Reading Science Fiction and the inadequacy of our knowledge

I like Amy Tan, and about the resolution of identities. But I like Sci-Fi too - that genre of fiction that truly pushes the conception of man and who he is, in the face of technological changes. I think sci-fi writers are the real people who think seriously about the human condition and what it means.

But thats just my point of view.

I was going around the various bookstores, and I suddenly picked up 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', and Applebaum's Gulag. I'm not exactly sure why I bought these books, but I guess it was just a reflection of my desire to understand history.

I think it was then somewhere during this afternoon, that something hit me really badly. What we know, our knowledge, what we think we know, barely represents the thinnest topmost layer of everything that exists. The knowledge that all of us as individuals know - is barely like dust - that we know so little!

All the books that were lying out there, all the words and the texts - these things mean barely anything, if they mean anything at all! As I furiously twittered the whole afternoon - all that we know is really, truly, NOTHING. All the knowledge that we possess, is truly a chasing after the wind.

Our perception of knowledge, of reality, is so insignificant! And yet, there is a greater reality out there, a reality formed by our collective choices - a reality that is our collective consequences - the sum of the complex web of interactions and decisions. And there too, lies other things, of souls and spirits, flowing all around us. There is only so much that the human mind can grasp all at once, but there is still so much more!

All the data that we have, all the knowledge that we know, all of it is still insufficient to describe the reality that we live in. Sure, the sciences can take us somewhere there, but once will and decisions come into focus, everything changes. Before quantum uncertainty, classical chaos was already known.

So even as I engage in exploring this infinite-land of reality, in the study of sciences (chemistry) - despite all the insufficiencies of knowing barely anything at all... What is left?

The sense of humility of knowing that there is a God, who truly takes care of everything - and then the realisation, the barest, slightest, realisation, of the awesomeness of God.

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