Migraine Shuts My Door

A Migraine Shuts My Door on a Setting Sun

By John Taylor; 2007 January 24

I had a migraine on Monday, the first for many months. I drank water until I almost burst, but nothing could keep the burrowing brain worm away from my cranium. Afterwards I felt a strange exhilaration, a not uncommon feeling for those with brainstorm illnesses, like epilepsy, etc; it was as if I had been through a ringer squeezing out all my hopes and vain illusions on life, leaving in their place only an ineffable relief. My conscience for a long time was a drop of water sitting on an absorbent cloth, slowly disappearing into nothing. Ecstasy wrapped in an agony. Which raised the question, what if migraine, and indeed all illnesses, are ways for the human intelligence to explore alternative universes? What if there is an AIDS and a multiple dystrophy universe, a migraine dimension, where people who get the affliction act as astronauts? Are we sent by our Creator to explore unique head-spaces on behalf of the collective consciousness of the human race? Are we expanding it all by our pain? Is that what Baha'u'llah means when He says in this prayer,

"Every vexation borne for love of Thee is a token of Thy mercy unto Thy creatures, and every ordeal suffered in Thy path is but a gift from Thee bestowed on Thy chosen ones." (Prayers and Meditations, 219)

Could the mentally ill and the retarded have a gift that goes not only to them but to all, are they exploring, rooting up spiritual discoveries that otherwise would not be available? Are they somehow charging up spiritual generators that churn away somewhere fueling creativity among scientists, artists and other creative minds in healthy bodies? We have no way of knowing, but for some reason this morning my thoughts turned to the question of life on other planets.

In October of 2000 I wrote an essay for the month of Ilm called "On History's Greatest Breakthrough in Knowledge." In it I speculated about Baha'u'llah's incontrovertible statement that there are planets around every sun and that there is life on every planet. In the few years since I wrote that essay much has happened to make it obsolete. Many, many more planets have been discovered orbiting many other suns. Last year a new phrase entered the language, "shadow biosphere," meaning, according to the "jargon watch" column of Wired Magazine,

"Alternative microbial life that evolved from chemistry entirely unknown to modern science and is undetectable by conventional genetic methods. Some astrobiologists theorize that chemical anomalies detected on Mars may be evidence of a shadow biosphere -- and that there might even be shadow biospheres here on earth." (Wired, May 2006, p. 40)

It was speculated that there may have been life in the form of a shadow biosphere on or around the moon and Mars but that our space probes, carrying the Earth's more advanced microbes as stowaways, may have snuffed them out. Whether that is true only time will tell. For Baha'is, this raises the possibility that Baha'u'llah was literally correct in saying that every planet has life.

After I put out the essay I got the highest complement I can imagine, a friendly response from a Baha'i scientist with a NASA email address. Others shared disconcerting quotes from the Master and the Guardian showing that they did not agree with my thesis there that Baha'u'llah may have been quoting Epicurus. They took it as a prophesy that will be born out by scientific discoveries. And indeed, just that seems to be on the verge of happening.

Is the essay was totally obsolete or does some value still stand? I went over it this morning, making minor corrections. I am still not entirely certain so I will share it again on this list and let you be the judge. It is not often that I write about hard-core science, though it is my first love. When low marks forced me to take an Arts degree I consoled myself that if I had studied science most of what I learned would be obsolete in a few decades, but the knowledge I got from philosophy, literature and languages would be still valid in my sunset years. Now that I am fifty I see how silly this consolation was. In two decades you forget every iota anyway, so it is moot whether it becomes obsolete or not. As Shakespeare said, "Men shut their doors on a setting sun." (And no, I came across that lately, not when I was in college studying Shakespeare)

On History's Greatest Breakthrough in Knowledge

Month of 'Ilm Essay, 2000, 157 BE

"Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute." (Gleanings, 162-163)

They (enemies of the Baha'i Faith) put this statement up to ridicule. It is nonsensical, they say, because the moon and other planets are known to be devoid of life, utterly uninhabitable and only a few stars have been found with planets. How can Baha'u'llah know what He is talking about?

... Baha'u'llah here seems to be talking as much about religious and secular ways of knowing things as about exobiology and cosmology. He seems to be preparing us for the revolutions in knowing things that we are beginning to encounter, especially the greatest of all, far greater even than computers and the Internet, that is, our inevitable encounter with other intelligences in the universe. I think the Baha'i Writings are so matter of fact about the existence of life beyond earth in part because the idea was so well foreshadowed in the Qu'ran.

Here is the full paragraph containing Baha'u'llah's answer to an unknown question in Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah,

"Thou hast, moreover, asked Me concerning the nature of the celestial spheres. To comprehend their nature, it would be necessary to inquire into the meaning of the allusions that have been made in the Books of old to the celestial spheres and the heavens, and to discover the character of their relationship to this physical world, and the influence which they exert upon it.  Every heart is filled with wonder at so bewildering a theme, and every mind is perplexed by its mystery. God, alone, can fathom its import. The learned men, that have fixed at several thousand years the life of this earth, have failed, throughout the long period of their observation, to consider either the number or the age of the other planets. Consider, moreover, the manifold divergences that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men. Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute." (Gleanings, 162-163)

Clearly, it would be very useful to know what the original question was to which Baha'u'llah was responding here. Did it have to do with astrology? If so the purport of the above would be quite different from what it would be if the question was, "What are the stars and planets (celestial spheres) made of?" Most people - enemies and perplexed believers alike - assume that the latter was the original question. But if so, why does Baha'u'llah say that you must inquire into the "Books of old" in order to understand the answer? Would it not make more sense to say, "Look into the most modern and powerful telescope you can find," in order to answer that particular question?

Since the Guardian chose to capitalize the word "Books" (the original did not, since the Persian and Arabic languages do not have capital letters, or even punctuation at the time) his interpretation seems to be that the discussion is about the allusions to celestial spheres in not just any books of the past but in holy scripture. In that case the question may have been, "Why do the Bible and Qu'ran talk about strange celestial phenomena like stars falling out of the sky? For example Qu'ran 82:1-5,

"When the heaven is cleft asunder, when the planets are dispersed ... A soul will know what it hath sent before (it) and what left behind."

The original question could have been, What is the nature of a celestial sphere that can be "dispersed?" Or it may have been a request to clarify a passage like the following, which seems to place the planets into a "heaven" closest to the earth, one somehow related to protection from evil:

"Lord of the heavens and of the earth and all that is between them, and Lord of the sun's risings. Lo! We have adorned the lowest heaven with an ornament, the planets: With security from every froward devil." (Qu'ran 37:5-7, Pickthall)

Unlike earlier scriptures the Qu'ran seems to assume that life is everywhere. It repeatedly states that the human race is expendable.

"But nay! I swear by the Lord of the rising places and the setting places of the planets that We are Able to replace them by (others) better than them. And We are not to be outrun." (Q70:40-2) "If He will, He can remove you, O people, and produce others (in your stead). Allah is Able to do that." (Q4:133) "We, even We, created them, and strengthened their frame. And when We will, We can replace them, bringing others like them in their stead." (Q76:28, tr. Pickthall, cf. also Q9:39)

This could of course mean that other Arab tribes would take the place of those who had become Muslims; or that other cultures would take their place (such as the Indians and Indonesians who in modern times both have more Muslims than there are Arabs); or other species on this planet, such as the development of intelligence in other species like insects or lizards. This is a familiar theme of science fiction. But it could well mean that there is intelligent life on other planets already. Such life would have to exist already if it is to perform God's wishes in place of a human race that refuses to do so. Otherwise it would take billions of years for life to evolve and longer still for intelligent life to come about.

But then in our quote Baha'u'llah goes on to say that the "character of their (celestial spheres) relationship to this physical world and the influence which they exert upon it" is a mystery that only God can know. This refers to a link of some sort between us and celestial bodies. At first this seems to back up our original speculation that the query was about astrology. But it says "physical world." This opposes celestial to the physical. In that case the inquiry would have been something like, "What is the nature of the next world, of heaven, life after death, and how does it affect this life?" If that were the case Baha'u'llah's answer could be paraphrased as: look into how scripture talks about celestial spheres that influence our physical world. The real relation they have to this world is a mystery.

This may have been the root of the analogy that 'Abdu'l-Baha (one of His titles is "Mystery of God) often applied between the physical world with planets circling around a sun and the supreme Manifestation of God Who like a sun dominates and sustains our souls circling around. Thus in question may have been the Qu'ranic story of the prophetic dream of Joseph - a prefiguring of Baha'u'llah,

"When Joseph said unto his father: O my father! Lo! I saw in a dream eleven planets and the sun and the moon, I saw them prostrating themselves unto me." (Q12:4, tr: Pickthall)

However, the phrasing of the earlier reference to the "meaning of the allusions" in scripture could also obliquely to refer to a definition given in the Qu'ran of the role, nature and importance of metaphor in scripture. This passage also states that only God knows the real meanings.

"He it is Who has sent down to thee the Book: In it are verses basic or fundamental (of established meaning); they are the foundation of the Book: others are allegorical. But those in whose hearts is perversity follow the part thereof that is allegorical, seeking discord, and searching for its hidden meanings, but no one knows its hidden meanings except God. And those who are firmly grounded in knowledge say: `We believe in the Book; the whole of it is from our Lord:' and none will grasp the Message except men of understanding." (Qu'ran 3:7, M. H. Shakir)

Thus the Qu'ran severely upbraids those early Muslim opponents and their allies who intentionally seek to twist allegorical allusions to destroy unity among believers. Similarly Baha'u'llah, by echoing this passage, may be saying that only God really understands the tie between physical celestial bodies and allegorical ones. He may thereby be foreshadowing and preparing for the inevitable rethinking of scholars' understanding of scripture that will result when ubiquitous life in the universe is discovered (the chemical building blocks of life have already been found to be very common in space, for example in the composition of asteroids).

Then Baha'u'llah goes on to talk cosmology. Now clearly it is science and materiality, not scripture, that is being discussed.

"The learned men, that have fixed at several thousand years the life of this earth, have failed, throughout the long period of their observation, to consider either the number or the age of the other planets."

The savants, He points out, gave a limited number and a fixed date on the history of the planets and stars. However, Baha'u'llah elsewhere states that cosmology is indeterminate. The universe's beginning has no beginning, and the end no end. These thinkers, by contrast, assume that the planets and stars came about in a short, or at least computable time span. Being stuck in this finite and bounded presupposition, they have theorized and observed for a long time, but still cannot agree among themselves. For an "exact" science, lack of agreement upon basics is fatal. It reduces a purported science to mythology.

"Consider, moreover, the manifold divergences that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men."

Then comes the statement at issue, that every non-binary star has planets and every planet has life.

"Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute."

On the face of it this is a very risky thing to say. All it takes is one planetless sun or one lifeless planet to prove it false. There are trillions of stars and undoubtedly many more planets. With so many to choose from the chances are very great that at least one case will someday be found to disprove the whole statement.

By the criterion set up by philosopher of science Karl Popper, the falsifiability of this statement qualifies it as a scientific theory. Religious writing, he says, is concerned with questions about why, not how. Questions about how, specifically propositions that can be falsified are the sole qualification and concern of scientific theories. You do come across falsifiable statements from time to time in Baha'i holy Writ but I agree with Popper that this is only incidental to their main concern. Any science there is in scripture is meant only to help along the main purpose, answering questions like why we are here, what God is about, what God wants for us, and so forth. It is unusual to see a scientific theory put forward by Baha'u'llah Himself, especially one so clearly falsifiable as this.

I suspected that there was more to this quote than met the eye but this is as far as I got on the point until recently when I came across the following in a review of a book called "Probability 1: Why There Must Be Intelligent Life in the Universe" by Amir D. Aczel,

"The idea [of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe] is very old; Aczel quotes Epicurus (341-270 BC) as saying there are many worlds, all with `living creatures and plants and other things we see in the world.'" (Scientific American, February 2000, p. 104)

This citation from Epicurus seemed so close to Baha'u'llah's statement that I began to wonder if He was in fact intentionally quoting Epicurus. It is not unusual for Baha'u'llah, in conformity with the conventions of the time and place in which He lived, to paraphrase and even quote word for word other writers without acknowledgement or footnotes. So, let us cite yet again the last two sentences of our paragraph from Gleanings:

"Consider, moreover, the manifold divergences that have resulted from the theories propounded by these men [i.e. ancient savants who calculated the earth to be only a few thousand years old]. Know thou that every fixed star hath its own planets, and every planet its own creatures, whose number no man can compute."

There seems to be quite a gap between the first and second sentence here. In order for the second sentence to follow logically the same theme as the first you could assume an interposition like: Epicurus for example said, "Know thou..." Or: If you have to choose among these conflicting theories those on the side of ubiquitous life in the universe were closest to being right, for example ancient writers like Epicurus who said, "Know thou ..." But this ignores what went before. If we assume that the original question was something like, "What is the influence of other celestial worlds on our world?" The implications of Baha'u'llah's overall answer could be paraphrased thus:

`There are many other worlds and they are greater in number and have been around longer than it is possible to calculate. Life has evolved everywhere, so you cannot understand how fate works in homocentric terms. The universe does not revolve around this planet; our fate is not astrologically tied to heavenly bodies in any way we can understand or systematize. The tie that celestial bodies have to us is real but obscure to all but God. It works through and by God, not directly from the spheres to us. The answer is only confused by looking at it in terms of scientific theories which must ultimately contradict (though some, like the theory put forward by Epicurus, come pretty close to hitting the nail on the head). The best way is to look at the allegories in scripture which are intended to draw out what is most important: not that the universe is homocentric but that God has a clear purpose for us and that it is comprehensible. We should first ask God why before we get confused with scientific questions of how or, more important in view of the astrological error, confuse questions of why with questions of how.'

So, after coming across this saying of Epicurus here is where my present understanding on this very challenging paragraph by Baha'u'llah rests. Needless to say, this is only my personal speculation and carries no authority as an interpretation -- even for myself.

It is universally agreed that the discovery of life on other planets will be the most revolutionary breakthrough in knowledge in human history. If and when the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (the SETI project) uncovers life humans will come across knowledge for the first time conditioned by other intelligences. Computers and the Web fade in comparison because they are advances in scientific and technical questions of `how.' Communication with extraterrestrial intelligence will affect `why' as well as `how.'

For example, it would surely have a tremendous impact upon believers if extraterrestrials turn out to be atheists. Conversely, it would shake unbelievers to the core should other forms of life accept the existence of a Deity. Surprisingly, the Qu'ran seems in some way to call upon this authority,

"I call to witness the planets, the stars which rise and set, ... That this is in truth the word of an honored messenger, Mighty, established in the presence of the Lord of the Throne, (One) to be obeyed, and trustworthy; And your comrade is not mad." (Qu'ran 81:15-22, tr: Pickthall)

Is it prophesying a challenge where knowledge from "the planets" will vindicate the guidance that scripture has given humanity throughout history? Is Baha'u'llah's prediction that life will be found everywhere a continuation of this theme?