Avalon

K NO WIN G

Sunday, April 19, 2009

It was a timely option to watch "Knowing", yet another movie which basically perpetuates an Armageddon-like theme. For two reasons:

1. I realised that having taken "Understanding the universe" was actually a good choice, as it enables comprehension of certain topics discussed in the film, albeit the lack of in-depth knowledge.

2. Considering how the sweltering heat threatened to fry me today, the prophecy made in the film seems to be materialising in reality. Or it may be one of those possibilities.

With the end-of-the-world theories circulating around in a seemingly endless fashion, one would think we can't wait to predict our own annihilation. But it reminded me the fragility of our race, or our planet, because a superflare from the Sun just has to hit us and it will obliterate everything. How miraculous, at risk of bringing in the theatrics, it actually is to be able to live in a world teeming with life, when near to none exists in the vastness of the Galaxy, according to our understanding as of now.

The film takes a philosophical swing at sense of purpose. As mentioned in the film, two theories mainly exist in sharp contast. Determinism corresponds to a system for understanding everything that has and will occur in the system, based on the physical outcomes of causality, in which, every action, or cause, produces a reaction, or effect, and every reaction, in turn, becomes the cause of subsequent reactions. In short, a combination of things happening at a particular time will produce a particular outcome. On the other end of the scale, the randomness theory believes in a lack of order, cause and purpose, attributing events to a matter of coincidence, serving no particular meaning.

That life is a string of unrelated accidents and mistakes, and that our existence is a matter of coincidence, above everything. But even if one foresees the future with flawless accuracy, in a way making something that appears random to be actually something that is predictable, only restricted to say a limited audience, what will it mean if the future cannot be changed when everything is predetermined and we can only live through it, as if we are being directed by the winds behind us. Sometimes, knowing is not enough.

The saving grace is not the assurance of continuality, but our beliefs that carry us where we want to. And the purpose lies in reassurance.

Envoy of the Stars @ 1:25 AM
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