Science and Technology

Science is as valuable to me as any of the other paths as science is intimately connected with each; relationships, nature, wisdom, art, beauty, and so on. Many see science as being at odds with spiritual paths, but myself and many others do not. I have felt this perhaps through out my life but have rarely seen it explained as well as a Newsweek article in 1998 Science Finds God. In it Maimonides is quoted as saying "The only pathway to achieve a love of God is by understanding the works of his hand." So true.

The alternative is a big dumb universe. I find the universe much to intelligent, complex, and sublime to accept that. I am not talking about an old man in the sky, but the inherent wisdom that brought about this beautiful world and its incredibly abundant, diverse, tenacious, and complex life forms. In the article the number pi (the circumference of a circle divided by its diameter) "Turns up in equations that describe subatomic articles, light, and other quantities that have no connection to circles."

Take a look at Sacred Geometry and again you see how beautiful and elegant creation really is. Buddhism's three main principles of illusion, impermanence, and interbeing, although over 2500 years old are now being proven by science and technology. Personally I always think of pounding my fist on a table to see its apparent solidity evaporated by the reality of the atoms making up table and fist being nothing more than the electrical forces of atoms, even those made up of mostly empty space proving life is an illusion. The atoms ever in action and flux prove impermanence, and that all things are made up of these same parts showing interbeing.

For these and many other reasons, I agree with John Muir that "“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the universe.  One fancies a heart like our own must be beating in every crystal and cell. How lavish is nature, building, pulling down, creating, destroying, chasing every material particle from form to form, ever changing, ever beautiful.” 

Science and technology are changing the world for humans at an exponential rate across the fields of science and across the world so quickly it is hard to say whats coming next. Just the fact that we have devices we carry that can not only let us communicate with possibly millions of others at any time, but also hold incredibly vast amounts of information, wisdom, and beauty at our finger tips is awe inspiring and yet unheard of just a few years ago. No doubt this post will be expanding as well soon.