Space, Time, and Science (Opera Omnia, 12) - Hardcover

Buch 19�von 19: Opera Omnia

Panikkar, Raimon

9781626984967: Space, Time, and Science (Opera Omnia, 12)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1626984964 ISBN 13: 9781626984967

Verlag: Orbis Books (USA), 2022

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The last volume in the complete works of the internationally renowned philosopher of religion Raimon Panikkar (1918-2010). As his longtime editor Milena Carrera Pavan notes in her description of this volume, for Panikkar, “We do not live in time and space: we are time and space. . . . Science and technology, born within Western culture, have led to great conquests, but the scientific mentality also threatens to impede true knowledge of reality.”

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�ber die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Panikkar, a pioneer in comparative religion, interreligious dialogue, and intercultural thought, is author of more than 40 books and 600 articles, including his Gifford Lectures of 1989, published in English by Orbis the year before he died (The Rhythm of Being).

Auszug. � Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Volume XII, the last one in the structure of this Opera Omnia, includes articles and books dealing with science that were published in the early years of my production. Even though their contents and style may now sound quite outdated, I nonetheless decided to insert them here as a reminder of that period and the issues in which I was then interested. In particular the prologue, “A Synthetic Vision of the Universe,” is remarkably outdated, but it presents some insights that I still consider meaningful.

The theme of this book starts with the conception of time linked to a scientific vision of reality.

Omnia tempus habent1 [All things have a time of their own]

This time is not something that envelops the being externally, but an integral and specific dimension of each being that is, in the sense that it has a duration, and its duration consists precisely in the fact that it is this particular being and not another

The time of the technological civilization has caused a profound conflict within Man by altering his life rhythm. Should Man refuse technology or, on the contrary, reinforce it and be integrated in progress? This is an inescapable conflict.

At this point it should be noted that technology has an ontonomic nature, and therefore an intrinsic relationship both with the world and with Man. In fact, the relationship between Man and technology is as deep and intimate as that between technology and nature. Man generates technology by starting from nature. Technology is originally produced by Man’s interest in the earth and matter.

Et tempus non erit amplius2 [And time will be no longer]

The Running-Out of Time

Every cosmovision based on the idea of creation implies a belief in the finiteness of time and space. This finiteness leads us to imagine a beginning of time, and also an end. Now, time is not infinite—not because it all gets used up, like a sort of path along which Man is traveling, but because Man too is not infinite. The end of time does not mean, therefore, that the path suddenly vanishes, leaving things unfinished. The finiteness of time means that time runs out because things reach a fullness of existence. Time finishes because beings reach their end. The end of time means the end of Being inasmuch as Being is temporal. We have spoken of the running-out of time because the temporal dimension is the one closest to our way of conceiving the human situation; but we could equally well haveconsidered the coming to an end, or the contraction, of space. We speak of the conquest of space, but we should not forget that this mastery of space means a diminution of space as distance, and therefore a diminution of space as such. In this perspective, we try to see how, by a paradoxical somersault, technology can serve, on the one hand, to reconcile Man with nature, and on the other to humanize the cosmos.

The Reintegration of Man into Nature

Technology allows a new relationship between Man and Nature—that is, a relationship of ontonomy.

Almost all civilizations lead Man to self-awareness. If “primitive” Man considered himself as an object among objects, and felt lost within the cosmos that he was part of, civilized Man is becoming increasingly self-aware and no longer considers himself as part of “nature,” or as an “object,” but as a “spectator” of the world. It is the age of knowledge, and above all reflexive knowledge.

Technology cuts the ground away from under Man’s feet and removes his support; it breaks both its natural and rational rhythm and turns Man into a thing once more, but in a very particular way. Through technology, Man loses his rhythm and imposes vertiginous rhythms on nature; through technology, Man ceases to be a passive spectator of the universe and becomes an actor. Activism is one of the illnesses of our century because it has found favorable conditions as a reaction to an essentialist immobility.

So, technology reduces the distance between Man and nature, and perhaps also matter, to its true proportions. (This distance had led Man to believe that he was the king of nature, the center of the universe, and belonged to a different “class” from the rest of creation.) Technology helps us rediscover our kinship with matter, and our common destiny with the universe.

Technology can kill Man, but it can also help him to achieve his being. One should not forget that Man, a temporal being and a pilgrim, is not isolated, but forms a whole with the world and with others, and is part of a universe that is also transitory and in a state of gestation.

Nature’s Entry into Man

A preliminary consideration is necessary: this “nature” that Man is reentering by means of technology is no longer the pure and simple nature of a subjugated world, as it might seem in the age of heteronomy, but a different nature, transformed by Man’s very entry into it.

This is a field to be approached with great prudence. Technology also wounds the cosmic rhythms and transforms nature in a way complementary to that in which it transforms Man. Today we talk of an “anthropization” of nature. In any case, it is a fact that nature is elevated insofar as it is, so to speak, taken on by technology. Thanks to technology, matter imitates Man more closely; and a machine is nothing more than an imitation of Man. All machines are anthropomorphic. We are told that machines are to replace human beings in their activities, their work and tasks, and this is true, but they do so precisely by imitating Man. Nature thus acquires a human aspect and arouses within itself latent possibilities; one could say that it undergoes a process of spiritualization. The phenomenology of technology reveals a certain convergence: Man and nature are traveling toward a common goal in one and the same movement. All the works of Teilhard de Chardin, in particular L’Avenir de l’Homme, develop this theme in full.

This dynamic process is still happening, and will continue, and we think we can detect a participation of the machine in this dynamism. In fact, the machine transmits something human to matter; human orders are obeyed and carried out by nature; human structures are copied and followed by machines. A machine may be a poor imitation of Man from our point of view, but from nature’s point of view, the machine represents an important achievement of matter.

Of course a machine is not a living organism, but it should be added that the organism of which the machine aspires to be a part is not its pure mechanical structure, but a more complex structure, of which Man is also a part. The complete organism of the machine is supramaterial. In the same way that a finger, or a stomach, when it is cut off from its vital function and from its connection with the totality of the organism is dead and no longer has any vital function, so a machine, when removed from its “vital” link with Man and society, is dead and no longer organically related to the technological supra-organism. It has no life or meaning in or for itself, but this is also true of any part of a living organism. Since Man, as such, has believed over these last centuries that he is the outcome and perfect achievement of creation, one can understand his resistance toward allowing his primacy to be taken from him by an organism in which he would be no more than an organ. It is evident that in this symbiosis between Man and machine the individual loses his autarchy.

And so, it is no longer a question of rediscovering Man’s place in the cosmos, nor of reviving the old discussion on anthropomorphism and cosmocentrism. Since its first beginnings, science has believed it could destroy the anthropocentric idea of the world, but...