By Misha Goussev, January 2001
Once in a while, when I get into a philosophical mood, I zoom outside myself and look at my existence from the 30,000 feet point of view, both in space and time. When I think of the space, I imagine myself rising very high above the ground—so high that I exit the boundary of our planet and go far away. As I get farther and farther away, I can see our little planet turning into a small, fragile, and very beautiful multicolored ball, surrounded by a very subtle protective shell, just like a fish egg. However, just like the fish egg, it miraculously stores the code of life for many generations to come. When I go even farther, our planet becomes so small that it looks no different than any other planet that I can see from my new location. I start to think of my nuclear physics classes in high school, which I never understood until now. Supposedly, all matter consists of so-called atoms and molecules that hang freely in the space and are connected to each other by some invisible force. Most of the matter inside is empty because of the gaps between the atoms, but it appears quite solid to the human eye from the outside. All this comes to my mind as I am jetting through outer space, and a strange comparison between the atoms and the planets strikes me. Are we all just part of another matter that some other “human” eyes are seeing as just a solid brick?
When I think of time, the feeling is easier to grasp and quantify. After all, history takes place in the same physical space and no tricks are attached. We can all go and see the ruins of the carefully preserved remains of past civilizations, we can see works of art that appear to us with the same freshness of the colors as if they were finished yesterday, we can read the books and the accounts of historians, and we can even watch movies and see people who created history, but who are no longer with us. Sometimes, I feel that the whole history of humankind, conceivable and inconceivable, is my personal history, dating back centuries and millennia. Moreover, my life is just one day in the ocean of history, as each day in my life is just a day lived by a new person—a new me. It is all the same; as somebody famous once said, each day is like a whole life—you are born and you die every day. However, life goes on. The most astonishing thing about time is the realization that someone else was perhaps living in the same place and having the same thoughts, emotions, aspirations, and doubts a hundred or maybe a thousand years ago!
When I put these two dimensions together, the concepts of time and space acquire different meanings. I see myself as a little star pulsating on the crossroads of two eternities—time and space—two vastnesses that have no limit. Almost anything might even seem insignificant compared to this scale. In this respect, something a former colleague once said many years ago comes to mind. This fellow—a Ph.D. in nuclear physics—always amazed me with his melancholy attitude toward life. Nothing could either throw him off-balance or overly excite him. I once asked him what kept him so calm, and he replied, “Think about it; it takes tens of thousands of light years for the light of certain stars to reach Earth. Why spend time on emotions? Life is too short compared to this.”
Life is too short in human time, I agree. However, since we are humans, perhaps we should use human landmarks to differentiate ourselves in this ocean of time and space. By the way, I did not even mention other dimensions, since I decided to stick to the plan for the sake of simplicity. Thus, what has happened to the human world in human time during my human life that the other humans from the future would care to know about? A lot. I zoom back in.
First of all, as far as I am concerned, we were lucky to be alive at the turn of the millennium. The fireworks by the Eiffel Tower were the best fireworks human history had ever seen. Even the ancient Greeks would have been jealous. However, on a serious note, the major breakthrough occurred in the field of communications: computers, the Internet, and wireless technology literally connected the whole world into a very tight-knit community with incredible capabilities of data exchange. Once new technologies are developed, within a few years, they become adopted realities that are simply taken for granted.
As I think about the current historical landmarks of humanity, I have a mixed and slightly sad feeling. I feel myself in the position of people who lived on the verge of major breakthroughs in science and technology about a century ago, when many things that are only described in science fiction just started to come true. The true benefits of those technologies were available half a century later to other people living in a different slot of human time. As a side comment, for example, I experience a similar feeling every time I pass by the construction site of the new Wharton building on the University of Pennsylvania campus. It was designed and is being built in the true spirit of the twenty-first century. Yet, I realize with a certain degree of sadness that it is not part of my life, as I will have graduated but the time it is completed and will not be able to attend classes there. Then I think that I am very fortunate to be able to see the creation process—the evolution of this piece of land from a deep hole in the ground to an amazing and beautiful construction that most Wharton students of the twenty-first century will take for granted.
It may be fair to say that we live in a very unique time in human history. We have already seen that we can fly; we can even visit other planets (the moon or Mars, for example), and we know we could fly even farther if we wanted to. We are constrained by financial issues, not technology. The possibility of flying at the speed of light no longer appears to be pure fantasy; it will probably happen sooner or later.
The latest developments in medicine and biotechnology surpass the wildest fantasies of some of us who are less in touch with scientific innovations. Gene therapy that makes it possible to achieve the reproduction of biologically healthy species that possess the desired characteristics is already a reality today to a certain extent. The issue in question becomes the rate of adoption (again, due to financial reasons) as well as the question of the ownership of these technologies. Along these lines, many of the secrets of Chinese medicine and the chi will be scientifically described and implemented into everyday medicine. There will be more humans who will live longer and healthier lives, and some will never die perhaps.
We who live today, in a way, are blessed with the ability to witness the future of humanity as it develops, see new horizons open, and watch as the new secrets of life are discovered, but we know that the new generations will be the ones to fully embrace the new knowledge.
How would I describe our time in the history of humanity? I would say that we are living between major revolutionary breakthroughs in human civilizations. The question I have for myself is whether the coming revolution will have mostly technological and biological consequences or whether it will occur simultaneously with the transformation of the global consciousness of the human species. After all, as the history teaches us, any new breakthrough magnifies both the creative and destructive abilities the mankind posses. It is the corresponding evolution of consciousness that allows directing the newly acquired powers and keeping the world on the tipping point between progress and destruction.▪
Photo credits: NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense.