THE HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE

THE HISTORY OF KNOWLEDGE A Pointer to World’s End I T is generally regarded that the early phase of philosophy began in ancient Greece. Greek philosophers such as Aristotle and Plato (4th century BC) believed that matter was eternal, that is, matter has always existed and will remain so forever. Later, many great minds were born who achieved high renown in the field of philosophy. However, all of them regarded matter to be eternal in one form or another. But by the time scientific progress reached the first half of the 20th century this material concept of matter lost favour. New scientific developments could best be described in the words of the English physicist and astronomer, Sir James Jeans (1877-1946) as, “the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine.” (The Mysterious Universe) Under the material interpretation, the doctrine was developed that held there was no need to believe in the existence of an all-powerful creator like that of God. The existence of God that was hitherto accepted as an intellectual or theoretical need was redundant. This need was now being fulfilled by the eternity of matter itself. This implied that matter had created itself and the existence of everything else was the result of the physical and chemical activities of matter. In the first quarter of the twentieth century, the Big Bang theory was formulated and its development over the following years has made it the currently accepted model of how the universe began. According to this theory, the universe as we know it today began from an extremely dense, small and hot point of energy some 13.8 billion years ago. Matter, space and time all began when that point―a primeval superatom―suddenly expanded violently and exponentially in an event known as the Big Bang inflating to the cosmos that we know today. The Big Bang put an end to the ancient material interpretation of the universe. Now, from a purely academic or scientific point of view, it became possible to believe that there is a Creator of this universe and it is He who is controlling it and it is He who is responsible for its exceptionally purposeful functioning. Sir Isaac Newton (1643-1727) is regarded as the founder of modern science. In the years after Newton, there have been many discoveries in science that have both vindicated and rejected his work. One of these is the second law of thermodynamics also known as the law of entropy.