Science Emphasizes Life and Peace

Every single one of us as human beings has an outlook on life. That outlook influences our code, and our code eventually determines our behaviors and our attitudes towards life. We are all in a way philosophers, every parent is a philosopher, and the advice they give their children is their philosophy, and their outlook on life.

Our outlook on life is 100% determined by our knowledge, all experience is knowledge. Our knowledge is 100% determined by our past relationships up to a second ago. Thus, our outlook on life is constantly changing according to the relationships we are experiencing.

Our experiences include a variety of relationships, and these relationships include what we read and what we think about. Every human when they read a piece of work has the right to think about the meanings behind what they have read, the meanings behind it all.

When one reads the doctrines of war, one must ponder around these doctrines of war, and what does it all mean for myself and humanity in general. When we talk of doctrines of war, to fully comprehend them we must not only understand battle tactics, but what led to the war, what led to the alliances, what led to alliances collapsing, what led to victory, and what led to the return of war, then one understands war from a theoretical perspective, but it prepares one to enter that field.

We are talking about those who want to understand, they say a more complete human being exposes themselves to as much knowledge as possible, advice from others and their experiences. Our experiences come from our actions, and the stories we have heard. We were not there when the first compass was invented in China, but we can read about it.

We were not there when Genghis Khan fought his battles, but we can read about them and be weary and look at his tactics and admire them for their time. We admire the Spartans 300 standing against the many hundreds of thousands of Persia. We understand Mzilikazi as he stood with his 500 against 40 000 equally armed, when it came down to the pure understanding of the battlefield, what happened at Midway during World War 2.

When one reads about economics, they should seek answers and questions to what they are reading. Why are some economies advancing and others seem to be running at the same spot whilst the same number of calories is being spent on looking for food as in the countries that are constantly progressing? To be a competent economist one must accept the evidence in front of them about how human beings given certain socio-economic systems perform in terms of participating in the modern economy. Each system rewards different types of activities differently. What principles does each system adhere to? What price is everybody paying, others earn $10 a day others $200 a day, how are they both living from paycheck to check yet one society can keep on advancing, that is what a concerned economist would do.

When one looks into the law, the law of the land, what does it represent? Who are the beneficiaries, one looks at the different systems of laws, all lands are about laws. You can not shit in the middle of the street in any society, anybody suggesting they alone are the people with laws is not really to be too trusted, they are denying reality in front of them with another agenda.

Merely looking at the law tells the powers and structures of a society, are all equal in front of the law, does the law say that if one commits a murder be they the lowliest or the highest will they get the same punishment. Even if the law says that what happens in practice, a law is only worth what it is in practice. Understanding this should affect one's outlook on life, what is happening.

All disciplines are like that, when one reads them and more importantly when they practice them one wants their fundamental answers, how did this affect human behavior, human thinking, in what ways does this affect how society operates, but what is the overall meaning, how much can I comprehend from this. What outlook does science give us about humanity's very existence? As a reader in any discipline, if you have the time, and you believe you have new insights you have to write and tell others what you think.

Science is more than just coming up with a theory and proving it with an experiment though that is the greatest achievement one can achieve in pure science. To appreciate science, one must look at as many scientific facts as possible and ask, what do they mean. What do they tell us about the human condition, and what do they suggest about the mode of living for humans?

Knowledge is supposed to help one with their outlook on life, let us not say life, but the reality of things. In life one does not need to accept the realities of the universe to get food, but, for the betterment of us all one needs to look at the facts that knowledge puts out there. One can either accept these facts or reject them. This podcast is for those that deal in facts and then establish for themselves a philosophy, a way of life around these truths.

Getting a theory and proving it with an experiment will always be the greatest achievement in pure science, a greater achievement than any qualification, than attending any so-called special institutions of higher learning, don’t cry, just the truth about science. But that achievement of an individual or team in the totality is but a drop on how we have got here, and more importantly, what does it all mean besides giving us material stuff. Remember you are a human, what does all this mean concerning a human being, what is a human, and what is the human’s role?

Let us take fire, we are talking of science and how science suggests peace, so why not start with fire, the control of fire was a scientific mind, accepting facts this is how to control it. Creating fire was a great scientific endeavor, and it has spread with humans wherever they go.

Fire is a big deal; it was our truly first taming of potentially dangerous radiation. The heat coming from fire is photons, like any other form of heat. The quality of heat comes only from a photon, temperature is just about how many photons are being released. All heat is thus a quantum phenomenon.

Though we are fast approaching the end of the age of fire to pure quantum heat and power, fire has powered our existence for over 200 millennia. Fire allowed us to cook food, thus nutrition that was previously unavailable was available to a human. Cooked sorghum or rice is easier to eat than if it is not cooked. Not only does cooked meat taste better, but it will last a little longer. Boiled water from a stagnant pool of water is far safer than water that is not boiled.

Fire helped preserve our food, we could smoke our food. Preserving food meant our energy source could last through the lean times.

Originally fire was just for warmth and cooking. But even then, we understood that fire burns and can be destructive if not handled with care. It could burn the whole hut down. Our ancestors from long back realized that fire could burn the hut down if not handled with care, meaning it could burn down the hut of those they saw as competitors on purpose.

With time, with much patience and observation, our ancestors realized that fires could be used to heat the earth and smelt metals. They would look at the rocks and understand which rocks likely had metals, then they understood the patterns of the rocks, humans have historically been smelting metals for a long time, thousands of years. But they could only smelt metals by understanding the rock formations and the seams in the rocks. Think about it, all those who looked for metals, be they in Africa, Asia, Europe, or America, all understood how to find metals in the rocks the seams. Thus, that sword or spear in Africa is created by a mind, a mind that first understood the seams in the rocks just as a human in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, or the Americas, we all understood how to find metals, culture did the rest.

The above is just something for you to think about, let us continue to discuss the thought, the idea that science suggests peace. Our ancestors realized that fire could not only cook but burn, must have also realized the fire can burn the next homestead and take stuff from that village. Once burnt down to survive, what could the next homestead do, go into the wild or submit, submission assured food?

But what we are missing is the reality that the next homestead also had the fire. They chose not to use it in such a manner. But just as important the original homestead that burnt down the next homestead understood that the next homestead has fire, they also can understand the complete uses of fire.  They are cooking, cooking takes fire, they have the fire.

Must reiterate, fire is a big deal, true we are leaving the age of fire to the quantum, but it is the fire that introduced us to the quantum, fire is radiation, and that is what causes the heat, all heat is a photon, only a photon has the quality of giving heat, you can put a trillion electrons they will never have the quality of giving heat unless there is some sort of relationship that releases a photon. Everything you see around you is from the heat fire creates the photons that are released from burning things.

Just think about the device you are using to listen to this podcast. It has plastic that comes from fire distilling crude oil. There are all types of metals that come from smelters. There is silicone from heat acting on sand, just from understanding what fire can do.

To burn the next village with fire is to understand that the next village is occupied by human beings, one must realize that if they organize, they too will be able to burn down your homestead. Organizing is not just retaliation, but it is about having the means to retaliate.

The mere act of having lookouts is because one recognizes that their enemy is human. They can do and achieve exactly what you can do and achieve, if you can use fire to smelt more iron for more spears, they too can accelerate the production of spears.

Humans have understood that for a long time, why has it taken atomic weapons for people to understand that we are all humans dealing with each other and should be civil to one another. Science delivers life and convenience and delivers death when weaponized. People go to war if there is no incentive not to go to war. The other society having as most destructive weapons as the other society is a great incentive not to go to war, not to rob others of their resources and opportunities, any society can organize itself and get atomic bombs, why? because we are all human beings equally capable given how a society is organized.

As a young man, one believed that why waste money on atomic bombs instead of making sure the people eat. Older and wiser every society needs an atom bomb, or be invaded, everybody needs to be armed or be constantly robbed, it is as simple as that, societies need an incentive not to go to war, to rob, it is just the way humans are.

Science itself has always warned us of the dangers. The funny thing is everybody knows we are all just human beings. It was illegal for European settlers to give guns to natives or for natives to have guns. Right there that tells you settlers knew the natives are equally capable, but after banning natives from having guns they would insult them as inferior beings. Such hypocrisy. Equal access to good education changes things. From that day over 100 000 years ago when villagers started putting out guards and lookouts, they knew they were dealing with humans equally capable, but the nature of the human being is such that only when all are equally armed will sciences call for peace be heeded.

Peace is not just a lack of state of war, it is not just about one not being robbed by the powers that be because they cannot organize cohesive armed resistance to being robbed, peace is about a healthy environment. Clean water, uncontaminated food, and a healthy ecosystem in general so that the cycles in the environment can remain suitable for human habitability.

Science has given us the tools for best practices for our ecosystem. Better farming practices, better mining practices, and better housing that is more in tune with greater efficiency in terms of use of comforts so that there is less load on things that can disturb the cycles in the environment. That is part of peace. However, we must understand that things have always changed and to be at peace is also to be able to deal with the changes.

Peace also comes from inside, one can not be at peace internally if they refuse the evidence in front of them. Doing this means others will also refuse evidence in front of them to get their way or merely just to survive, they are human beings too. It is the rejection of the evidence in front of us that we are all human beings, all a result of random relationships. These random relationships have led us all to where we are right now whether we deserve it, or we do not deserve it. Rejecting this reality, we are at war because we are not at peace with ourselves, we reject the other as human, and we lie to ourselves with all the evidence.

As humans, we all need food to give us energy which most struggle to get, waking up at 3, 4, or 5 in the morning for most is not coming easy. We need shelter, it too doesn't come easy for most. We need our space to thrive as individuals, to thrive as communities. A community with no space can not thrive. Space includes land most of all. We never learn as humans.

May we strive for life and peace for all. 

Bhekuzulu Khumalo

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