew, believe that when I die, the universe will go on. I will be recycled into other things. Jews do not embalm dead people and do not use anything not eventually degradable in coffins. Nothing is to hinder your bodies return to the earth.
In Judasim, we are not taught to believe in a heaven or a hell. We do not believe that if you aren't a Jew, God punishes you.
This does not mean that Judaism is inferior or superior to other religions. It is just our beliefs.
Not everybody sees "mystical" accounts of an unseeable cosmos as any more inconceivable. In fact, there are those who would use the word "realistic" instead of "mystical". It just is what it is. The Dalai Lama has published one book about a seminar on the nature of consciousness that he held at his home in the early 2000's- "Destructive Emotions- How Can We Overcome Them?" It's intriguing to see that they discuss "neuroplasticity" (the ability of the brain to generate new cells and new pathways), by way of having imaged the brain with Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging and 256- lead electroencephalography. The brain/consciousness interface is also discussed in detail. Dr. Gyatso has also published a book called "The Universe In A Single Atom", which (very validly) compares Buddhist phenomenology and cosmology with the most recent findings of quantum physics/mechanics. It could very well be that consciousness is as much an integral part of the "universe" (even though there are eleven universes) as space, time, energy, and matter.
One thing that's been left out of the New Testament since the King James Version is a story in which Jesus says to his disciples "You know not what Spirit you are made of".
Just don't call it "mystical". It's theoretical phenomenology/cosmology. At the time of Newton, Einstein's theories were inconcievable. Hell, the Inquisition made Galileo retract his "heresy".
There is evidence behind scientific conclusions. God is a metaphor - a construct of the human mind. And if you don't see the purpose of life, maybe it's time for you to go out and make a purpose.
As an old Arab saying goes: "Believe in God, but tie up your camel."
Kudos.
Actually, scientists have found amino acids in meteorites, so...
Really though, how can a literal Orthodox interpretation of the Torah square with the age of the Earth, let alone life on Mars? You talk of billions of years as though the literal interpretation of the age of the Earth wasn't 6000+ years.
I attended an Orthodox temple growing up, and I never heard ANY attempt at intepreting the Torah to allow for germ theory or genetics or carbon dating (of course, that's not REALLY what we were there to do). Point is, fundamentalists simply ignore those aspects of reality that seem to contradict their beliefs. If they can manage to cram the roughly 13 billion years of the universe into the 6000+ years since they believe it was created, I have no doubt that they'll easily find some way of ignoring any surprising facts from Mars.
Right you are.
My personal preferred form of solipsism counters creationist arguments with "How do you know the world wasn't created five *seconds* ago? You say the fossil bones were buried in their present form to confound the skeptics or whatever; how can you be sure that the memories in the brains of all six billion of us, and the books you read to acquire your own memories, and the brains, weren't created just now--no, just *now*--to confound the skeptics or whatever? Any aspect of divine intervention is as likely as any other. If the Creator can do anything, so tthat all things are equally doable, then the one done may be any of them. But no "proof" is even hypothetically possible; all is faith. And your faith is probably the faith of your fathers, little changed.
That said, the world we share is truly gorgeous to my cyncal eyes at some times, and is astounding whenever I think of it. Thanks, Marty, for the best I think you've done here.
BTW, some of our fellows are a bit nikulturna, not to know where "But iss it good for the Chooz?" comes from. Perhaps you should explain.
BLASPHEMY! EVERYONE KNOWS the world was created Last Thursday!
Cool post, Marty - keep 'em coming and thanks!
BTW, no pun intended, lol.
slg,
I like your style. You have offered a profound suggestion.
Your observation that the recognition of water, and perhaps life, existing on other planets is just now opening our eyes to the reality that our world has meaning and purpose and that we are a small part of a larger concept.
Those who can't believe in a higher intellectual power without some objective proof, and certainly not one that takes an active role in our lives based upon prayer, can be comforted in this metaphor by the idea that our level of understanding is just developing and we are but still a flower waiting to bloom.
Tragically though, even if you are correct, it may be too little too late.
Humans world-wide have spent over 100 years destroying our environment in order to make money and advance our societies. Even with the firm knowledge that we are killing ourselves by encouraging global warming we are loathe to take meaningful action. Beyond that, we continue to commit mass murder via a whole variety of nation-state combat, terrorism and crime.
I'm afraid that while there may be a higher intellectual force on another plane of existence that may well have created the opportunity we have to grow and flourish, our lack of sufficient survival instinct will result in humanity staying on track towards its extinction, leaving some other entity or entities to solve this ultimate puzzle.
I too strongly suspect that all of us are born with some sort of innate wisdom. That if we radically attempt to live fearless, honest lives, we can all make contact with that wisdom, or innate sanity. Still, I can't honestly say our shared innate wisdom is some sort of high power. That is, it may be some sort of survival mechanism that can be found in the DNA of all living things. You know, that something that we humans describe in other living things as "instinct."
So I merely accept that something special does live within each of us... at the same time remaining open to all other possibilities... In that regard, you might enjoy reading The Naked Ape, and the authors premise that human kind is driven by our unique hand and the need to develop better tools and weapons..
As Woody Allen observed, not only is there no God, but try getting a plumber on weekends.
Marty, I love your work.
Although I don't hold out any hope that life could have ever evolved on Mars' surface (no magnetic field to protect from cosmic and uv radiation), I get the larger gist of your piece. Here's a thought on that "star child" sequence that fits with our postmodern understanding. It's the flip of "we know nothing" -- all meaning is relative.
I think you have indicated this same thing in your round-about way by reference to the exogetes who will conform and incorporate any new knowledge that comes our way.
Some folks (*o.k., most folks) would either turn away from or despair on learning that there is no meaning in the universe. I have the opposite reaction. If there is no objective meaning, then we are free to assign any meaning we choose to events. That carries enormous responsibilites, too, doesn't it. But then again, that's what maturing is all about...
THE TRUTH IS "WE ARE ALONE" AND MAKE OUR OWN HEAVEN AND HELL HERE ON EARTH. SOME WITH SURVIVE MOST ANYTHING AND WITH THEIR INTELLIGENCE AND HUMANITY GO ON REGARDLESS OF THE CONSEQUENCES, RESULTS OF CATASTROPHIES....ALL IT TAKES IS PERSERVERANCE AND HARD WORK. THOSE WHO DON'T "OWN" THE EARTH WILL LANGUISH AND DIE FOR LACK OF TRYING......JUST THINK HOW LONG MAN HAS LIVED ON THIS PLANET AND WHAT PROBLEMS HE HAS SURVIVED. TRUTH...WE ARE DESTROYING THIS EARTH WITH OUR GREED AND STUPIDITY, LACK OF CONTROL AND GREEDINESS. BUT SOME WILL SURVIVE AND START ANEW AND TRY AGAIN....................AND AGAIN..........AND AGAIN............HUMAN BEINGS ARE NOT THE ONLY LIVING THINGS ON THIS EARTH.....
TO LIVE IS MIRACLE ENOUGH
To live at all is miracle enough.
The doom of nations is another thing.
Here in my hammering blood-pulse is my proof.
Let every painter paint and poet sing
And all the sons of music ply their trade;
Machines are weaker than a beetle’s wing.
Swung out of sunlight into cosmic shade,
Come what come may the imagination’s heart
Is constellation high and can’t be weighed.
Nor greed nor fear can tear our faith apart
When every heart-beat hammers out the proof
That life itself is miracle enough.
-Mervyn Peake
I've shared your wish for some paradigm-breaking event in the outside world--you can wait a long time for that to happen. Life, this very life, is what happens in the meantime. I've found that the really significant discoveries are not in the external world, but in one's own consciousness. As in, awakening to this very moment as the most astounding possible turn of events, so unexpected as to exclude all the mental baggage of one's self and discovery of the miracle of "presence" itself--your own presence AS the consciousness with which the Universe knows itself--the sheer, simple being that we so take for granted.
It's not "out there" where the change that makes all the difference happens, it's "in here".
Exactly!
When I was a child I often wondered why grown-ups were not running down the streets screaming "Existence!" The mere fact, of Consciousness, a conscious existence is mind-blowing enough, is it not? The fact that anything exists at all, and I get to be AWARE of it......is just WOW.
Instead, grown-ups were discussing lawn fertilizer.......so blase' about Consciousness itself. Nobody was talking about Awareness....capital "A".
I used to ponder it until my hair would stand on end. Also the presence of Presence.
You said it fairwitness. Thanks!
what are we? the thoughts in our minds/souls or the mass of skin , bones, muscles and water that carry those thoughts around? If you accept that you are completely useless without the thoughts in your mind/soul but that your mind can function without the transportation carrying it around you are better able to pinpoint the gist of your true existence. Which is where we were all created in "God's" image. Ocram's Razor would appear to me to suggest that there was a Big Bang, the universe will expand and then collapse into itself until the Big Bang repeats itself. Eternally cycling. If such a state as complete nothingness has ever existed , matter could have never formed.....that littlest bit of energy that exists just before the weight of infinite nothingness makes it explode is our Creator and is the stardust all consciousness emanates from.
"Earth is the cradle of humankind, but we cannot forever live in a cradle."
Ziolkovksy, (1857–1935) Russian space pioneer.
"Exegetes"---those who do Biblical exegisis? This is a mind-blowing piece, Marty, very well-written with words I've never seen before. But, I think I get your point. We are all so bogged down and limited by our narrow and packaged ways of viewing the world; we need some kind of intellectual or spiritual or biological injection of something to shake us up a bit.
The sad thing is that even if it were proven that aliens were the first earthlings we would, as you say, integrate that fact into our scientific and religious paradigms. I wonder whether we have come to the end of the intellectual, social and historical line and, except, for continued hi-tech advancements, our human history is over and this is as good as it gets. There will never be another Freud, Marx or Einstein; the Hannitys and Limbaughs of the world will make sure that they are swift-boated should one emerge.
It seems the Roves, Hannity's et al, as well as the Einsteins, Newtons, Planck's and Gautama's, etc, have been with us from our beginnings. In fact, maybe the Roves, et al are our greatest teachers, in that they show us how not to be.
Funniest title of the week!
In the 60s' scientists declared the only water in creation was here on Earth. 40 years later we've uncovered a line of watering holes from here to Pluto, oceans on moons, (Europa, Ganymede, Enceladus), embryonic Earths, (Titan) and it's only just beginning. We are but babes in a giant womb whose entire existence has been focused inwards, about to be born into a Universe waiting to celebrate our arrival.
BUT we've also discovered that water is much rarer in the universe (spectral analysis) than we would expect, making our local conditions all the more precious.
Seriously, you are kidding right slg? Science in 1960 knew damn well there was water out there. Now if you wish to change that statement of yours to liquid water, and that the scientific claim was that the only place we *know* of where liquid water exists is here on earth, then that's *completely different concept* than the one you've expressed in your opening statement. A *HUGE* difference!
As a matter of *fact* in the 1960's science knew that our water on was in part made up of frozen water from space, like from comets, as frozen water still enters our atmosphere today, as we speak from space.
I am so thrilled at that this early hour I am awoke to great reading...oh it is not early for you? It is early for me, I just got up. Gramps knows the value of sleep.
Where are we headed...I would like to think that we are headed to Mars! With any good luck at all I would like to think within my lifetime! I am not even sixty but I am awed at the miracles I have seen. When I think that a leader could redirect a nation in a powerful way then all of sudden in my thinking Mars becomes much closer. Great minds and powerfully ambitious men share my desire to go to Mars. Once a President lifted us out of depression, once a President redirected our goals and aimed at the moon, I am so filled with anticipation of the possibilities of our next President. Mars her I come!
I too hope we go to mars. But I suspect we'll first establish mines on the moon, simply because we need it's helium 3 to power safer nuclear fusion.
Interesting image.
If, as the title says, ice on Mars could be good for the Jews.......it could also be good for the rest of us if as Marty says:
some unruly discovery that will force us to remake from scratch our stories about who we are, where we come from.
Good for the Palestinians, for example.
While I have no problem with the world at large deciding that yes, the Jews deserve a homeland and I have no problem with negotiating terms whereby a homeland be established. I DO have a problem with a group of people in the grips of a paradigm which says that long ago, a desert nomad "prophet" heard a voice, he termed "G-d" and that the voice's fundamental message was that his tribe was "chosen" by said Deity and therefore all sorts of terms and conditions applied to them, that did not apply to any other humans on Earth. WTF?
What a self congratulatory, self promoting fairy tale! If the discovery of ice on Mars could dissolve the reality of THAT particular belief system, "chosen" people who are promised by invisible sky friend eternal title to a piece of disputed real estate, then let's fund NASA to the max!
I was wondering when some dour poster will bring in the Palestinians into a question of life on Mars. Only took 5 posts. Nice goin,' dude.
Honestly... "a group of people in the grips of a paradigm which says that long ago, a desert nomad "prophet" heard a voice, he termed "G-d" and that the voice's fundamental message was that his tribe was "chosen" by said Deity and therefore all sorts of terms and conditions applied to them, that did not apply to any other humans on Earth" sounds to me like a description of Moslems. Or Christians. Not just Jews.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
