Transcript of a talk given to the Indian School, Nizwa, Oman on Thursday May 22nd 2014, I would like to begin this presentation by essentially taking up from where I left off in my previous presentation to you in December of 2012. You will no doubt recall that the theme of that presentation was Astrobiology and how I argued for the validity of that new science by citing basically three areas of evidence as postulated by the two scientists who devised the hypothesis of diseases from space - Sir Fred Hoyle and Professor N. Chandra Wickramasinghe. The first of these was the lack of evidence for the claim that common diseases such as colds, influenza, whooping cough and measles were contagious. The sporadic, rapid and patchy manner in which flues and colds spread, seem to militate against the human to human transmission process. However, bacteria falling from space and descending to the Earth in sporadic “pathogenic patches” can explain the sporadic nature of infection. We then looked at the evidence from the fossil record and how it failed to support the Darwinian model of evolution by gradual processes of change over millions of years, as the intermediate species which would be necessary to support the model have never been found in the fossil record.The sudden extinction of species and the sudden emergence of others can be explained by the addition of new DNA from “genetic showers”of bacteria descending to Earth from outer space and initiating jumps to the next evolutionary rung of the ladder. Then we discussed the meteorite which fell over the town of Pollonaruwa in Sri Lanka and noted that on examination by scientists in Colombo, it contained both fossilised and viable diatoms. Finally, we examined the spectroscopic evidence for interstellar dust clouds and found that they corresponded to spectrographs from laboratory obtained desiccated bacteria. It is within the astrobiological context that I would like to mention a controversial new theory regarding the origin of the Universe and the nature of dark matter. This new theory was explained by Professor Wickramasinghe in an address he gave to the Oman Astronomical Society in February of this year. Instead of the original material emanating from the big bang being gaseous in nature, the Universe begins with solid planet sized bodies which, by collision, produce the gas which creates the stars. These free floating planet sized bodies in interstellar and intergalactic space, according to this new theory, constitute the mysterious and elusive dark matter which astrophysicists have been trying to find for many years. They will also provide the conditions where life at viral and bacterial level may flourish, thus providing the seeds for evolution to more advanced forms of multi-cellural life on planets. It is within this context of origins that we realise that life, far from being a phenomenon that is peripheral to the nature of the Universe, is a core aspect of the cosmos and interwoven into the very fabric of the Universe. It is mind-boggling when we realise that as dark matter constitutes around 96% of the material of the Universe, according to the new theory, then the Universe is essentially a biological and life-giving entity! This now brings me on to the latest book, Cosmic Colossal, which I have co-authored with AishwaryaPandey. In fact, Aishwarya has more right to be standing here addressing you than I do as three quarters of this book was composed by Aishwarya. My own contribution comes after the main story, Cosmic Colossal, and is an appraisal of Sir Fred Hoyle’s 1966 Bampton Lecture, Man in the Universe. The main characters in Aishwarya’s novel are the spirit beings of the Universe. While at first glance this may sound somewhat fantastical, the notion becomes more convincing when we remember that physicists now contemplate eleven dimensions to reality. There is therefore no reason to think that one or more of these dimensions constitute what we may term a “supernatural dimension.” If we consider the human being as the pinnacle of evolution, then it is not unreasonable to give a high degree of credence to Aishwarya’s spirit life forms which make up most of the characters in her novel. Man is spiritual as well as physical, therefore Hoyle’s treating of Man in the Universe should assume a spiritual aspect as well as a material one.This overlap of the spirit and the material is brought out in Chapter 14, entitled Educational Coffee Date, when David, one of the spirit beings, is exiled to the Earth and assumes a human bodily form. David finds himself in a library but does not know what a library is. The librarian explains the books to him. Here we see the spiritual side of the Universe portrayed in the person of David; he is interested in the books for the sake of interest – not for any other material gain. In his opening lecture of the Man in the Universe series ( and in the book by the same title ), Sir Fred Hoyle mentioned the fact that his time as a student was set in the 1930’s during the years of the Great Depression. Prosperity seemed to be a distant dream, so students concentrated upon their areas of interest with little thought to material gain. As prosperity is nowadays taken for granted, education has become what Hoyle calls “ a meal ticket.” This is an indication of the predominance of the material over the spiritual. The special student of the future will be one who can, in this time of modern prosperity, adopt the same attitude towards learning as the students of the lean years back in the 1930’s. I urge all of you at the Indian School, Nizwa, to be leaders in this educational revolution! It is in keeping with this materialistic outlook that the public question the practical utility of this or that academic discipline. This question is often leveled at astronomy.It is yet again, indicative of the preponderance of the material aspects of man. In his book, Astronomy ( 1969 ) explains how astronomy is “the mother of all the sciences.” If the Earth’s atmosphere were as thick as that of Venus’, mankind would have had no idea of the cosmos. Without the visibility of outer space, man would not have been able to develop navigation, and without navigation, travel would have been severely limited. Measurement of time would also have been impossible and Euclidean geometry would never have been developed. Without the aid of mathematics, scientific and technological advances would never have occurred, none of the great feats of engineering would have been possible. In short – we could never have progressed beyond the hunter-gatherer society. Another of the great advantages of astronomy is its close association with physics. In order to study the tremendous energies which occur in nature, we have to look beyond the Earth. Through our telescopes, we witness supernovae, hypernovae, galaxies colliding, entire galaxies exploding, black holes and so forth; the energies produced by these phenomena cannot be replicated in the terrestrial laboratory. The maximum energy we could get from the Earth would be obtained by incinerating the entire planet itself! Yet this would be nothing next to the energies produced by the afore-mentioned phenomena. Apart from the practical side of astronomical studies, there is also the innate quest in man to discover the world, and, by extension, the cosmos of which he is part. I would ask students to apply this profound concept to their studies. When you eventually go to university, focus all your concentration on your studies. Forget about jobs during your tenure in academia. You have a few short years at university, but many decades ahead of you in the job market. If during your time at university, your minds are half focused on your studies and half focused on jobs, you are going to fall between two stools. It is an irony that those students whose sole focus is on their studies are the ones who will attain the greatest success in employment in post-university years. Let us now return to the utilitarian question as it is asked of academic subjects. At this moment, as I speak to you, there is an Indian rocket on its way to the planet Mars. We have dealt with the issue of astronomy and have noted how, contrary to the popular mind-set, it is a science which is at the very basis of humanity’s achievements. However, the utilitarian question, is by extension applied to the space programme. No doubt many of us have heard the arguments which go something like this – “Why send rockets into space, when there are so many problems to be solved down here on earth?” “Why send spacecraft to the planets when there is so much hunger on Earth?” “Should we not be solving the problems here below before we start sending things into space?” I intend to show how these arguments are spurious. Contrary to popular but mistaken perceptions, there are very few people actually starving on Earth. Food crises occur during wars and natural disasters; but the ensuing, though temporary hunger, is caused by defects in the production and distribution aspects of food production. The misguided arguments just referred to rest upon the massive presumption that the space programme is the cause of hunger – no valid connection has ever been made in this regard. These arguments also rest upon the other false premise that terminating the space programme would automatically cure whatever “hunger” there is the world.If we wish to apportion blame for hunger other than on the deficiencies within the food production industry itself, then why pick on the space programme? Why not talk about closing the museums, the art galleries, cinemas, theatres, sports complexes, television, internet cafes, libraries and so forth. The facts are that the space programme has produced spin-offs into other areas of technology which affect our everyday lives. Weather and communications satellites, satellites which can detect on-coming natural dangers such as hurricanes, satellites that can locate good farmland and mineral deposits – in fact one of the real down-to-earth spin-offs from the Apollo space programme was Teflon frying pans! In Man in the Universe, Hoyle asked why it took man so long to realize that man is an animal! That realization came as late as the nineteenth century with the development of the theory of evolution and natural selection by Darwin and Wallace. I would attempt to answer Hoyle’s most profound question by pointing out that man has concentrated so much on the spiritual aspect of his being as it is this which distinguishes him from the rest of creation. It is man the spiritual being which has made possible the great strides in the arts and sciences, not man the material being. The members of the animal kingdom, never operate outside of what is strictly essential for survival. The human species has produced genius like Einstein in science, Beethoven in music, Picasso in the arts, Shakespeare in literature – all of whose great achievements extend far and beyond what is merely required for basic survival. Nature does not provide any selective pressure for the development of such outstanding talent. A spider will never innovate its spinning to produce a web the size and complexity of the Empire State Building; birds will never construct digital nests; the rodent called a mouse, will never develop a computer. So we can see that there is something innate in man which propels him beyond the boundaries of natural selective modes of operation required for mere survival in the biological world. It is indeed, the spiritual aspect in him, which has propelled him to such great heights of success. Aishwarya Pandey’s novel brings out so clearly the spiritual aspect which must surely pervade the Universe and which reaches into the very soul of man. It is this spiritual being in yourselves which I would urge you never to lose sight of; and you achieve this great feat by looking beyond the mere utilitarian aspects of education. No doubt you have heard of the expression “to think outside the box.” And of course, as you know, it means to train the mind in thought patterns which veer from the conventional modes of cognitive operations. Without these unconventional cognitive processes, it is impossible for the human species to progress. Had great men and women such as Newton, Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, Marie Curie and others confined themselves to thinking “inside the box” then we would still be operating under the illusion that we inhabit a flat geocentric Earth. However, the recognition of the importance of thinking outside the box does not preclude thinking inside the box. There are two essential elements here which are necessary if a balance in the thought processes is to be successfully achieved – how to think and when to think, both inside and outside of the box. “Maverick” has become a sort of dirty word in academia these days. It is of the utmost importance to distinguish between “maverick” on the one hand, and nomenclatures like “eccentric” and “crank” on the other. Being maverick does not mean that one is pulling ideas out of thin air; rather, it involves postulating unconventional, though rational interpretations to explain phenomena which have defied conventional modes of explanation. Failure to be maverick and unconventional when these two qualities are called for is to forget the spiritual aspect of the human species. Probably all of you here will go on to pursue further studies in institutions of higher learning in India. Within the context of the material and spiritual aspects of man as shown in Sir Fred Hoyle’s lecture series and Aishwarya Pandey’s novel, I would like close this discussion by placing these twin natures of the human species within a consideration of what we term “education.” As I mentioned earlier in this discussion, there tends to be a fair degree of confusion between “education” on the one hand and “job training” on the other. I would be so bold as to say that if your preponderant concern is in securing employment, then the best place to do job training is in a job – just go and find work! With the rapid pace of technological advancement, whatever relevance any form of education may have to any particular career will soon find itself obsolete not too long after your graduation. As the years roll on, the further away in time you are from your school and university period, the less applicability your education will have in terms of the job market. Job training and education though distinct have some form of esoteric connection. As I mentioned earlier, those students who think the least about jobs during their time at university are the ones best placed in terms of future employment prospects. If you become obsessed with employment during your years of study, you will gain no joy from your period at your institution of higher learning. Sadly, like so many students, you will see studying as a necessary drudge and exams as something that “just has to be done.” Yet, exams can be part of the learning process. I know many students who complain about the academic levels of their schools and universities. Traditionally, the onus for raising the standards of a university is placed upon the academic staff. I believe that this approach is seriously flawed when we consider that student numbers greatly outweigh the cadre of academic staff. Here are some statistics to bear out my point. Oxford Brookes University in England has around 22,000 students and 11,000 academic staff. This is a 2 to 1 ratio. Edinburgh University’s student body of 16,300 and 1,300 staff illustrate the point more clearly. With these figures in mind, we can see that students, by their own research endeavours, can assist greatly in upgrading the standards of the institution within which they are studying. Learning is a multi-faceted process – it goes from the traditional route of teacher to student, but it can also travel from student to teacher; also, from student to student and teacher to teacher. Whatever you may do in life, always keep in mind the most profound questions of all – “Who am I and what am I doing here?” If you keep these in mind, you will never have a tedious life, for you will be keeping the spiritual foremost in your mind. Lord Martin Rees, the Astronomer Royal in Britain, is on record as saying that the aliens may already be among us, staring us in the fact, but we are not advanced enough to detect them. This concept fits in well with Aishwarya Pandey’s Cosmic Colossal and Sir Fred Hoyle’s Man in the Universe. It can also fit into your lives too as you make yourselves more spiritual.
Posted on: Thu, 29 May 2014 10:46:53 +0000