Comer | Vol 23 | No .11 | November 2011
In the Whole Universe,
There Is Only One Equivalent of Life
Let’s Take Care of It
It is fascinating to note that a series of Greek philosophers, from about 600 BCE,
dismissed mythological explanations for the origin of the universe and of life. They basically
invented materialism, and approach that tried (and still tries) to find a unified
concept of matter from which the whole universe is built. For example, Anasimander
of Miletus hypothesized that the cosmos originated from a primordial substance that
he called apeiron (meaning indefinite).
This model is reminiscent of another Hindu interpretation, in which everything
originated from prakrit, a kind o f primitive matter, containing the essence of all
things to come. Some other ancient Greek attempts to explain the origin of life had
strange premises (such as Empedocles’ ide a that life forms first originated from haphazard
combinations of preformed organs), but the view of one of these philosopherscientists,
Democritus, still resonates today. According to him, the universe consists of
atoms and void moreover everything existing in the universe is the fruit of chance and
necessity. Presumably, Democritus meant that the universe never was a preordained
thing (it thus came about by chance). Presumably.
Many scientists think today that this is indeed the case. Democritus may well be the
greatest visionary of all time.
The scientific method is the descendant of the type of thinking that the ancient
Greeks invented. Like them, modern science takes a materialist view of nature and does
not rely on magical, mystical, mythological, or theistic principles. That is not to say that
all scientists are virulent atheists. Indeed, many have been and are deeply religious.
Simply as the great French mathematician Laplace once told Napoleon Bonaparte,
“Sire, God is a hypothesis I do not need.”
This being so, it is cheeky to treat Greece’s great legacy as a mere stock market
item. The heritage enriched by revelation in Greece’s tremendously impressive reconstruction
of the physical locale of humanity’s cultural cradle enriches humanity at
large. Greece’s most impressive transformation of the physical cradle of much the
common heritage of all humanity rather than a matter of stock market appraisal. It
is months since COMER tried making the point and argued for a recognition of the
Greek budget represents the cost of saving the site of this immense cultural heritage of
all humanity.
We also emphasized the obvious solution: have the Greek government make
more available to non-Greeks throughout the world access to the tremendous physical
reminders of this common heritage. How? Simply by offering access to it to non-
Greeks at drastically cut-rate prices – say, at half present market rates, but payable in
strong foreign currencies.
Now that a new government is being put in place, we hope to
make a special effort to convince the new regime to rethink the entire problem. COMER offered the previous
Athenian government its help at no cost to it, in explaining and organizing this necessary
vision shift on Greek finances. We will renew that offer to the new regime as soon as
it acquires its sense of the necessary.
Sitzfleisch.William Krehm
Web Source Comer.org
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