Book and Author
Masood H. Kizilbash: Human Conflict with Nature
By Dr Ahmed S. Khan
Chicago, IL
“It is a great advantage that man should know his station and not erroneously imagine that the whole universe exists only for him” - Maimonides
The remnants of the great structures built by past civilizations are scattered all over the world, they remind the modern man of the might of their builders, and yet the modern man remains clueless how such grand structures were built. The past civilizations had their own state-of-the-art technology. In the 20th century, tremendous strides were made in science and technology, but at the cost of numerous conflicts with nature viz a viz environment.
Fast forward to 21st century, the emerging technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution (4IR) are now quietly and dramatically changing society; the way we interact with others, live, work, and educate our students at local, national, and international levels, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. Such changes are enabled by emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data, Internet of Things (IoT), Augmented Reality, Blockchain, Robotics, Drones, Nanotechnologies, Genomics & Gene Editing, Quantum Computing, and Smart Manufacturing. The fusion of these technologies is remaking the world at an unprecedented speed, but their unintended consequences on society are yet to be understood and evaluated fully. The natural world with equilibrium has ceased to exist, only to be found in history books.
Because of remarkable technological accomplishments, man develops a false sense of knowing all and having control over everything syndrome. But every now and then, events happen, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and recent immobilization of a mega container ship Ever Given in the Suez Canal, which seem to remind man of the limits of his knowledge and lack of control over events. It has been more than a year since the Covid-19 pandemic engulfed the globe, and yet countries have not managed to contain the pandemic as its third wave sweeps across a very divided world; vaccinated versus unvaccinated. Recently, one of the world’s longest mega container ships, Ever Given, weighing 220,000 tons remained stuck in the Suez Canal for a week, and all the world’s state-of-the-art technological tools could not do anything to refloat the ship. The helplessness and limits of science and technology remind one of the nursery rhymes Humpty Dumpty:
Humpty Dumpty (Ever Given) sat on a wall (Suez Canal)
Humpty Dumpty (Ever Given) had a great fall (got wedged)
All the king's horses (Technology) and all the king's men (Engineers)
Couldn't put Humpty (Ever Given) together again (refloat)
The Ever Given was finally dislodged. But it took a celestial event; the alignment of stars — sun, moon, and the Earth — to generate powerful tidal waves to dislodge Ever Given. These episodes of Covid-19 pandemic and Ever Given, are in fact, brief reminders, or memos from “The Boss,” reminding mankind who the real Superpower is, and Who is running the cosmos according to His will and Command. For men of knowledge and wisdom there are lessons to be learnt from such episodes regarding the limits of man’s knowledge and control over events.
Human Conflict with Nature by Masood H Kizilbash offers such an opportunity for men of knowledge to ponder over modes of epistemology viz a viz the grand scheme of things; the book surveys the origins of the Universe, evolution of civilizations towards their zenith and then decline, future of present civilization, and explores conflict between humans and nature viz a viz philosophy, religion, and science.
The author, an economist, has unique credentials to pen the book. He is a retired civil servant who held key positions in the federal government in the fields of public finance, planning and development, local governance, and social and human development. He represented the government of Pakistan as an expert at various international forums which included Commission for Social Development of the United Nations, New York (1997), World Bank, Washington (1998), and World Urban Forum of UN, Vancouver (2006).
After his retirement, he served as a Consultant/Adviser in the United Nations Development Program, Swiss International Development Agency, US Agency for International Development, and International Parliamentary, assisting various projects and producing a number of monographs. He also remained associated as a faculty member with Preston University and SAARC Human Development Centre, Islamabad. He has been a regular contributor of articles to daily DAWN, Karachi. He has also authored four books: Planning and Economic Controls, Education and National Development, Qur’an and The Art of Living, and Pakistan under Siege.
In the preface, the author states his rationale for writing the book, “I was a student at the University of Karachi pursuing my master’s degree in Economics, when my late father took us to India to see archaeological sites. While on a visit to Agra, I was wonder-struck by the grandeur and beauty of the structure. This prompted me to ask my late father how such a structure could be raised in the 16th century without earth-moving machinery, pulleys, and lifts of the modern age. A little surprised by my question, he replied that King Shah Jahan hired the services of the architects and engineers from Persia. They, with their technological expertise, built the Taj Mahal, which is one of the seven wonders of the modern world. His reply raised four questions in my mind:
The first was if humanity has succeeded in establishing the origin of the universe?
The second was how human life evolved on the earth and civilization emerged?
The third was how human societies grew and why they became extinct?
The fourth was what the fate of our civilization was?
In his quest for finding the answer to these questions, the author observes, “…I endeavored over the last forty years to enrich my knowledge…by laying hands on the books and literature and reading them as a student. The extended research work helped me conclude the topics, which are entirely different from the findings of eminent scholars and are considered valid even today. However, they are mostly based on assumptions and conjectures. I have attempted to controvert them in the nine chapters of this book and have come up with an entirely unorthodox theory.”
Renowned philosopher Syed Mohammed Taqi, in his book Essays in Philosophy, ponders over the concept of the Universe, “The whole speculative thought with all its diversifications of higher scientific and mathematical thinking, philosophical disquisitions and logical ratiocinations, ultimately concerns itself with what is most dubiously call the universe. Even artistic oddities, prodigies of belles-lettres, rare religious experiences, and theological eccentricities cannot possibly transgress this vague ontological limit, to wit, this universe. This universe which philosophy, from Thales to modern scientific giants, is trying to unravel, is as yet successful in keeping itself in a shroud of mystery and divulging not a whit of its cardinal secrets to an unbroken series of the finest and intellectual luminaries.”
To answer the first question regarding origins of the universe, the author observes, “The human endeavor to unravel the mystery of the origin of the universe dates back to 11,000 BC. The Greek philosophers and astronomers came up with the theory that the matter comprising four elements of fire, air, earth, and - a varying mixture - which was set in motion by the mind…The astronomers, philosophers, and scientists who followed the Greeks such as Nicolas Copernicus, Galileo, Lemaitre, Einstein, etc. until Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam G Reiss detected 50 distant supernovae attributed to an old compact star as massive as the sun. On this finding, they advanced the theory that the dominant force in creating the universe is not gravity but the Dark energy. According to them, what we call the universe consisting of planets, stars, galaxies, and all matter in space is only 4% of what is there. The rest is 73% dark energy and 23% Dark matter - dark because we cannot see it with any telescope. Following this theory, two scientists, namely, D Rosenberg and V Dwarkadas at Chicago University have formulated a new theory in December 2017 that our solar system was formed from wind-blown bubbles, formed out of a giant long-dead Wolf-Rayet star which was 40 to 50 times the size of our sun. The human search to unearth the origin of the universe continues to date. Still, we have failed to explain the power that created the first creation of a pebble-like formation or giant Wolf-Rayet star that exploded to form the universe. The origin of the universe remains shrouded in mystery…The assumption of an evolutionary theory of human life culminating in our modern and technologically advanced society comes into a dispute from the other two sources. The first is the wonders of the world of ancient civilizations as well as the past modern civilizations. The second is the descriptions of civilizations, such as that of Prophets David and Solomon in the Holy Scriptures. Both believe the assumption of an evolutionary process of human civilization on the earth, as recorded by our historians. There is a strong possibility of the existence of the civilizations technologically surpassing our modern civilization.”
After discussing the various theories presented by Ibn Khaldun, Arnold Jared Diamond about the growth and collapse of civilizations, the author discusses the theories presented by Francis Fukuyama and Niall Ferguson. The author believes that the classical theories reveal to us an account of the causes of growth and decay of empires rather than civilizations since they failed to distinguish between civilizations and empires, it is because of the shortcomings of the theories that when confronted with the question of stunted growth and extinction of small civilizations, they have no lucid explanation to suggest rather than blaming the natural disasters. Furthermore, the author believes that as scientific knowledge evolves and new theories take form, the basic questions remain unanswered about the origins of the universe.
Expounding on the second question about the origin of human life on earth and the emergence of civilizations, the author states, “The existing literature on the subject admits that before the emergence of two sciences, namely, archaeology and geology in the nineteenth century, the two questions remained in the hands of saints and mystics of the times to spin the fables. However, the archaeologists have excavated some two and half dozen civilizations since the nineteenth century. With the study of the remains and artefacts, rocks, and fossils, history has been deduced about these civilizations. These deductions do not appear to be credible for three counts. Firstly, there may be thousands of civilizations buried under land and sea, which are still lying unexcavated. Secondly, scientists hold the view that human life on the earth surfaced some half a million ago. However, the civilizations unearthed are of the past 2,000 years. As such, the timeframe is too limited to conclude the emergence of life and civilizations. Thirdly, the sites of the civilization may not represent the entire features as some parts of it may be lying unexcavated. Fourthly, the features of the old civilizations, based as they are on such weak scientific foundations and recorded by our historians, are based on presumptions, surmises, assumptions, and conjectures. This is self-evident from their own expressions in history books bequeathed by them to us. The history regarding the process of emergence of human beings on the earth and human societies can best be described as speculative because it is not based on scientific facts. The key to truth for life on the earth and the emergence of civilizations remains a mystique.”
Exploring the third question pertaining to the motive for mankind's persistent effort to unlock the mystery of the universe and to excavate old civilizations, the author states, “Such efforts in the backdrop of past failures cannot be ascribed to the purely inquisitive nature of humans. It inheres in the basic life and death instincts, which unlike other living and non-living objects, are not mechanical or unintentional but are dictated by the human mind and are, therefore, intentional to attain a goal. In primitive societies, humans lived in caves to secure their lives and invented axes and other equipment not only to fight rapacious animals but also to hunt them to sustain physical life not only of themselves but also their families, raised out of their sexual instinct. Thus, self-preservation and sexual instincts were two cardinal features of primitive societies. However, these societies were not bereft of civil discords and battles because of human greed to nurture the body and stave off the fear of death. Plato-the pupil of Socrates- explains the trait of greed: ‘Men are not content with a simple life: they are acquisitive, ambitious competitive, and jealous; they soon tire of what they have, and pine for what they have not, and they seldom desire anything unless it belongs to others. The result is the encroachment of one group upon the territory of another, the rivalry of groups for the resources of soil, and then war. Trade and finance develop and bring new class divisions.’ With the march of civilization towards technology-based modern society, self-preservation or greed instinct has overpowered the societies inhabiting the globe. The phenomenon is well articulated by Eric R. Pianka: ‘Greed is a natural human instinct-we are all selfish and greedy at heart, and for sound revolutionary reasons. Humans invented money and institutionalized runaway greed, allowing others to become billionaires-what sense does it make to have more than you can actually use?’ The motive of the humans to excavate the lands and oceans is to find treasures of old extinct civilizations and to explore space is to find natural resources in one planet or the other It is all greed-driven. Had it not been so, developed countries of the world will not be competing with one another and spending their wealth on these meaningless projects.”
The Qur’an also presents the factors that contributed to the rise and fall of civilizations and states the might they possessed: They were far superior to you in might and more abundant in wealth and children… (Qur’an 9:69), They were far superior in might… (Qur’an 3:09).
Discussing the fourth question related to the destiny of our technology-based modern civilization in the context of lessons learned from the study of old civilizations and the features of our civilization, the author observes, “With our knowledge of the origins of the universe, the origin of human life and societies, and the nature of all living and nonliving things mired in ignorance, a prediction of the future of our civilization required an explanation of their origin. Our scientists, anthropologists, astronomers, and philosophers have failed to provide a definite answer as to the ‘origins’ despite our knowledge of the organization of matter, gravitation, electric phenomenon, chemical combinations, the pressure of air, advanced telescopes, satellites, and spacecraft. Concerning the actual origin of the universe or the earth, we have several theories or rather hypotheses based upon few facts; as for the emergence of human life on the earth and human societies, it is all conjecture- based…My search to find an explanation of the origins led me to conclude that the universe and all living and non-living objects are interlinked in unity and the wise power that created the universe allotted things their times put together their variations, gave them their properties, and determined their features to create a perfect balance or equilibrium…a perfect equilibrium in the universe forms the fundamental point in my prognosis about the future of our technology-based modern civilization.”
Expounding on the future of our civilization, the author states, “In order to predict the future of our civilization, the most fundamental point to consider is whether our civilization embodies the same symptoms as in old civilizations that brought about their disaster. The fact of matter is that despite the views of the modern school of thought of the end of history with the West (US) as the end product of the human history of civilizations and not subject to any decline, there is a commonality in the symptoms of old and our civilization. Both rely on technology as a recipe to satisfy their desires to amass wealth out of the greed instinct. The old societies relied, as much as we do, on the instrument of technology to acquire superiority in military, economic, and communication fields. This is borne out by the history of civilizations when turned into empires. Their obsession with progress finally led them to extinction ….The symptoms such as brazen exploitation of natural resources, degradation of the environment and climate, weapons development to conquer the territory of other civilizations, inequality in income and wealth, and absence of the rule of law existed in old civilizations, which caused their decay. Nobody can deny that the seed of the same systems exists in our civilization …. The past civilizations succumbed to their goal of self-glorification. Our civilization pursuing the same goal to bypass nature and natural laws that are intrinsically embedded in auto-correcting mode to restore equilibrium in the universe may befall on us from underneath the land below or from the sky or from direct war with lethal weapons between civilizations. Its magnitude will not be limited to one civilization or the other but will be global on account of the close integration of civilizations, wrought by our phenomenal progress in science and technology.”
Human Conflict With Nature is an interesting read, it provides food for thought for readers interested in exploring the origins of the universe, evolution and zenith of various civilizations and their decay, and predictions about the future. The book also contains five appendices: Creation of Universe according to the Bible, Creation of Universe according to the Holy Qur’an, Rio Declaration on Environment and Development, Key Messages of Global Assessment Report on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, and Communique of Anti-Corruption Summit. It is a good resource for students of various arts and scientific domains such as History, Philosophy, Anthropology, Environmental Sciences, Social Sciences, Comparative Religions, and Science Technology and Society (STS).
(Dr Ahmed S. Khan – dr.a.s.khan@ieee.org – is Fulbright Specialist Scholar, 2017-2022)
