The Astral Mirror (32 page)

Authors: Ben Bova

Knowledge we have. And we are acquiring more, so rapidly that people suffer “future shock” from their inability to digest the swift changes flowing across our lives. Wisdom is what we need; the gift of Athena. Self-understanding.

Human beings are understanding-seeking creatures. But when we seek understanding from authorities—in ivied towers of learning, or marbled halls of government, or dark caves of mysticism—we fall short of our goal. Proclamations from authorities are not understanding. When we as individuals give up our quest for understanding and allow others to think and decide for us, we allow the inevitable darkness to gather closer. The brilliant Aegean sunlight is what we seek, and we must turn to Athena’s gift of wisdom to find it.

Science will be the crucial factor in finding Athena’s gift. As a mode of thinking, a technique for learning and understanding, it is central to our search for self-knowledge.

Our first two wishes were largely focused outside ourselves. They were aimed at manipulating the world outside our skins. Our third and final wish concerns the universe within us: our bodies, our brains, our minds. Until now, scientific research has been mainly concerned with the physical world around us. Physics, chemistry, astronomy, engineering—all deal with the universe that we lay hands on. Even biology and sociology have dealt mainly with matters external to the individual human being. Medical research has been confined to chemistry, mysticism, and sharper surgical tools, until very recently.

But starting with psychology, the major thrust of scientific research has been slowly turning over the past century or so toward the universe inside our flesh.

Molecular biology is delving into the basic mechanics of what makes us what we are: the chemistry of genetic inheritance. Ethnology and psychology are probing the fundamentals of why we behave the way we do: the essence of learning and behavior. Neurophysiology is examining the basic structure and workings of the brain itself: the electrochemistry of memory and thought.

Many view this research with horror. From Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s vision of Frankenstein, generations of writers and readers have feared scientists’ attempts to tamper with the human mind and body. “There are some things that man was not meant to know,” has become not only a cliche, but a rallying cry for the fearful and the ignorant.

Genetic manipulation could someday create an elite of geniuses who rule a race of zombies. Behavior modification techniques can turn every jailbird into a model prisoner, and make prisoners of us all. Psychosurgery is performed on the poor, the uninformed, the helpless.

Yet molecular biology may erase the scourge of cancer and genetic disease, bringing the human race to a pinnacle of physical perfection. Behavior modification techniques will someday unravel the tangled engrams of hopeless psychotics and restore them to the light of healthy adulthood. Brain research could bring quantum leaps in our abilities to understand and learn.

Human societies have developed in such a way that new ideas and new capabilities are acquired by the rulers long before the ruled ever hear of them. All societies are ruled by elites. But the eventual effect of our new knowledge is to destroy the elite, to spread the new capabilities among all the people. Far from fearing new knowledge, or shunning it, we must seek it out and embrace it wholeheartedly. For only out of the new knowledge that scientists are acquiring will we derive the understanding that we need to survive as individuals and as a species.

The gift of Athena is what we must have. And it must be shared by all of us, not merely an elite at the top of society. The gift of Prometheus gave us mastery of this world. The gift of Apollo is bringing us powers so vast that we can turn this planet into a paradise or a barren lifeless wasteland.

Only the wisdom of Athena can control the powers of modern science and technology. Only when all the people know what is possible will it be possible to know what to do. As long as an elite controls the power of science and technology, the masses will be manipulated. And such manipulation will inevitably lead to collapse and destruction.

We stand poised on the brink of godhood. The knowledge and wisdom that modern scientific research offers can help us to take the next evolutionary step, and transform ourselves into a race of intelligent beings who truly understand themselves and the universe around them. It is possible, by our own efforts, to climb as far above our present condition as we today are above primitive little
Homo erectus.

The anthropologist Carleton Coon Painted the prospect twenty-five years ago, in his book,
The Story of Man:

A half-million years of experience in outwitting beasts on mountains and plains, in heat and cold, in light and darkness, gave our ancestors the equipment that we still desperately need if we are to slay the dragon that roams the earth today, marry the princess of outer space, and live happily ever after in the deer-filled glades of a world in which everyone is young and beautiful forever.

We have the means within our grasp. The gift of Athena, like our first two gifts, actually comes from no one but ourselves.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ben Bova is the author of nearly 125 futuristic novels and nonfiction books about science and high technology.

In his various writings, Dr. Bova has predicted the Space Race of the 1960s, solar power satellites, the discovery of organic chemicals in interstellar space, virtual reality, human cloning, the Strategic Defense Initiative (Star Wars), the advent of international peacekeeping forces, the discovery of ice on the Moon, electronic book publishing and zero-gravity sex.

Dr. Bova received the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Arthur C. Clarke Foundation in 2005, “for fueling mankind’s imagination regarding the wonders of outer space.” His 2006 novel TITAN received the John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel of the year, and he received the 2008 Robert A. Heinlein Award “for his outstanding body of work in the field of literature.”

Dr. Bova has been involved in science and high technology since the very beginnings of the space age. President Emeritus of the National Space Society and a past president of Science Fiction Writers of America, Inc., Dr. Bova was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has been a member of the Arizona Astronomy Board.

He is a columnist for the Naples Daily News and a widely-popular lecturer. Earlier in his career, he was an award-winning editor and an executive in the aerospace industry. He has worked with film makers and television producers such as Woody Allen, George Lucas, and Gene Roddenberry.

His “Grand Tour” novels, including his award-winning TITAN, show how the human race will expand through the solar system, opening a new era of wealth and opportunity – and conflict. His nonfiction books, such as IMMORTALITY and FAINT ECHOES, DISTANT STARS have been honored by organizations such as the American Librarians’ Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has won six Science Fiction Achievement Awards (Hugos) and many other awards for writing.

More books from Ben Bova are available at:
http://ReAnimus.com/authors/benbova

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