Cosmology: an early answer to the most difficult questions!

Macrocosmic Incongruence by 'j4m3sb0nd

I spent my whole afternoon watching films that were old but I had never seen before: Clash and Wrath of the Titans, The Curse of the Golden Flower and Cargo. None of them had a connection with the other, two were based on myths, one is historical fiction and the other was science fiction.

But what was interesting was to see that there was a connection between the films I failed to notice until now: the first two, loosely based on Greek mythology, then we had a story happening during the Tang dynasty in China, around the 10th century, and finally, a Sci-Fi German flick happening in 2270; the first two are the result of the creation of the Greek collective mind trying to explain the origin and order of the Universe, before the step to Logos in the 4th century B.C., which led to a complicated and elaborated depiction of the human nature portrayed by humanized gods, who played with men like toys and created them for one purpose alone: to feed their vanity through prayer and worshiping (the movie states that it gives them immortality, which is true, because as long as you pray, they will remain in memory and time).

This is known in Philosophy as cosmology and cosmogony, which I had discussed before here. They tried to explain natural phenomena creating gods who resembled humans in all their dimensions (sometimes the gods and goddesses were far worse than humans), responsible of everything that happened in Earth and Heaven. This was the first step to organize the chaos into a cosmos which could be grasped by the human mind and provide life with a purpose: men were created to pray to the gods, to worship them, to admire their creation and be grateful for the life given. This worked well for a long time, as it kept the anguish of existence from popping out its ugly face (even though Nietzsche clearly showed it did in Greek Theater), until some crazy dudes in the Mediterranean noticed that this explanation didn't seem quite right.

Then we move on fourteen thousand years to the Tang dynasty in China, to watch many sides of the human nature portrayed in the royal family, which even after all, as godsent, represent the order of the heavens on earth. The drama lived by this family (semi-incestuous and incestuous relationships, envy, anger, revenge, betrayal and so forth) portrays the same dramas of the gods and goddesses of the Mount Olympus and their struggle for power. The need to keep order in a society comes with laws (sometimes really crazy) that prevent the most natural instincts of the human race to take over and destroy everything in their path, that is, the need of the children to take power away from their father, described by Freud in "Totem and Taboo" and witnessed in many cultures with the erection of totems (no pun intended) and the setting in of humanity's laws, the birth of culture as we know it. The Chinese dynasties reflect on these topic very well, as many families ruled for many years and kept the country united (preventing the small tribes from separating in tribal wars which would destabilize the country).

Finally, humanity has been driven out of Earth, as it is no longer inhabitable, this is the premise of the film. The doctor was to save some money to go to Rhea (remember her from Greek mythology?) and be with her sister for a couple of months, in a paradise world far from Earth were humanity found a refuge. I won't spoil the film, so I'll just say that is revolves around the most basic question at the end: what is reality? what is the purpose of life after all?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0504/m51_hst_lgx.jpg

Nature itself has shown us very interesting things along our learning process. We noted that the Universe had a particular order, there is a cosmos in the chaos that once was our life in the wild; the order is natural and is always cyclical, follows a pattern that allows our minds to understand the principles that rule this Universe and our existence: life itself is a cycle, everything spins in its own axis, the circular motion and the circle itself are perfect. This notions have given us the basic tool to find the purpose of life, we experience the karmic wheel, we are born, live and then die to return to dirt where we came from once.

It is not without difficulty that we are learning that even though the Universe seems to have a plan for all of us, when we approach the end of our lives we understand that there is no such purpose, life is not a mean to any end, life just is, it happens. The years spent observing the night skies, the reproductive cycle and the change of seasons produced in the human mind the belief that as a cycle we are born and reborn, like the Phoenix rising from its ashes, when in fact we do not. This thing we call soul, which defines our uniqueness is nothing more than a recollection of our personal experience in this planet and when we die, it dies with us. The soul survives, lives on, continues in the creation of the human mind: art is what remains after we are gone; we encounter in art the unique expression of many souls, which seem to express our own uniqueness though literature, paintings, sculptures and other creations; other than that, nothing else remains, many humans have come and go leaving no print in human history nor they will be remembered unless we keep them alive (portraits and photography definitely can capture a soul).

So, one day this blog will be deleted from a server and any record on me will be gone, all of the things I wrote will be forgotten, will fall out of memory and time, which is the fear the gods and goddesses have always felt, that's our most primal fear and the one we are trying to escape from: Oblivion. The idea of an after life is not the opportunity to live after the miserable or happy existence we've had on Earth, but is the hope that our uniqueness, our recollection of memories will be rescued from the ugly monster that is oblivion.

Cosmology deals with that fear and turns into Eschatology, with the fear of being so close to the end, feeling that we have not made a difference, fearing for our immortal soul which will be devoured by the endless and dark void which is oblivion. However, the good thing is that, even if we see how sad is living, the experience itself gives a purpose to our life: we are experiencing life to enjoy it while it lasts, to connect to others, to know that we are not alone in the Universe, that even though we are the lucky result of millions of years of evolution, the mind evolved into consciousness of itself and others to slowly build a memory of who we are. That is why we should not criticize how good or bad a piece of art is, because at the end they are the reflection of ourselves as part of humanity. Besides, at the end, like everything else, it will turn into dust and will be forgotten (just think of the many things that Archaeologists will never find because they couldn't survive the effect of time), even those who are turned into digital information and stored safely (remember the history of the library of Alexandria or the episode of book burning during the Middle Ages) will decay and disappear (we know that digital information can easily be destroyed by an E.M.P.)

So, the questions is: Does life have a purpose? Then we go over what I just wrote and say: who cares, nobody will remember me when I'm gone, but I will take the chance to enjoy life fully (and I ask, of the 7 billion people alive in the world today, how many will be remembered by all of us? Just a few, the rest of that 7 billion are nothing but a mere grain of sand in the beach, washed away by the tide of time).

 .lonely star.by ~j1k