The Unknown: A Love Affair With Humanity
Romance is what drives science. Sterile precision is what allows us to trust it. We often mistake science for being cold hearted when really, it is a religious experience. Both religion and science attack the unknown. Both love the unknown. Though religion loves out of fear, science loves out of the romance and curiosity that drives the field. Contact, by Carl Sagan, reveals the religious experience felt by those who do not fear the unknown but, instead, love it.
Eleanor Arroway is a radio astronomer at a SETI institution located in the deserts of New Mexico. Her childhood was spent wondering about the stars and about everything, in general. “Why?” was a question that dominated her spoken verse. Typical intelligent human being: always curious and always daydreaming. She spent her days listening to the static of the cosmic microwave background, even though her ears were not nearly as attune to discovery as the computers. She was the one who invented the technology to be able to pick up such signals from the vastness of space. However, for six years, she heard nothing but the background static of the cosmos, and the occasional interference of secret government operations.
Scientists were skeptical of the mission of the observatory, and even her old mentor, a bigger supporter of SETI than she, thought it was time to focus the telescopes elsewhere. Coincidently, a few days later, the radio telescopes picked up a message of a sequence of prime numbers, coming from the star Vega. Scientists at the observatory, fueled by the thrill of the find, worked endlessly to decode it. It turned out to be a video of Hitler giving a speech at the opening of the 1936 Olympic Games. It was one of the earliest television broadcasts. It was a way of saying “We have heard you. We know you are there.” They then found more encrypted data on a different frequency.
This code appeared to be a plan for a machine: a very precise plan. With the help of scientists, worldwide, the machine plans were decoded and after three attempts, the device was finally constructed. The politicians were scared of international collaboration yet excited about the technology and its implications in weapon development. The theologists interpreted the signal either as a message from God or the Devil, and some even prophecised it to be the initiation of the Advent. Others speculated the device to be a bomb, set to blow up the Earth when activated. Despite the differences of interest, it brought the world together as one, creating a sense of pride in humanity.
Once the machine was built, five were chosen to go, Eleanor being one of them. When the machine activated, they hurtled through space, faster than the speed of light, using black holes as transport stations. After what seemed like an hour or two of travel, they arrived at what appeared to be the Center of the Milky Way Galaxy. Upon docking their space ship, they saw hundreds of other docs of varying sizes, suggesting hundreds of other intelligent species. When the ship docked and the doors opened, they were surprised to find themselves on a beach. They awoke the next morning to a doorway in the sand. All but Eleanor stepped through. Despite her skepticism, she still experienced what everybody else had; they each were met by an alien, disguised as the person most dear to them, who explained to them a few things about the universe. Eleanor met with her departed father, who explained that the ones who sent the message were not the creators of the universe, merely its care takers, and that they, too, were searching for a message within the language of the universe: mathematics.
The five return to Earth, humbled and enlightened. They walk out of the Machine, expecting the world to be astonished. Contrary to what they experienced, the Machine appeared simply to activate for 20 minutes then stopped, and the five came out. It appeared a complete failure to the world. Not many believed the five’s accounts of what happened. Though someone unexpected had complete faith in Eleanor; it was Palmer Joss, a surprisingly open-minded man of faith. The story concludes with Eleanor’s understanding of Joss, having experienced the skepticism he has endured all his life, and her discovering a message within pi: a simple circle. “The universe was made on purpose, the circle said (Sagan 430)”.
Contact is so deep with underlying themes and meanings that it is impossible to analyze it all without writing a novel. The theme that was most striking was the relationship between religion and science. Not only does Sagan break down the misnomers about scientists, but he also makes us take another look at religion. Like any good scientist, we cannot prove something nor disprove it without evidence. Scientists and theologists need to understand each other, because we are all searching for the same thing, and as Sagan suggests, we may be facing the same struggles. After trying to explain the message to the book’s main theologists, Ealeanor is left frustrated, saying, “…but he’s corrupting millions.” Her confider responds, …”he thinks the same about you (167).”
Scientists are often misunderstood to be cold and sterile. White lab coats, calculators for minds and an absolute disbelief in anything that has not been tested and peer reviewed. They have no emotions, only calculations for thoughts. This is the portrayal of a scientist. Even in the book, Eleanor hardly visits her sickly mother. Her Russian colleague is renowned for never having been in love. Eleanor favors the sound of static to that of a human voice. No wonder scientists are seen as heartless. However, this is not the case. Far from it, actually. At one point in the book, Eleanor claims to be agnostic. She says, “I am a Christain in the sense that I find Jesus Christ to be an admirable historical figure…But I think Jesus was only a man (Sagan167 – 168).” Scientists do not disagree with most Christian values, they are simply skeptical of certain “historical” aspects of religion. Sagan suggests that a scientist’s drive actually comes from the desire to find something within herself. When the scientists meet with their most loved ones on the alien world, this is them facing the most vulnerable parts of themselves. Science is a journey of self fulfillment, answering the questions our mind conjures, without excepting “it just is” as our answer to every “why?” Though since most people do not see it this way, they shy away from science.
The most common alternative place to seek answers is religion. Here, the question of “Why?” is answered with “it just is” in a most clever disguise: relatable stories, great powers of beings we cannot comprehen, etc. Religion basically says that there is nothing wrong with not being able to understand an idea. That is a beautiful thought, logical even; how can we possibly understand the working of a being unlike us? Religion is so welcoming that no matter who it may be, they can convert and all will be forgiven. There is always somebody to talk to, even when there are no other humans for miles. There is something keeping check of all actions, motivating our morals to stay straight. All the luxuries of a sound mind for the small price of believing without question. Forget the answers, religion says, those will come when you’ve reached heaven (when the question is no longer on your mind). Ellie expresses her outrage at this idea when she says, “Anything you don’t understand, Mr. Rankin, you attribute to God. God for you is where you sweep away all the mysteries of the world, all the challenges to our intellugence. You simply turn your mind off amd say God did it. (Sagan 166).” So religion proposes that we should not bother to understand the idea. We only need to understand that it exists. Rankin, a man of religion in the novel, admits this truth when criticizing scientists: “Y’see, scientists are too skeptical. You question everything… You never heard about ‘leave well enough alone’ or ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ (Sagan 160).” This is a major problem. This method never really addresses our initial question.
We all want to comprehend the world around us. After all, curiosity for human beings is inherent. There is a great unknown that we just do not understand. We all claim to love it, this great unknown. Sagan demonstrates the awe of humanity when he writes, “For all the tenure of humans on Earth, the night sky had been a companion and inspiration… Many were awestruck and humbled by the glory and scale of the cosmos. Others were stimulated to the most extravagant flights of fancy (16).” The theologists call it God. They fear it and therefore do not question it. They accept it and claim to love it. Though they only love it as one would a king: out of fear. Scientists also love the unknown. We call it discovery. Everything we do not know, everything we cannot comprehend, pushes us in all the right ways. The unknown pushes us to get to know it. We do not back away from the springboard but take the leap of faith, with the hallmarks of science as our safety net. We love the idea that we absolutely do not know what we will find. It is like diving into a treasure chest, time and time again. We love the unknown because it gives us surprises and only by questioning it can we truly get to know it and grow to love the opportunity it presents. The truth is, science makes us feel closer to “god” than any religion would ever allow.
We can now understand that science is not at all driven by a cold shoulder but rather a romance. In fact, our most romantic views about how the world works have yielded some of the most profound and prominent scientific discoveries. The protagonist in Contact dreams of what life would be like on Venus, from a young age. These are the reflected dreams of the author, himself. His curiosity lead him to study Venus in detail, especially its atmosphere, determining the habitability of the planet (Morrison). Imagination is allowed to roam free and then is put to the test. This is the process of some of the best scientific discovery. Therefore, we should not judge the scientists that pursue those dreams: scientists such as Eleanor and the real SETI scientists and astrobiologists, worldwide. Without these dream chasers, we may miss out on the discoveries they stumble upon, along the way.
It is important to remember that religion is not inherently the enemy of science. It was a way to understand the world before our knowledge evolved. It started as the very romantic musings that start most quests for knowledge, though it was never put to the test. It was stubbornly accepted as fact, without adapting and evolving with the knowledge we have gained as civilization evolved, itself. We all love the unknown and we are all born with the wanting to get to know it, get closer to it and discover it. Though to truly love it, the unknown must not be feared. We must get to know it. Each scientific discovery made brings us closer, deepens our love of it and truly lets us feel a most religious experience, in the sense that we are getting closer to a mighty force, the vast cosmos themselves. They are not so scary once one gets the chance to know them. We are all scientists, born with questions in our minds. We are all capable of getting closer to “god.” All we need to do is abandon the notion that if we ask we will receive, and accept the notion that we should always ask and then seek. Only by seeking the answers to our questions can we feel the love that Sagan speaks of when he ends his book with this famous quote, “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love (430).” For when we look to the cosmos for answers, we are truly looking within ourselves.
An Essay by:
Anastassia Doktorova
25 September 2013
Bibliography
Morrison, David. “Carl Sagan’s Life and Legacy as Scientist, Teacher, and Skeptic.” –
CSI. N.p., Jan. 2007. Web. 19 Sept. 2013.
Sagan, Carl. Contact: A Novel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985. Print.
