Moving on from that relation, I would like to open a small window onto the meaning of literature as I understand it. However, I must first beg that my readers pardon my humble statements on a subject that is in fact beyond my ability, and that they judge this essay not on how it stands, but for the good intentions with which it was written. I should confess that just as I and people like me with narrow horizons cannot judge matters even in our own field properly, so too is it very difficult for us to express other matters very clearly, even when we may have judged them correctly. And I think this is generally true of all who tackle this topic. For instance, after Imam Shafii had personally corrected his book Kitab al-Umm, and afterwards still others had repeatedly corrected it, he found that certain points still bothered him. He raised his hands to God and admitted that no book can be faultless, except for divine revelations.

Even the enchanting states inspired by the most magnificent pieces of writing, the greatest works of art, the most eloquent words, and the most dazzling conceptions which are not based on divine speech and are not illumined with the shining of His light have a completely relative beauty. And even if they hold any value in terms of being a reflection or an echo of the beauties He possesses, they can hold absolutely no individual value of their own.

Nevertheless, this reality should never dishearten us or paralyze our determination to work. We should always think, speak, plan, try to realize what we have planned, and while doing all this, we should never forget that we can occasionally make mistakes, that very often we can fall into error. This is natural; as soon as we recognize them, we will correct them, try to compensate for our shortcomings and stick to seeking the best possible alternative. Our decisions may not always be accurate, but we will try to fulfill what divine wisdom requires of us by implementing our human capacity for understanding and judgment (ijtihad).

So these humble contemplations must be seen in the same way. Speech was born with humanity, developed with humanity, and it constitutes a very significant depth of being human. So speech reached its contemporary level of maturity through history after having been repeatedly distilled through countless filters of thought and fashioned by masters of words, and then became what we now call literature. In this respect, it can be argued that the present moment of literature is brighter than its past, thus it can also be said that so too its future will be brighter than the present, or at least it should be so. As Said Nursi explains, human beings will eventually turn completely toward knowledge (ilm) so that they will derive their power from knowledge. As a result the ultimate say will pass into the hands of knowledge. At the stage when knowledge shows such a level of development, the command of language and eloquence, reaching its peak, will outweigh all other values. Possibly, in such a period, in order to make others accept their ideas, people will use language as a weapon, try to penetrate hearts through their facility with language and conquer souls with the charm of literature.

The reality of knowledge and speech manifested only concisely in Adam and it reached its most brilliant form with the Final Prophet, yielded its awaited fruit, and became fully realized in the Qur’an. Now, if the world is going to last any longer, in the years ahead, while knowledge reaches its peak, language too will rise to the rank of the interpreter of knowledge in almost all circles, accompanied by the most powerful of orators and richest of speeches voicing the truth.

The power of expression, which is always nourished and develops in the bosom of need and necessity, will flourish in this environment for one last time, make its voice heard as powerfully as it can. If you will, you could also say this will be the reliving of the Age of the Qur’an in its most mature state, an Age of the Qur’an where love of truth and love of knowledge, where zeal to understand and passion to explain, where human values and their appreciation will live alongside one another. Incidentally, I would like to underline one point: future architects of thought and masters of language should do whatever they can to protect and honor the power of expression, for it has fallen into the incapable hands of people like us. They should untie its tongue, so that it can voice our own world of thoughts. Otherwise, it is obvious that we will keep on hearing the cawing of crows where we expect to hear the singing of nightingales; we will not be able to be free of the distress of thorns on the way to roses.

The power of speech and refinement of eloquence have always developed, found its proper consistency, and come to maturity in the realm of literature and under the tutelage of literary thought. However, it is also very important what we understand-or we are supposed to understand-when literary thought or literature is mentioned.

Human beings have always expressed their feelings, thoughts, and the inspirations of their heart through cinema, theatre, and symbolic painting, along with oral or written literature. When the subject extends beyond spoken or written language, naturally gesture, facial expression, sounds and other means replace words and sentences. Even so, they have never been able to truly substitute for speech and writing. The most reliable way for a people to preserve their literature and make it flourish in its own framework and fertile ground is to put it into a written form. This turns it into a common source to which individuals may refer to at any time. It allows it to become as widely accessible as possible, paving the way for it to become the national style of an entire society, the nation’s shared property. It thus becomes a field of exposition for future generations, an exhibition ground of verbal excellence, and a trust to the common conscience, guarded by national memory and perpetuating its own origin.

In this respect, we have always sought literature in the magical world of written or spoken words and always realized our acquaintance and encounters with it among the pages of books and magazines. Whatever style is adopted in recounting a given subject – whether the work produced is approached with an artistic concern or expressed in a plain style, whether a small, select audience is targeted or large crowds are addressed – when literature is mentioned, what comes first to mind is the written word.

It does not make any difference whether the subject of a piece of literature is religion, an idea, philosophy, or doctrine; literature is one of the most important ways that humans can transfer the accumulation of knowledge they have gained through history from one generation to another. Through it they can sense all the depths and richness of yesterday in the present. They see the past and present as two dimensions of reality, and savor the future in its relative depth.

Furthermore, believers should firstly be faithful to their heritage and refer to it frequently, as much as they embrace universal human values. They should emphasize the essence of their common conscience and take it as an essential constituent. They should use this heritage as the canvas for the embroidery in which they depict their literary feelings and understanding of art, so that they do not destroy the spirit of their own literature, and are not constrained solely to foreign borrowings. If they use their own sources and weave their own cultural values on their own loom, there does not seem to be an obstacle to their progress, and they can walk to universality carrying the interpretations of their own time.

Believers should place the main sources of belief, cultural heritage and memory of universal values, in the center of their lives. Thus after having secured themselves from deviation, believers should strive to establish connections with the outside world; remaining indifferent to others’ values restricts what is normally broad and universal, is an obstruction to growth, causing agony for the living, and falling from the degree of being envied to a state of envying others; the condition of Third-world countries today presents so many living examples of that.

These countries always go through a period of standstill in their literature, sometimes due to customs, sometimes because of the influence of local understandings, and sometimes due to a fear of self-alienation-which can be empathized to a certain extent. Approaching literature liberally to a large degree ceased due to excessive reactions; some very important sources of inspiration were dried up, and efforts to enrich literature were perceived as fantasy and subsequently dismissed. Moreover, the field of literature was further narrowed at certain times by favoring a region or dialect at the expense of other varieties of the language; the branches with potential to develop were cut off and the roots were removed by prohibiting the field of literature from being ploughed. Thus, in such countries, the development of a language that may have been more representative of the wider society was prevented, and instead a dialect on the margins has been preferred over others, and as a result their literature was reduced to the voice of a small minority rather than becoming a respectable representative of literature in the world. This can also be called surrendering to oblivion.

In fact, what becomes dormant, stops growing, and what is not open to developing withers. Whatever is static then topples over. And that which does not give fruit dies. This is not limited to literature; it is true for almost every subject, from religion to thought, from art to philosophy.

Nevertheless, literature does not simply mean playing on words with written or spoken language skills and producing phrases people will like; it means making the art of expression lovable with the dimensions of eloquence and clarity. It is the water and air of feeding, adorning, and enriching daily language with the cleanest, purest, most lovable, and lasting material, and it is a treasure which increases with use.

A writer of verse or prose who pens his or her thoughts with literary considerations always relies upon a purpose and overtone; using a rich vocabulary, harmonious statements, and a grand style, writers activate words, long and short, aiming for excellence of expression. While moving toward this aim, writers place all the words or sentences they have picked and fitted in their places in such a way that they all sound out like notes serving to support the general theme of the tune they play. As these sounds and notes voice their intended ideal, they continue to play in the background, reflecting the author’s mode of thinking, general tendencies and mood.

In a lyric verse, produced by a master of expression the words, feel as if they are filled with that person’s excitement. The words, sentences, or lines, springing from a literary heart kindled with epic feelings, ring in our ears like the march of a glorious army. All the words in a masterfully written drama resonate in the depths of our soul and almost bring to life the story therein. A literary person is able to think very differently and reach different judgments; writers always pursue quality and strive to leave future generations a legacy they will gladly inherit and respect.

Actually, like literary language, daily language also has its own kind of beauty, ease, allure, and naturalness that entices pure pleasure. However, literary language is poetic, musical, and constructs a pleasing whole in harmony with the meanings it holds. It is superior in linguistic utilization, taste, and refinement in the way that demonstrates coherence within the text as a whole and cohesion between words and sentences. Let alone feeling and savoring these, it is sometimes very difficult for people who lack the aptitude to even understand them.

All that notwithstanding, it is not correct to regard literary style as the language of an upper class or an aristocratic group. On the contrary, even if they cannot penetrate as far as the secondary meanings and connotations suggested by the composition, people of every level should somehow be able to understand, and they should be able to benefit from that source, even if only in a limited way. Thus, in time they will be elevated to a level where they can express their feelings and thoughts more comfortably and gain greater language skills through the expansion of their knowledge. In the meantime, they will consolidate what they already know of language, enrich it by making suitable contributions as far as they can, and add new depths to their horizons of thought.

No matter at what level, the language almost all of us speak today, which has quietly settled in our memories through generations, is to a great extent the fruit of master poets’ and writers’ concerted efforts that have been adopted by our souls. With the sensitivity of a goldsmith, these masters of expression presented us with the beautiful jewels of expression and necklaces of words that they prepared; thanks to their legacy, we express ourselves through this rich resource to the best of our abilities. Even though not everybody understands the magnificent works they produced and the aesthetic depth in the spirit of those works, all of us have always appreciated them and felt eager for more. For such a level of appreciation one does not need to know the writer’s artistic anxiety, power to construct, mental strain, success in planning, nor his or her true value to the extent a skilful goldsmith knows the precious stones.

People have always held the literary artists in high regard, certainly with exceptions. They have applauded these people’s efforts, appreciated their labor, and frequently expressed this appreciation by imitating them. Then what falls to literary people is that they put their language skills and artistic talents at the service of the right, good, and beautiful, instead of hurting the souls of the masses-who can be regarded as their apprentices-by describing what is corrupt, or contaminating people’s pure thoughts with dirty images, and condemning them to the slavery of materialism with descriptions of carnal desires. According to Bediüzzaman Said Nursi, people of letters need to have high morals and act within the universal codes of conduct prescribed in divine scriptures. He also reminds us of the divine source where the “power of expression” originates from and advises us to duly respect this capacity, which is regarded as an important depth of our humanity.

Literary styles of expression are different than other styles. For example, in scientific writing or speech it is essential to have a sound pattern of reasoning, a systematic thought, well-versed statements, and no mental, logical, and emotional gaps should be left unfilled. Oratory style emphasizes proofs and arguments, maintaining interest and enthusiasm, making occasional repetitions, supporting the narration with paraphrases when necessary, using colorful expression, and enlivening the speech by inspirational shifts without detracting from the main axis. On the other hand, literary style requires a variety of linguistic arts, such as vividness of expression, accuracy of language, beauty of presentation, richness of imagination, the utilization of metaphors, parables, idioms, figures of speech, and allusions-as long as it does not reach the point of excess. Because excess will spoil-as in everything else-the naturalness of language and muddy the heavenly spring of expression, people of sound taste will mostly find it strange. As Said Nursi also expressed, the wording should be as ornate as the nature of the meaning allows. Form should follow content, and while it is being crafted, permission for literary license should be requested from the meaning in order to avoid excess. The brightness and resplendence of style should be given proper due, but the aim and intended meaning should never be neglected. The imagination should be given room to maneuver, but not at the cost of the Truth.

Original Article: Lieberman, D.E. et al., Nature 463, 531 (2010).

The modern running shoe was not invented until the 1970s. However, the presumption that running barefoot is dangerous and causes pain could be wrong. To explain this phenomenon, scientists studied three groups of people in the United States and Kenya: those who had always run barefoot, those who had always worn shoes, and those who had converted to barefoot running from shod running. They found a striking pattern: the three groups positioned their feet differently; while most shod runner people made initial contact with the ground heel-first (rear-foot striking), barefoot runners used their flat feet (mid-foot striking) or the lateral ball of the feet (fore-foot striking) first. Kinematic and kinetic analyses showed that barefoot runners who used the fore-foot or mid-foot strike generated smaller collision forces than the rear-foot strikers with shoes. This means that it is possible to run barefoot on the world’s hardest surfaces without experiencing the slightest discomfort or pain; all one needs is a few calluses to avoid damaging the skin. It is also clear that running-shoe companies and other footwear designers should pay more attention to how God designed our body and redesign more appropriate shoes for running.

The Molecule with a Thousand Faces

Original Article: Ehre D. et al., Science 327, 672 (2010).

Water freezes at 0 C… or perhaps not? Pure water can remain in liquid form at temperatures down to –40 C, which is known as a “supercooled” state. When agitated by stirring or adding impurities, supercooled water freezes instantly. A team of scientists report that under certain conditions, supercooled water freezes when warmed up (!). Supercooled water can freeze at a higher temperature on a positively-charged surface than it does on a negatively-charged one. Initially, the surface is negatively charged at a lower temperature. The surface becomes positively charged when warmed up and the supercooled liquid water solidifies. Will the day ever come when we will be able to understand the water molecule completely? This is something we just don’t know. What we know for certain though is that water, which is apparently the “most normal” substance around us, has already proven itself ironically as one of the most unusual ones in nature. We take this familiar molecule for granted within our daily routine, but H2O-or water as we know it-still remains a celebrity in the eyes of scientists.

Cancer-Causing DNA Mutations Are Deciphered

Original Articles: Pleasance, E.D. et al., Nature 463, 184 & 191 (2010).

DNA mutations are changes in the DNA code caused by external or internal agents known as mutagens. Scientists have identified mutations from lung cancer and skin cancer and have compared them to normal samples in order to find the mutations that lead to these cancers. They have identified ~23,000 mutations in lung cancer (small-cell lung cancer) and ~33,000 mutations in skin cancer (melanoma). The researchers revealed that most of these mutations are single-base DNA changes, suggesting that they are a direct cause of the carcinogens in tobacco smoke and UV light. Under normal conditions, our cells are equipped with a “DNA repair mechanism” which detects any changes in the DNA code and repairs it. However, when excess amount of mutations occur due to tobacco smoke in our lungs or to too much exposure to sunlight in our skin cells, the DNA repair mechanism cannot repair all of the mutations. Accumulations of these mutations lead to cancer-a state in which cell division has gone out of control. Scientists have calculated that every 15 cigarette causes one mutation in the DNA. These studies will be immensely useful for understanding the reasons behind the genetic changes in cancer and more importantly they will provide a comprehensive catalogue of mutations that can be used for cancer diagnosis and treatment.

Scientists Inspired by the Spider Web

Original Article: Zheng, Y. et al., Nature 463, 640 (2010).

Even though spiders may not be the most appealing creatures living on earth, they are one of the most intriguing predators in the animal kingdom. For centuries the intricate ways that spiders hunt, their (relatively) enormous appetite, their strong senses and extraordinary craftsmanship have been fascinating research topics for scientists. In this study, researchers wondered why and how spider webs become decorated with pearl-like drops of water in humid weather conditions. At nanometric scales, the group revealed that the fibers which constitute the web of Uloborus Walkcenaerius-a non-venomous spider-change conformations after interacting with water. When the web becomes wet the fibers condense into knot-like structures which are distributed evenly along the entire silk. The geometric structure of the web results in surface-energy gradients that drive water particles towards the knots. Concentrating water molecules at the knots may help to keep the rest of the web dry, which is a necessary factor to capture prey. This extraordinary finding has inspired the building of an artificial spider silk, which exploits the same geometric trick, trapping and transporting water droplets. In the near future, such “green” materials could be used in a wide variety of applications, such as filtering substances out of chemical reactions without need for a catalyst.

Self-Sacrificing Mother Yeast Cells

Original Article: Liu, B. et al., Cell 140, 257 (2010).

Humanity has always searched for the fountain of youth. Yet, the process of aging is still a poorly understood concept in biology. How ironic that the budding yeast, a mere single cellular organism, has a fascinating way of keeping its offspring young and healthy. It was previously shown that protein aggregates appear within the cytoplasm of yeast cells as they age. These protein aggregates are thought to be toxic to the cells and thus potential risk factors to both mother and daughter cells. Researchers demonstrated that these aggregates are consistently transported to the mother cell, thereby allowing the daughter cells to make a fresh start to life. Polymerizing actin filaments, which are nucleated from the polarisome in the daughter cell, bind to these aggregates and push them towards the mother cell cytoplasm. In addition to being an amazing biological process, these self-sacrificing mother cells which keep their offspring healthy form a controversial issue. The common understanding in biology is that all organisms struggle for their own survival. However, why a simple organism like yeast prefers to have a healthy daughter cell and to jeopardize its own life is unclear and shows the existence of a mother’s mercy, even at the single-cell level.

Honey Bee Collapses

Original Article: Ratnieks, F.L.W. & Carreck, N.L., Science 327, 152 (2010).

Throughout history an extensive loss of honey bee colonies has occurred in many different locations; however, in North America, particularly after 2006, there has been an increase in the disappearance of adult honey bees from hives, in which they abandon their food and brood; this has been coined a “Colony Collapse Disorder” (CCD). The most likely cause of the syndrome is seen to be the presence of a parasitic mite Varroa destructor. It is not the mite that causes bee death, but rather the number of bee viruses which it carries, such as the Israeli acute paralysis virus; it was previously thought that these were insignificant to honey bee biology. It has also been suggested that CCD is not caused by a previously unknown pathogen, but rather a combination of factors, which only have subtle effects on bee health if considered separately. The health of honeybee colonies is vital for agriculture. In 2000, the total U.S. crop value wholly dependent on honey bee pollination was estimated to exceed $15 billion. The sudden disappearance of honey bees and the complexity of the causes behind CCD remind us of the delicate balance that exists in nature.

For the sake of simplicity, the very complex – yet flawless – organization of a single cell can be portrayed as a city. Even in a very small city that has a relatively low population there are different establishments of various sizes and capabilities that work in concert. Likewise, in order to keep the cell alive the intracellular organelles and proteins of a cell complement each other’s functions. Even though the majority of cities may have the resources to supply themselves, they also need to import and export goods. In addition, some cities may have greater industrial, residential, or agricultural strengths, making it necessary for it to communicate and trade with neighboring towns to eliminate shortages. In a similar way, cells have to communicate with neighboring cells, and bring in new sustenance and get rid of waste at different stages in their life cycles. In this article we will focus on one of the key elements of the import mechanism that is used by living cells, endocytosis.

Endocytosis is the process by which cells take in substances from outside. Since living cells are surrounded by a membrane, the cargo molecules, which are too large to penetrate through the membrane, have to be internalized by different means; this can be classified as Cell eating (i.e. phagocytosis: the endocytosis of large solid materials), cell drinking (i.e. pinocytosis: the endocytosis of liquids in large amounts) and receptor mediated endocytosis (the internalization of molecules that have specific receptors on the cell membrane) (Figure 1). During the course of these events, the portion of the cell membrane that surrounds the cargo is also internalized. However, at the present time, very little is known about the mechanisms that cause the cell membrane to invaginate and eventually be pinched off during the onset of endocytosis. Here we will concentrate on receptor mediated endocytosis, which has been intriguing biologists for more than three decades now.

Receptor molecules, which are located on the outer surface of living cells, function like receiving docks for cells. These are sites where the membrane-encountering molecule is first engaged. The cargo molecules, which arrive at the receiving docks, are often known as ligands (Latin ligare = to bind). Ligand molecules are either secreted from a neighboring cell or come directly from the bloodstream and can bind to the specific receptor molecules on the cell surface. In most cases the ligand is either a signaling molecule, which transmits information to the cell from the extracellular milieu, or a nutritious substance that needs to be internalized via endocytosis.

Unlike other forms of endocytosis, receptor mediated endocytosis occurs in a very controlled way. First of all, the ligand determines whether endocytosis will occur or not. Basically, a ligand molecule that does not have a corresponding receptor on the cell membrane cannot interact with the cell and, as a result, will not be internalized. For instance, a certain virus, which can cause severe lesions in the mouths of horses, cannot infect human cells, as our cells do not have the receptors that link the virus to the cell membrane. Secondly, the ligand cell determines how much intake will take place. That is, cells can control the amount of receptors on their membranes and thus how much the ligands that are recognized by these receptors will be internalized. By acting in this way, cells can adapt to different conditions by controlling the rate of endocytosis through the receptor molecules. The third way of control is concerned with the size of the molecules that are to be internalized. As we will discuss below, receptor mediated endocytosis is performed via some scaffold proteins that form cages (i.e. coats) around the membrane. These cages are fairly small in size, and molecules that are larger than 100 nanometers (100 nanometer is one-thousandth of the thickness of a human hair) cannot fit into them nor enter the cells along this pathway.

The conformation of the plasma membrane changes substantially during endocytosis. Given that the cell membrane has a fluidic nature, it must be accompanied by a firmer construction in order to perform these structural modifications. In the case of receptor mediated endocytosis, this function is carried out by clathrin cages (or clathrin coats), which are formed adjacent to the membrane. The clathrin protein is a three-legged molecule which can freely diffuse inside the cell. However, when a ligand molecule binds to a receptor on the membrane then multiple clathrins aggregate into that region and polymerize into cages composed of pentagons and hexagons (Figure 2a). These cages surround the cell membrane, compelling it to engulf the cargo (ligand) by invagination. When the cargo is entirely enclosed by the membrane a scission protein seals off the enclosed cargo from the plasma membrane (Figure 2b). The completely internalized membrane pouch rapidly casts away its clathrin coat with a quick uncoating reaction. After this point, the membrane pouch, including the cargo, can be transported to the inner compartments of the cell. In living cells, this process takes a little less than a minute. Even though the lifetimes of the clathrin coats are not very long, scientists have found ways of ascertaining the detailed organization of these molecules.

One of the most intriguing findings about the clathrin scaffold (or coat) is its breathtaking geometry. X-ray crystallography studies showed that the cages formed by the polymerization of multiple clathrin proteins are composed of pentagons and hexagons (Figure 3a). It has been also shown that in the majority of the cases the three dimensional structures of the cages are very similar to a soccer ball, where 12 pentagons are accompanied by 20 hexagons in order to create a curve (Figure 3b). However this is not the only geometry that clathrin coats can have. Electron microscopy images taken on frozen cells reveal that clathrins can also form some large flat arrays on the membrane which look exactly like honeycombs. In this configuration the pentagons are missing and all the clathrins align in the hexagon geometry to preserve a flat surface (Figure 3c).

The function of the honeycomb-shaped flat clathrin arrays is still a mystery. All we know is that they are more durable than the cages. In other words, although they do not have definite sizes like cages, they last much longer. Some scientists believe that these structures might be functional in the internalization of huge cargo molecules, such as bacteria, however, these claims still need to be proved. More research is needed if scientists are to be able to better understand clathrin-based endocytosis. Nevertheless, the fact that a simple geometrical modification at the molecular level can alter the entire mechanism of a biological process is on its own a very fascinating discovery.

Hamdi Sener is a biophysicist living in Boston. He can be contacted at hamdisener@gmail.com.

Note

1. Even though bacteria are the smallest cells known, compared to the regular cargo molecules they are gigantic structures.

Figure 1. Taken from Wikipedia.org

Figure 2. A) A clathrin coat (or cage) formed by the polymerization of multiple three-legged clathrin molecules. A single clathrin molecule is shown died with cyan. Adapted from RCSB protein data bank website (http://www.rcsb.org/pdb). B) The different stages of receptor-mediated endocytosis. The entire process takes a little less than a minute.

Figure 3. Taken from Wikipedia.org

“Who am I?” People from all backgrounds, experiences, and ages find different responses to this complicated question. Understanding one’s self is probably the greatest intellectual challenge for human beings. A simple answer to this question can be found via basic states of belonging: professional status, family membership, social status, and so on. However, such simple responses do not help us to resolve the underlying existential problems. The so-called question, in other words, seeks for an answer about the “self” itself, rather than for different social labels that are embedded in the self.

Early psychologists attempted to define the “self” in various ways. One basic definition relies on the physical body as the boundary between the self and others. This simplistic understanding of the self was extended by Gordon Allport (1961) to include psychological components, such as self-esteem. A further conceptualization of self regarded other people and prior experiences as parts of the self. William James, who had an important influence in the history of psychology, defined the self in three dimensions. Material or bodily self refers to one’s possessions, including everything one owns, the social self implies our social roles within the social environment, and the spiritual self includes thoughts and feelings about who we are (James, 1890).

Interestingly enough, psychologists after William James have tended to focus on the first and second components of the self. Today, psychology has developed branches, such as neuroscience, social psychology, and transpersonal psychology, which can be regarded as a continuation of the material, social, and spiritual self, respectively. More specifically, however, the third dimension, as transpersonal psychology and the psychology of religion, is not regarded as being part of mainstream psychology. Accordingly, the psychology of religion has been studied in university theology departments rather than psychology departments. This should not come as a surprise, because the search for an understanding of the “self” intensified among psychologists during the twentieth century, a time when religion was on the wane. The philosophical roots of this perspective can be seen even in the dualism postulated by Descartes as the body-mind distinction. Thus, we can view William James’ definition as a resistance against the understanding of that period.

Today’s popular conception of the self has evolved into another three-dimensional definition that is similar to that of William James: the individual self, which is defined as differentiation from others, the relational self, referring to assimilation with others, and the collective self, achieved by inclusion into larger social groups (Sedikides & Brewer, 2001). Although this perspective is functional in understanding the individual within the context, it reduces the existence of the “self” to a simple interaction between the individual and others (social environment); but this is a purely profane approach and excludes the spiritual self. Today, psychologists use instruments of self-concept or self-esteem; these have been standardized with national norms to compare respondents to others and judge them as having high or low self-esteem. The psychological norms are, therefore, defined based on societal norms, which are, by their very nature, arbitrary. I call this kind of conceptualization a “horizontal perspective,” as it lacks the complexity and richness of the inner world of human beings and reduces the self to the result of relationships with the other selves that surround it.

On the other hand, the conceptualization of the self with the inclusion of a spiritual component can bring about alternative perspectives. In this perspective, the “self” is basically defined in terms of a relationship between human beings and God. Moreover, the existence of the self can be explained directly with the existence of God. I call this a “vertical perspective.” Let’s delve into an example from religious thinkers who dealt with self from spiritual aspects. Said Nursi (1951/2007), an Islamic scholar, provides a striking point that exemplifies the relationship between the self and God:

An absolute and all-encompassing entity has no limits or terms and therefore cannot be shaped or formed, or determined in a way that will allow its essential nature to be comprehended. For example, light undetermined by darkness cannot be known or perceived. However, light can be determined if a real or hypothetical boundary line of darkness is drawn. In the same way, the Divine Attributes and Names (e.g., Knowledge, Power, Wisdom, and Compassion) cannot be determined, for they are all-encompassing and have no limits or like. Therefore, as their essence cannot be known or perceived, a hypothetical boundary is needed for them to become known. In order to make Himself known through His Attributes and Names, God Almighty has drawn a hypothetical line before His all-encompassing Attributes and Names. This line is the human [self]. By reflecting all of His Attributes and Names on it and thereby making it an essential dimension of human existence, the self has become a Divine trust, an arena in which the manifestations of Divine Attributes and Names are reflected in order to mirror the Divine Being. The self imagines within itself a fictitious lordship, power, and knowledge, which are reflections of their Divine counterparts, and thus posits a boundary line, hypothesizing a limit to the all-encompassing Divine Attributes, saying: “This is mine, and the rest is His.” The self thus makes a division. By means of the miniature measure it contains, the self slowly comes to understand the true nature of the Divine Attributes and Names. The self obtains a degree of understanding of God’s Absolute Knowledge through its partial knowledge and can intuit the Exalted Fashioner’s primary, originative art through its defective, acquired art. For example, the self says: “I have built and arranged this house, so there must be One Who made and arranged this universe.” (Nursi, 1951/2007, p. 552)

Unlike the definition of the self in psychology, the vertical perspective, which is defined as the self in relation to God and the rationale behind the existence of the self, is regarded in religion as facilitating one’s knowledge about the names of God. This perspective has some practical implications. For example, it challenges the overuse of psychological concepts, such as self-esteem and self-confidence, which have often been emphasized and are regarded as the key to success in life in many textbooks concerned with psychology and education. In today’s competitive world, superiority to others is appreciated. There is a mechanism of social comparison that forces us to rank ourselves in comparison to others who belong to the same society. It comes as no surprise that such a vicious cycle will create extremely individualist and ego-centric personalities. The self as represented in the concepts of self-esteem and self-concept becomes misleading, because this perception equates the self with egoism and self-centeredness. As a result, the gap between “the self” and “knowledge of self” is increasing (Wickland & Eckert, 1992). As scholars attempt to develop “knowledge of self” with the horizontal perspective, deviations from the real “self,” the essence of “self” that can be recognized through understanding God, can never be known.

This spiritual perspective offers us the opportunity to become acquainted with the self through trying to understand the reflections of God’s names (or attributes) in the Universe. This perspective is concisely represented with the statement “Whoever knows oneself, knows God,” an expression attributed to different persons in history (Al-Arabi, 1980). Above all, as the pseudo-selves that we assume are based on our subjective ranking in comparison to others, the example given above encourages human beings to find the essence of the self through attempting to understand God. Attaining the goal of self-actualization becomes possible because personal development is a perpetual endeavor and individuals do not restrict themselves to their rivals. There is always a further target to reach, since the individuals are guided by “the absolute and all-encompassing.”

Nevertheless, the prevalent concepts of the self do not cover the spiritual aspect of human beings. Individuals are forced to survive within a system that determines winners and losers, and this in turn can motivate people to attain their goals in different ways. While the so-called biased consideration of self-the horizontal comparison-is restrictive in nature, the vertical perspective, which does not include a comparison but rather a connection, provides an unending, unlimited, and satisfying journey throughout one’s lifetime.

The modern view of the self, which is devoid of any spiritual aspect, has incurred some negative results in the fields of religion and psychology. The field of psychology, except for Carl Jung, who appreciated the significance of the religious understanding of self, as well as a few psychologists who have recognized that the spiritual dimension makes people’s lives more meaningful, valuable and purposeful, has ignored a source of wisdom that has been generated over the centuries.

Conceptualization of the self merely within the individual and social aspects falls short of explaining and resolving many psychological phenomena, such as suicide, depression, eating, and anxiety disorders. Such problems can be regarded as a consequence of an over-investment in particular aspects of the self, and the neglect of deeper mechanisms, such as the conscience, benevolence, transcendence etc., which all together constitute the spiritual self. However, there are a number of psychologists who have acknowledged this problem. Here is an example: “The more we invest in the self, the more we have to lose… Indeed, the most successful and outwardly perfect self may produce the greatest inclination to escape [from the self], because higher standards create greater vulnerability and hence greater stress.” (Baumeister, 1991, p. 31). According to this argument, “outwardly perfect selves” who have enough self-esteem and social status without spiritual richness cannot avoid such problems as suicide, binge eating or masochism, which are several of the ways to escape the self. Hopefully, the following decades will reveal how the consideration of the spiritual self, as well as other conceptualizations, can improve our understanding of the self and simultaneously pave the way for understanding “self-actualization.”

Zekeriya Ozsoy is doctoral student studying educational psychology. For correspondence with the author: ozsoyzekeriya@gmail.com.

References

• Ibn al-‘Arabi (after 1229/1980). Fusus al-hikam (The Bezels of Wisdom), ed. A. Affifi, Cairo, 1946; trans. R.W.J. Austin, The Bezels of Wisdom, New York: Paulist Press.
• Allport, G. (1961). Pattern and growth in personality. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston.
• Baumeister, R. F. (1991). Why escape? – The burden of self. In Escaping the self: Alcoholism, Spirituality, Masochism, and Other Flights from the Burden of Selfhood. New York City: Basic.
• Goldstein, K. (1934/1995). The Organism: A Holistic Approach to Biology Derived from Pathological Data in Man. New York: Zone Books.
• Holy Bible: New International Version. (1978). New York: American Bible Society.
• Nursi, Said. (1952/2007). The Words: Reconstruction of Islamic Thought and Belief. New Jersey: The Light, Inc.
• James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. (2 vols.). New York: Henry Holt.
• Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review. 50, 370-396.
• The Qur’an with Annotated Interpretation in Modern English by Ali Unal (2006).
• Sedikides, C., & Brewer, M. B. (2001). Individual Self, Relational Self, and Collective Self. Philadelphia: Psychology Press.
• Wicklund, R. A., & Eckert, M. (1992). The Self-knower: A Hero under Control. New York: Plenum.

There is one moral law that forms the corner stone of all of the world’s religions: “Thou shall not kill.” But does this law apply only to human beings? What about our involvement in the steady decline and death of our ecology and its many plants and animals all of which contribute to our complex and interdependent eco system that sustains human life. Are we not morally responsible to protect the lives of all of these living creatures and systems and even the Earth itself? Is there a correlation between our environmental crisis and spiritual crisis? Matter&Beyond discussed this correlation with Mary Evelyn Tucker who is a Senior Lecturer and Senior Scholar at Yale University where she has appointments in the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies as well as the Divinity School and the Department of Religious Studies. Tucker is a co-founder and co-director with John Grim of the Forum on Religion and Ecology. Together they organized a series of ten conferences on World Religions and Ecology at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School. They are series editors for the ten volumes from the conferences distributed by Harvard University Press.

M&B: What is the ecosystem? And when you say that the ecosystem is in trouble what do you mean by that?

An ecosystem describes the tremendous, intricate, complex relationship between all of the elements; literally the soil, water, air, and then the plant life and even the breathing of the plants. This includes the presence of insects pollinating, the soil being moved around by worms, and so on. Then you get into the mammalian life, and the bird life, which work within a complex system, and the parts of which we are only beginning to understand. We barely understand how migration patterns work; [e.g.] the sandpiper that migrates from South America to the James Bay region of Canada. This migration means that these birds are able to comprehend an ecosystem that stretches over thousands of miles. So ecosystems, we realize, have this microscopic dimension of complex elements; the flora and fauna interact with it. But at the same time, we can also see an ecosystem that is as large as the migration patterns of animals and birds. Thus, we begin to see that the way in which we read and understand ecosystems is the key to understanding this complex community of life.

M&B: What are some of the problems faced by ecosystems today?

The planet as a whole is facing a variety of environmental problems of immense proportions and complexity. We, as human beings, are only beginning to realize the full impact of our presence on the planet. The population has risen from 2 billion to 6 billion people in the last century; this population explosion, as well as the technological explosion, is grinding the earth into a pulp, destroying the forests and the life in the oceans …, with this enormous presence we could be compared to an octopus that has wrapped itself around the planet; in short, we have caused very serious environmental problems.

Right now, climate change is apparent to many, many people around the globe; this was not the case 10 years ago, nor even 5 years ago. We are profoundly changing the air and the atmosphere. This change is reflected in the ecosystems in shifting migration patterns, in fluctuating agricultural patterns, and in changes in the life of the seas. Therefore, there is one huge macro-scale problem that right now has an enormous presence, and we are aware that human beings are the primary cause; this was stated at the international panel on climate change in its report of January 2007.

M&B: You speak about visible problems, but aren’t there any deeper problems?.

20,000 to 30,000 species are becoming extinct every year around the globe. This era has been called an extinction period, and it is the sixth extinction period. Probably the last extinction period was after a meteor hit the earth, 65 million years ago; this ended the era of dinosaurs. And now we are the cause of a new extinction, because we are reducing the habitats, we are creating the pollution problems, we are using chemicals that birds and insects cannot deal with. Rachel Carson wrote about this in her book “Silent Spring” and alerted people to the decimation of birds and the ensuing silence because their songs could no longer be heard. This is a problem that we need to address, and we need to understand what such a loss means; there is a sadness for the voices of the natural world that are disappearing from our midst.

We can also talk about a whole range of problems in bioregions, such as the pollution of the Great Lakes or invasive species that are occurring in them and elsewhere. We can also speak about the loss of tropical forests in Thailand, for example. Even 30 or 40 years ago, 75% of Thailand was forested. Now the area is only 15%. Clear cutting is still happening in our own western forests. But we also have clear cutting in the oceans. Huge nets, some of them measuring 20 to 30 miles long in the Pacific and the Atlantic, sweep up not only fish, but all kinds of life, such as turtles, dolphins and life forms from the coral reefs. We must have not only a land ethic to preserve our resources, to preserve our water, and our air and our soil, we also need an ocean ethic, an ethic for the great waters. These two kinds of ethics need to emerge in the human community if the entire community is to survive into the future.

M&B: In your opinion, what are the underlying human problems that are the root cause for this environmental destruction?

Human beings have not realized how completely we are in nature. We go to the super market and we buy meat wrapped up in plastic, sitting on Styrofoam, or we buy apples that are out of season or peaches and oranges that are imported from elsewhere. We have lost our sense of connection to food, where it comes from, to all of these complex bioregions that support the life, of food and of agriculture. That’s just one example. But I think we have profoundly alienated ourselves by thinking we can dominate, we can control nature, or even that we can manage it. Sometimes we think we can manage forests or fisheries, and yet we still don’t understand how intricate and complex these systems really are. Earlier peoples had very primitive instruments, not huge machines that can go in and decimate a forest in a day. So, our technology has grown beyond our ability to set limits. We simply don’t know limits.

I think another factor here is that the growth mentality the economic driver, even of our capitalist system and our neoliberal economics says, economic growth is good. In growth we trust, so to speak. And this fetish with growth, this preoccupation that if we don’t grow our economy is going to falter, has set us on a course that is destroying communities, it is creating endless consumerism, is creating all kinds of alienation, sadness, even addictions of all kinds because the emptiness of modern consumer life is just suffocating the human soul, and the human spirit, that doesn’t know where to find itself in materialism gone mad.

M&B: When I look at the indigenous people in any tradition, these people had much more respect for food.

It is true that indigenous peoples had, and in many parts of the world continue to have, a profound sense of the interconnection in life systems that the human needs to carry out life. I don’t want to over idealize the indigenous peoples by any means, rather only in the sense that they are in a reciprocal relationship, that when hunting there was gratitude for the life of the animal taken, or when a bird was killed, there was a reciprocal sense of thanksgiving, of prayer, as part of their culture. Even in agricultural indigenous peoples, for example, with the growing of corn for the Hopi, there is a sense that you sing for the corn to grow.

M&B: Although the root cause of the problem still continues, there are certain things that we should be doing. Such as endangered species protection programs etc.

I think there is a growing sense in human beings that we have a new responsibility for the future of the planet, for other species and ecosystems. We know that many animals will only be preserved in zoos, or in nature preserves. If we’re talking about the right to life, the right to habitat, the right to be part of a larger community, are we the ones who are to determine this? And what does that mean? This is an extension of our ethical, moral sensibility to the larger community of life, with which we share this planet. So there is an immense sense of responsibility for this period when other life forms are undergoing extinction. And if this is not fundamentally a religious issue, I don’t know what is.

M&B: What is the reaction of the younger generation? You are also a professor who teaches at Yale and you’ve been to other universities as well. Can you tell us about your experiences?

There were two students as Bucknell University where I was teaching, and they exemplified, I think, what we’re all going through. In a class on religion and ecology, we were talking about the loss of species and the sense of wide-spread extinction that is taking place in our own lifetime. And one student turned to the rest of the class and said: Why should I care if 20,000 species become extinct every year? I’m going to Wall Street, I’ll get my job I’ll have my family and life in the suburbs around New York. Why should I care? This question sent a ripple throughout the class, and many, who were biologists and ecologists, immediately responded by talking about the intricacy of ecosystems and the web of life and the interdependence of life systems. But even that didn’t sway this student, and it was almost as if he was thinking, I can get my food from the supermarket, I just don’t care. This, to me, was a huge wake-up call. So there is this sense on the one hand of indifference, of disconnection, and even of denial.

On the other hand, there was a student who read some essays by Thomas Berry, who has been an immense inspiration and teacher to both my husband, John Grimm, and myself. This student read them over the weekend, and was so overwhelmed by the size, scale, and complexity of the environmental problems that we are facing, that he just had to close his door and couldn’t go out for the weekend; he didn’t want to see his friends. On Monday when he came back to talk to us, he said I am just paralyzed by these problems and I feel such immense despair.

We need to find a way forward between these two extremes of despair on the one hand and denial on the other. We need to find a way of empowering and inspiring scientifically grounded, ecologically sound, restoration projects that are in coordination with the ecosystems; we need to train people along these lines. But we need to ground them in a sense of wonder, hope, and possibility for a sustainable future; we need to teach them that their actions, that their lives, will matter, that they’re not just a speck in a meaningless universe, but rather that their actions and their life journey will contribute to a larger planetary civilization, which is emerging on the horizon; that is, a multi-form planetary civilization. That is the goal that we need to place in front of them.

M&B: So both science and religion can take on these issues?

Both religion and science can help us with this, but there have also been problems with science and religion. Science sometimes has objectified the natural world, creating a sense of distance with the scientific method that we use to study things, making them distanced from us. And yet, science is also helping us to recover both great knowledge about the environmental problems that we’re surrounded by, climate change and the extinction of species, as well as pollution issues. Scientists are studying these things and providing us with information on a daily basis. And many of these scientists are deeply committed to what are being called sustainability sciences; to have this at colleges and universities, and to be able to think through problems with a sense of creating solutions. So I think it’s an immensely inspiring moving, sustainable sense of well-being that is emerging from the sciences.

Religions hold a lot of promise for the area of ecology and sustainability, and even sustainable development. Religious people have been reluctant to get involved and they have been late in getting involved. Many religious people are often concerned with an other-worldly salvation, or with personal salvation, and not necessarily with involvement in the world, the environment, and issues of social justice. However, I think that one of the most exciting and promising movements within the environmental field is that the religions are awakening to their ecological aspect, to their commitment to life, its aesthetic beauty, and the intrinsic value of other species; they are taking on a sense of commitment for the future generations of all species. This possibility, that religious communities will awaken to an increased ethical sensibility to people in other countries, to species in different countries around the globe, as well as to future generations, is vital. This is something that religions can offer. Moreover, they can help to stimulate a critical component to our environmental and ecological sensibility, and that is a wonder; religions awaken us to a sense of gratitude and awe in the face of the great mystery of life. And that particular component of wonder, such as the wonder of the Monarch butterfly, the sense of beauty in these creatures, is something that religions can reignite for us, just as science can. And this is where they join, I think. Science awakens our sense of wonder, religion confirms the wonder with the great mystery of life systems. And finally, I think that religions can offer a sense of hope, because more than anything, I think we all need to imagine a future that is sustainable. We are interacting with the next generation who are dealing with their own sense of paralysis, with a lack of hope, even despair. And we need to acknowledge that this is a very critical moment for humans. We have never faced anything like this before; where is our sense of hope and the possibility for creating a viable, sustainable, and flourishing future for the planet? I think the religious communities that have dealt with loss, sorrow, death, and despair can help to regenerate this sense of possibility, of sustainable hope for the next generation, and even for ourselves, as we deal with this daily onslaught of saddening bad news. More than anything, I think we need these two components of wonder and hope to make it into the future.

Interview conducted by Mustafa Tabanli and MaryLynn Schiavi for Ebru TV for the Emmy Award winning television series Matter and Beyond. For more information and the full episodes visit http://www.ebru.tvenp.fullepisode.html

]]> https://fountainmagazine.com/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/renewers/ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://107.21.79.195/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/renewers/ If education is an act of “renewal” in beliefs, ideas, hopes, happiness, misery, and practices, a renewal that contributes towards the enhancement and betterment of an individual’s thoughts, feelings, and actions, then an educator is the one who breaths the excitement of the “renewal” into the souls and helps the individuals to fulfill their potential in order to attain the degree of insan-i kamil, a perfect human being. Since education is a continuous process which evolves within the triangle of family, society, and school, then the place of an educator in this context is extremely critical, as the teacher is considered to be sitting in the center of this triangle.

As educators have such an important position in society, it is vital to reflect upon the questions of how a teacher should conduct their teaching and what kind of a personality a teacher should develop in order to fulfill their mission as an educator. Although it is hard to provide satisfactory answers to such deep questions within the scope of a short essay, a couple of points might be worth mentioning.

First of all, an educator should have the dignity of bearing knowledge. They should be aware of the fact that if knowledge is the spirit, a set of actions is the body that carries that spirit. If a teacher is not setting an example for their students with their actions, then the knowledge will lose its meaning in the eyes of the students. As most would agree, the greatest teachers in the humanity appeared among the prophets. Prophets, with all their wisdom and deep knowledge about both the physical and the meta-physical world, first established their reputation in society with their outstanding moral values, and by demonstrating the best examples of human character and behavior. Presenting the values in conduct (tamsil) always comes before teaching the values (tabligh). Changing this order would result in ineffective teaching and inner hypocrisy for one who tries to teach.

A teacher should look at the universe from multiple angles. They should not confine themselves within the walls of the school or within the limits of the syllabus. They should teach their correspondents how to see a view in its multidimensionality and how to turn any input of data into information and thus into knowledge. An educator should not be a transmitter of information before checking whether the “receivers” are ready to detect and absorb the information. One who teaches should never forget that “the purpose of learning is to make knowledge a guide for your life, to illuminate the road to human perfection. Any knowledge that does not fulfill these functions is a burden for the learner and any science that does not direct one toward sublime goals is only deception.”

As Bertrand Russell stated, “The good individual is he who ministers to the good of the whole, and the good of the whole is a pattern made up of the goods of the individuals.” A teacher should build bridges between each person and society by using the school environment as a construction site, and mobilize the unique potential embedded in human personalities for the use of society, and more generally, humanity. Nobody should be treated as insignificant and as a result no capabilities of the students will be wasted. The greatest and most dangerous waste is the waste of human capital. A teacher knows that every human being is actually a miniature universe and that each one of their apprentices is as valuable as the heavens. The emotional, spiritual, and physical aspects of human nature offer such a wide spectrum of colors that the ideal teacher will enable their students to discover their own colors within this spectrum.

Teachers are the architectures of character. A teacher is expected to see every student as a possible masterpiece and to construct that masterpiece according to a carefully designed, individual and specific plan. This is not an easy task. No one person can fit into all the dresses in this shop. The teacher has to make their students think that they are special, that they are cared for, and that the teacher is tearing down the walls of limitations with bare hands to make room for them. Even though the teacher may not be able to make the difference that they intend to, their actions and then their intentions, which carry on after their actions are exhausted, will send the message to the students. This is what it means to make a difference in the lives of one’s students. The human body develops from one fertilized egg; the human spirit and character is far more advanced than the body, turning small seeds into giant fruit bearing trees.

Educators are advocates on behalf of their students, defending their weaknesses in learning, and looking for different approaches to overcome the obstacles between the knowledge and the student. Teachers can only prosecute themselves. They see their students’ failures as their own failures and never indulge in the luxury of self-forgiveness. Like poets who treat their verses like their children, yet always try to replace them with better ones, teachers ask themselves if their students could be any better than they are in terms of what they have learnt from them.

Teaching is also learning. A teacher learns from their students how to become a better educator. A good teacher should be able to listen to the silent words that pour from their students’ tongues of disposition. Students may not talk to the teacher directly, but their looks, facial expressions, their interactions with their teacher, their voice levels and tones, all reflect a teacher’s ability to instruct. Educators who do not carefully observe these signs are like those who close their eyes during the bright daylight and wonder why they cannot see.

If a teacher considers teaching to be a simple matter and is never aware of the burden of making an impact on others, then one must wonder about the dedication of this teacher. A teacher must be willing to take this road while also being aware of the long distances, deep valleys and oceans of hardships ahead. As Rumi stated, in the end, a teacher should be ready to say “I was raw; I was cooked; now I am burned.”

Yasin Ceran is a math teacher in Dallas, Texas.

]]> https://fountainmagazine.com/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/on-their-faces-and-backs/ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://107.21.79.195/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/on-their-faces-and-backs/ In numerous verses the Holy Qur’an makes reference to living organisms, and particularly to human physiology. The Qur’an does this in its own style, briefly mentioning some fundamental principles of the process or the phenomenon that it is referring to, without going into elaborate details. One of the verses that immediately captures the attention of the reader is the twenty-seventh verse of Chapter 47, Surah Muhammad, which can be translated as: “So, how (will it be) when the angels take their souls at death, striking their faces and their backs?” while describing the agony of death that the disbelievers will suffer. In Surah Al-Anfal (8:50), the Qur’an tells us: “… He causes those who are bent on denying the truth to die: the angels will strike their faces: and their backs…”

The phrase “striking their faces and their backs” leaves us wondering why “faces and backs?” What is special about these body parts in the context of death? The Qur’an is the word of the All-Wise and it is not possible for it to be completely deciphered by human reasoning. Yet, it is our duty as human beings to contemplate the message that our Creator has revealed for us. The moment of death is spoken of in many other Qur’anic verses and Hadiths. The experience of death is a great agony for the disbelievers: The (angels who) snatch (the souls of the disbelievers) forcibly. And those who gently take (the souls of the believers) joyfully (Qur’an, 79:1-2).

Undoubtedly, the experience of death is painful. Leaving the discussion about “faces and backs” to later in this article, let us first look at what pain is from a physiological aspect. It is common knowledge that the sensation of pain is conducted to the brain via the sensory nerves which connect with almost every single part of the body, particularly to the skin. The skin has different corpuscles (sensory cells) for the sensation of touch, temperature, and pain. When a nociceptive (pain inducing) stimulus is applied to the skin, this information is conveyed through the peripheral nerves in the form of small electric pulses (called action potentials), first to the spinal cord, next through the spinothalamic pathways, and then to the higher centers of perception in the brain. These little electrical pulses are felt as pain, temperature, or touch in various centers of the brain (e.g. somatosensory cortex), depending on where the signals originate in the skin. If a particular area is wired to a pain sensing corpuscle in the skin, the brain circuitry will be trained to perceive this signal as pain from early postnatal development. If, on the other hand, a particular nerve is connected to a temperature sensing corpuscle in the body, the part of the brain center that it is connected to will be trained to perceive this as temperature from early on in life. So, the perception of sensory information depends on how these little electrical signals are interpreted by the brain. However, the connection map of the nerves and the circuits that interpret them in the brain form very early in life and these connections are hard wired, that is, it is very difficult to change them.

Pain may be perceived without a real source of nociceptive input as a result of some neurological disorders. For instance, in an amputee, after a limb has been surgically removed, the cut ends of the sensory nerves may generate little electrical pulses (action potentials) on their own without a pain inducing stimulus. The subject might feel an intense feeling of pain in the missing limb! This is clinically known as “phantom pain.” The phenomenon known as “referred pain” has an interesting explanation, also based on neuro-anatomy. The pain conducting sensory nerves from various dermatomes (areas of skin) and some other nerve fibers that originate in the visceral (internal) organs of the body enter the spinal cord side by side as a bundle (spinal roots). When some of these visceral organs, such as the heart and lungs, contract a disease, the sensory signals generated by these organs are not perceived as pain because there are no pain sensing nerve endings in these organs. But, the sensory signals generated by these organs activate the pain sensing fibers at the point where they enter the spinal cord together. The pain therefore is felt by the brain as if it were originating in a certain dermatome. For instance, heart problems are felt as a pain in the left arm. Again, the interesting point is that the perception of pain depends very much on the wiring of the nervous system at the periphery and in the brain.

Needless to say, if the subject is deep asleep or unconscious for any reason, he or she would not feel pain because the brain has been entirely blocked from any sensory input. In the context of body-mind connection, we may consider these states where the soul has minimal connectivity to the brain.

What about the moment of death? According to Qur’anic verses the experience of death is different for believers and unbelievers. Is it possible that the intensity of pain that one experiences at the moment of death is related to whether or not the soul is still “connected” to the brain? Those who die in their sleep do not seem to show any signs of pain, at least not to those who are witnessing the event. We should note that Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, stated that sleep shares many common properties with death.

It is reported that whenever God’s Messenger (may peace be upon him) went to bed, he said: “O God, it is with Your Name that I live and it is with Your Name that I die.” And when he got up he used to say: “Praise is due to God, Who gave us life after our death (sleep) and unto Him is resurrection” (Muslim, 35:6549).

Qur’an 6:60 says:

“He is the One who puts you to death during the night, and knows even the smallest of your actions during the day. He resurrects you every morning, until your life span is fulfilled; then to Him is your ultimate return. He will then inform you of everything you had done.”

Is it then plausible that the intensity of pain felt during death is a consequence of how connected the soul is to the body at that moment? These questions may or may not have been addressed by religious scholars in the past. However, information about the physiological events taking place during death is certainly very limited in the religious literature.

Let us take a quick look at the human nervous system, and perhaps this will shed some light on the verses we quoted at the beginning of the article. The peripheral nerves converge together and form bundles, called spinal roots, before they enter the spinal cord at one of the 33 different vertebral segments along its length. The brain and the spinal cord together constitute the central nervous system (as opposed to the peripheral nervous system). The only other neural pathways between the brain and the body are the cranial nerves, the nerves that enter the brain from underneath. There are twelve cranial nerves, most of which carry sensory information from the head or motor information to the head, with the exception of the vagus nerve (Xth nerve), which actually serves the visceral organs. So, it would be accurate to say that the sensory information that comes to the central nervous system enters either at the back (through the spinal cord) of a person or directly from the facial area. The phrase “their faces and backs” thus sums up all the neural pathways through which the sensation of pain can be conveyed to the brain, the interface where the body meets with the mind, or the soul.

It is possible that at the time of death, the pain receptors in the skin and deeper parts of the body start generating action potentials at a faster rate, as if great pain has been inflicted on these body parts. The ionic concentrations in the extracellular medium around the sensory cells can change as a result of diminishing blood supply, and this is probably felt more severely in the extremities at first. The increased rate of firing of action potentials is commonly observed in neuroscience experiments when a cell starts “dying” as a result of perturbations to the extracellular or intracellular ionic concentrations. A train of action potentials with an increasing rate of firing is frequently observed and eventually the action potentials stop completely when the cell can no longer function. A similar phenomenon may occur during the death of an entire living organism due to a reduction in the blood supply that is provided to the body parts as well as due to changes in the pH level from a lack of oxygen. This fast rate of action potentials will be perceived by the brain in the same way as a strong source of pain, e.g. crushing or ripping apart of the body. The principle concept is very similar to what happens in the case of “phantom pain.”

The choice of the word daraba (striking or smiting) in Verse 47:27 is also interesting to note. We describe a pain sometime as “throbbing,” because every time the heart beats the increased blood volume in the area makes the pain receptors fire faster episodically. It may be that this pulsating pain sensation is described as “striking,” using a figurative language in the Qur’an.

Of course, the fundamental question is whether the soul is still in the body and thus able to feel the agony at the time of death. Are the souls of believers taken by the angels before the agony of death starts so that they do not suffer through it? We have no evidence to answer this question one way or another. But, it is certainly within the power of God to make the soul feel the pain or to save a person from it.

Mesut Sahin, PhD

Assoc. Prof. of Biomedical Eng.

New Jersey Institute of Technology

]]> https://fountainmagazine.com/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/complementary-stories-of-the-cosmos-perspectives-from-science-and-religion/ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://107.21.79.195/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/complementary-stories-of-the-cosmos-perspectives-from-science-and-religion/ Where do we come from, why are we here and where are we going to? These are three fundamental questions that have preoccupied many civilizations throughout history. Today more than ever we have become aware of the significance of these questions. We continue our Matter&Beyond talks with Rev. Dr. Polkinghorne, a Fellow of the Royal Society and the former President of Queens’ College, Cambridge. A life dedicated to exploring the relationship between science and religion resulted in being awarded the prestigious Templeton Prize in 2002. With his extensive background in both science and theology Rev. Dr. Polkinghorne provides us with valuable insights into cosmic processes, human exploration and the afterlife.

M&B: Your life story is very interesting. You started your journey as a scientist. How did you become interested in science?

As a young boy, I was very good at mathematics; for me it was a very exciting subject. So I went to study mathematics at Cambridge University. And during my undergraduate years, I became very interested in the fact that you can use mathematics to understand the physical world. So when it came time to do a PhD, I did it in theoretical physics, working, in fact, with a very distinguished theoretical physicist, AbdusSalam, who later won the Nobel Prize. That led to a 25-year career working in theoretical elementary particle physics; that is, using mathematics to try and understand the behavior of the smallest bits of matter. It was a very enjoyable, interesting life.

M&B: You chose the study of elementary particles in physics; what was it that fascinated you?

Elementary particle physics, obviously, is a very fundamental branch; it is the study of the constituents out of which the physical world is made. When I entered the subject, it was at a very exciting stage. New experimental material was appearing and the theorists were puzzled at what was being discovered at first. During the 25 years I spent on the subject, we moved from thinking of protons and neutrons as being the constituents of matter to recognizing that they themselves were made up of yet smaller constituents, which are called quarks and gluons; the latter are what make them stick together. It was a very exciting and interesting time to be involved in the subject.

M&B: Why did you resign your position at Cambridge and leave physics?

I don’t think you get better as you get older in mathematically-based subjects. It requires a certain flexibility of mind rather than a depth of experience. You probably don’t do your best work before you’re 25, but almost certainly before you’re 45. I recognized that; I’ve seen it happen with senior colleagues, and I had thought for a long time that I wouldn’t stay in theoretical physics all my life. I had done my bit for it and probably the time had now come to do something else.

M&B: Was there one particular event that triggered your transition from being a professor at the university to being an Anglican priest?

In no way did I leave physics because I was disillusioned with it. I enjoyed it and I still took a keen interest in it. My transition from being a professor to a priest was partly conditioned by the fact that I’d reached that stage in my life where I felt I’d done my bit for physics. Also, the subject was changing. The quantum theory had become very established, the dust had settled, so to speak, on what we call the standard model. Physics was changing its character. String theory was appearing and everything was becoming much more speculative, using a different sort of mathematics; I didn’t know this so well, so it was quite a good time for a change.

That’s why I did it. There was no heavenly voice telling me, John, give up physics and do something else. It was just a natural transition to make. At least leaving physics was. Becoming an Anglican priest was a rather special choice for a further career, but that was influenced by the fact that Christianity had always been central to my life, and I wanted to serve the church.

M&B: If one were to compare scientific inquiry and religious thinking, what are the limits of scientific inquiry?

Well, science is very successful, but its success is the result of the modesty of its ambition. It doesn’t try to ask and answer every question. Essentially, it asks how things happen. Science doesn’t concern itself with a question of why things are happening, whether there is a meaning, or purpose to what’s going on. It considers a limited range of experience and essentially treats the world as an object, as an “it,” something to be kicked around, pulled apart to find out what it’s made of, manipulated. And that gives science, of course, its secret weapon, which is the experimental method. If you don’t believe it, try it for yourself, you can do it again and again and again. We all know, of course, that there is a very wide range of human experience which is quite different from that in which you encounter reality; that is not as an “it,” if you like, not as an object, but as a person, or in the richest case, the transpersonal reality of God. And that regime, which is very central to human life and fulfillment, has to give way to trusting. There’s a different way of finding the truth. So while science is great, it doesn’t tell you the whole story. It needs to be supplemented by other forms of insight.

M&B: There is an understanding that science is based on testing and religion is based on trusting. But do you think there is testing in religion too, and that there is trusting in science?

To a degree that’s true. There is trust in science, in the sense that scientists commit themselves to a belief that the world is intelligible. They will be able to understand it. It may be difficult to find that understanding, there may be a lot of labor involved, but they believe that there is a story to be found and to be told. And we wouldn’t do science unless we had committed ourselves to the expectation that we will find an intelligible structure beneath it.

Equally, in religion, we don’t really have experiments. We can’t put the Lord, your God, through a test, but we do have experiences. We have our own realistic experience, and also we have the record and the foundational religious experiences that lie behind the traditions of different faiths. So there is a motivated belief that arises from experience in religion and there is a commitment to a point of view in science. In that sense, the two are not completely different from each other. They have a certain cousinly relationship to each other.

M&B: You obviously have had religious experiences in your life. Could you give us some examples in order to better understand the difference between experience and experiment?

I think religion has an experiential aspect. I wouldn’t say it has an experimental aspect; an experiment is when you figure out what you think ought to happen and you induce the circumstances in which you think it’s going to happen; then you see whether it does or not. You can’t do that with God. But the outcome is going to be more open and much more flexible in its character. Take a very simple example. Suppose somebody is gravely ill, and their community prays for that person. They’re praying for God to heal that person’s life. Now the word healing comes from the root hale which means wholeness. The people who are praying may be hoping that wholeness will find its expression in terms of some form of remarkable physical recovery. It may, but equally it may not. The wholeness may come; it may come in the form of that person being able to accept the imminent destiny of death in a peaceful and trusting way. So there’s a sort of range of possible outcomes. You can’t lay them down beforehand in the same way that you can in science, and that makes religious experience valid, true, supportive. We have experiences of worship, we feel the presence of God in that sort of way; we have experiences of commitment. Looking back on our lives, I think we can often see what we believe to be the guiding hand of God leading us in a particular direction; I can see that myself, for example, in my change from being a physicists to being a priest. But I didn’t hear a heavenly voice telling me to do that at the time; it seemed more like my own exploration. Looking back, I see God’s hand in it as well. So there’s a richness and a sort of ambiguity, in a way, of religious experience. It makes religion a much more complex, and also, in a sense, a much more satisfying and fulfilling form of human activity.

M&B: Now that we have heard your story, let’s examine with the cosmic story. What are the scientific and religious perspectives behind the story of the universe?

When we think about the history of the universe, we know that it started out very, very small. 13.7 billion years ago it was just an expanding ball of energy, about the simplest thing you could imagine. Now it’s become very rich and complicated; the home of saints and scientists. And that extraordinary story in itself might suggest that something has been going on in what’s been happening with the world. It has not just been one thing after another. There’s some sort of unfolding purpose that’s being fulfilled.

M&B: And human beings also play an important role in the cosmic story.

I think one of the most astonishing things which has happened in the history of the universe that we know about is actually the coming to be of human life and human consciousness here on earth. Something really new emerged in the world with that, because we are able to be aware of ourselves, we are able to understand the world. In human nature, the universe, so to speak, became aware of itself. That was a new development. Obviously on the scale of the universe, we are very tiny creatures, and we inhabit a planet that is just a speck of dust in the great universe, but we are greater than all the stars because we know them and ourselves, and they know nothing. So, I do think there’s a particular value and a particular significance in human life. Scientific ability is part of that; our religious ability, I think, to encounter the reality of God reflects another unique aspect of human nature. So, as small as we are, I think we are a very significant part of what’s going on in the world. Science tells us that story, but I think religion interprets the same story and says, yes indeed, there is something going on. There is a purpose behind the universe. It’s the purpose of the Creator, and it’s not an accident that human beings who are aware of God have emerged; indeed, it was God’s purpose to bring that about.

M&B: That brings us to life after death, to questions about our purpose. As a physicist, what does the cosmic story tell you?

Every story that science can tell ends, eventually, in totality, transience and decay. As far as human life is concerned, obviously, we’re all going to die. It’s even true of the universe itself, although on much greater time scales. Not tomorrow, not for billions and billions of years, but eventually the universe itself is going to end in futility, most likely by becoming progressively colder and colder, more and more dilute. Carbon-based life, wherever it is in the universe, will eventually prove to be just a transient episode in history. That’s all that science can say. It’s the third law of thermodynamics; in the end, chaos always wins over order.

M&B: But there are also conservation laws in science. Do you think conservation laws offer some kind of hope scientifically?

Science certainly knows that some things don’t get lost, the conservation of energy for example. Energy is conserved yes, but what thermodynamics tells us is that energy becomes less and less useful. It transforms into heat and things like that which can’t be used to do footwork or create further forms of order. So that says the universe does run down. Of course, there are bits of the universe that swim against the tide, so to speak; but the emergence of humans, conscious beings, is different from that. But we are going to get caught up in that eventual decay in the end. So I think within what science can say, although there is no conservation of real fulfillment, in the end it is condemned to futility.

You might think, what’s the point of it? It’s going to end in that sort of way. But of course, the scientific story is not the only story to tell. There’s a religious story, so to speak; a vertical story to compliment the horizontal story of science. And the religious story is that God is faithful and God will not allow things of value to simply disappear. And I believe that there is for human beings, both individually, and for the universe as a whole, a destiny beyond our deaths. This is not a story that science can tell, because it depends entirely on the faithfulness of God. But I believe God is faithful, and so I believe that human beings will have a destiny beyond their death, and that our destiny will be linked with the destiny of the universe; the whole of creation matters to its Creator. That’s a big, big story, a story of hope and of fulfillment; science poses the question of eventual futility, but only religion, I think, can provide a satisfying answer to it.

The big issue is, is the universe truly a cast off? Does it truly make sense? It makes a lot of sense now. Science explores that and the wonderful order of the world. But does it everlastingly make sense, or in the end does it signify nothing? I think to a religious point of view it is a cosmos and not a chaos. But it is my religious belief that tells me this, not my scientific understanding.

M&B: As limited as we are, we can somehow strangely relate to that concept of everlasting life. What is the role of human conscious in transcending itself?

Human life is very rich and complex. It operates at a great many levels. There are all sorts of human intuitions, some of which we are not really consciously aware of, but which are a very important part of our humanity. Here’s one way of thinking about it. Suppose a child wakes up in the middle of the night frightened by some dream it has had. The parent goes to comfort the child. What the parent says to the child is: it’s all right. Now stop for a minute and think what that might mean. Is that parent really telling a lie to the child? We live in a world of cancer and concentration camps; we live in a world in which we know we’re all going to die. Is it really all right? On the face of it, you might think the answer is no, but nevertheless, there’s a deep intuition that in the end, all will be well. There’s a deep human intuition of hope that although there is death, there is more than death.

Interview conducted by Mustafa Tabanli for Ebru TV for the Emmy Award winning television series Matter and Beyond.

]]> https://fountainmagazine.com/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/istiqama-straightforwardness/ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://107.21.79.195/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/istiqama-straightforwardness/ People of truth have interpreted straightforwardness as avoiding all deviation and extremes, and as following in the footsteps of the Prophets, the faithful, the witnesses (of truth), and the righteous (in belief) in their religious deeds and daily lives. The verse: Those who declare: “Our Lord is God,” and afterwards are straightforward, the angels descend upon them (saying): “Fear not nor grieve, and good tidings to you of Paradise which you were promised” (41:30) informs us that angels will receive in the Hereafter those who acknowledged God’s Lordship, affirmed His Unity, and followed the Prophets in their beliefs, deeds, and daily lives. Such a blameless life will cause these people to receive the good tidings of Paradise at a time when all people will tremble with fear and worry on the Day of Judgment.

An individual’s conduct becomes straightforward by performing religious duties; one’s ego (inner self) becomes straightforward by following the Shari’a’s truth; one’s spirit becomes straightforward by acting in accordance with knowing God; and one’s innermost senses or faculties becomes straightforward by complying with the Shari’a’s spirit. The difficulty of being straightforward in all of these levels caused the Prophet, the most straightforward of people, upon him be peace and blessings, to say: Sura Hud and others similar to it have made me old, thereby referring to the Divine command: Be straightforward as you are commanded, which is in sura Hud (11:112).

The Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings, never deviated from the Straight Path, and was always straightforward in his deeds, words, and feelings. He guided Companions who sought salvation and eternal happiness to straightforwardness by saying: Declare: “I have believed in God,” and then be straightforward, a saying that concisely sums up all essential elements of belief and conduct.

If people claim progress on the path to the Truth but are not straightforward in their state and conduct, all efforts will be in vain, and they will have to account in the Hereafter for the time spent without straightforwardness. To reach the intended destination, an initiate must be straightforward at the beginning, maintain it throughout the journey, and be straightforward at the end of the path, as gratitude for being rewarded with knowledge of God. Being alert to possible deviation at the beginning, engaging in self-supervision during the journey, being closed to wrong thoughts and actions, and considering only God’s pleasure and approval at the end are significant signs of this state:

I know one among the people of straightforwardness:
He was the most distinct in the realm of guidance.
He sold his soul to the lights of (Divine) Identity,
And died purified of all the dirt of human nature.

A servant should seek straightforwardness, not wonderworking or the power of spiritual unveiling or discovery. God demands straightforwardness; however, a servant desires extraordinary spiritual abilities. When they told Bayazid al-Bistami about a man who walked on water and flew in the air, he said:

Fish and frogs also float on water, and insects and birds fly in the air. If you see a man float on his rug on water without sinking and sit cross-legged in the air, do not show any interest in him. Rather, consider whether he is straightforward in his state and conduct, and whether they are in accordance with the Sunna (the way of the Prophet, upon him be peace and blessings).

What Bayazid advises is that a believer be straightforward and completely humble as a servant, not one flying in the atmosphere of wonders.

Straightforwardness is the last step on a three step stairway leading to nearness of God. The first step is consistency, where a traveler strives to embody Islam’s theoretical and practical dimensions. Success in this continuous effort brings one’s carnal self under control. The second step is settlement or tranquility, where an initiate purifies his or her inner self of the vices contaminating the spirit and heart (e.g., show, fame, and vanity, all of which cannot be reconciled with servanthood), thereby purging the heart of all that is not God. The third step is straightforwardness, where the doors of Divinity and creation are slightly opened to the traveler, and the Divine gifts are bestowed in the form of wonderworking and blessings, although he or she neither desires nor seeks them.

Straightforwardness, the last station of the way, means living without deviation from loyalty to God and under His direct protection; it is an environment in which Divine gifts and favors are bestowed. Flowers never fade away and hills and slopes do not experience winter, for it is an environment of eternal “spring.” This is what is pointed out in: If only they were straightforward on the path, then, assuredly We would give them to drink of “water” in abundance (72:16). So long as people pursue straightforwardness on the path of belief in Divine Unity and fulfill their covenants with God and His Messenger by fulfilling the Divine ordinances, Divine gifts and bounties will flow abundantly.

Our master, upon him be peace and blessings, declares: So long as the heart of a servant is not sound and straight, his belief cannot be true and upright; so long as his tongue is not true, his heart cannot be sound and straight. He also declares: Every morning, the parts of a man’s body warn his tongue, saying: “Fear God concerning us. For if you are true, we will be true and straight; if you are crooked, we will also deviate.”

Finally, let us hear from As’ad Mukhlis Pasha a very significant warning:

Straightforwardness requires always being true and steadfast;
Fix one of your legs in the center, and let “the free arm of the compass” [your other leg] travel around.

Notes

1. Al-Tirmidhi, “Tafsir al-Qur’an,” 57.
2. Muslim, “Iman,” 62; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 3:413.
3. In other words, he submitted himself wholly and without reserve to God.
4. Al-Qushayri, Al-Risala, 397; Ahmad ibn ‘Abd Allah Abu Nu’aym, Hilyat al-Awliya’ wa Tabaqat al-Asfiya’, 10 vols. (Beirut, 1967), 10:40.
5. Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 3:198.
6. Al-Tirmidhi, “Zuhd,” 61; Ibn Hanbal, Musnad, 3:96.
7. In other words, one is to be well-grounded in Islam and to keep the company of those who can provide proper guidance.

]]> https://fountainmagazine.com/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/quantum-inspired-world-of-computers-science-or-fiction/ Mon, 01 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000 http://107.21.79.195/all-issues/2010/issue-74-march-april-2010/quantum-inspired-world-of-computers-science-or-fiction/ When we draw even a simple line using a computer program, we usually ignore what our computer actually does in the background. It converts videos, images or texts into bits, the smallest building blocks of information, before doing any manipulation. In other words, a digital computer is unable to process this information, unless it is read in its own language, which is represented by two symbols only, the 0 and 1 bits. For example, the character “a” translates into this binary language as the “01100001” bit string. Why such a simple alphabet? Because, this is very convenient from the electronic aspect of your computer. These bits can be simply represented for example, as an electrical level on the circuitry in most computing devices, and best of all they can be programmed to accomplish certain computational tasks.

How about quantum computers? Quantum computers make use of a quantum mechanical phenomenon, so-called quantum superposition (being in different states simultaneously). Classically, voltage across a circuit element can be either positive or negative when measured by a voltmeter, but not simultaneously negative and positive. Could it somehow be possible to be in both states simultaneously?

Quantum superposition

For electrical circuits, the answer is obviously no. In microscopic scales of single atoms, or photons (i.e., single quantized packets that constitutes the light beam), however, the answer is yes. Consider an optical component, for instance, that splits an incoming light beam into two beams of equal intensity. In optics, such a device is called a 50/50-beam splitter. You can ask what happens when a single photon is sent to such a beam splitter. Since a single photon cannot be split in this simple experiment, you might expect that it would either be transmitted or reflected with equal probability . Experiments, however, show that this is not actually true in the single photon level. The single photon is indeed simultaneously reflected and transmitted.

Once microscopic quantum superposition is brought into our macroscopic world, we can imagine many interesting phenomena. Simultaneously occupying many different places and being dead and alive at the same time are only two of them. Of course such technology, especially applied to humans is highly science fiction, given current experimental and theoretical challenges. Nevertheless, quantum superposition has a strikingly interesting similarity with the spiritual states already achievable by saints, such that they can be available in more than one place at a given time or become dead and alive, in the sense that they live both in the future and in the past.

It is not known exactly why quantum superposition exists, but what we know is that it is a necessary ingredient for our complex universe to perform its vital functions in a finite amount of time. Quantum superposition principle reflects the great wisdom and power of the Omnipotent. Similar to the single photon example above, with this principle, God gives the underlying particles of the universe an immense power to achieve many tasks simultaneously. Otherwise, regarding the finite age of the universe (about 15 billion years), our physical universe and the events taking place all around us would not come into existence. The Quantum superposition principle has also inspired researchers to build unprecedentedly fast computers to solve the problems that are intractable with any classical computing method. In this article, we introduce this new strategy to computing.

Quantum computing with superposition

Having provided some background about the quantum superposition, we ask the question “How could we exploit quantum superposition for fast computing?” Below we will give a glimpse of that power. Consider a three-bit register. It can only store one out of eight numbers in the set, {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7}, in a given moment of time. For example, number 5 is stored in a three-bit register as “101.” Now suppose that these three bits are replaced by their quantum cousins, so-called qubits (short for quantum bit). You can imagine, for example, a quantum register consisting of three rubidium (Rb) atoms. These individual atoms can be prepared in the 0 and 1 logical states simultaneously by shining a laser beam for a certain amount of time. Then it is possible for three atoms combined to be prepared in a superposition of eight numbers, which is impossible classically. In other words all those eight guys physically exist in the same room, although it doesn’t allow more than one guy to fit classically. If we want to make operations on all of these numbers, we don’t need to perform serially; instead, we can achieve that in only one computational step on a single hardware. Thus, quantum superposition leads to a massive parallelism, which renders the computational complexity (i.e., a measure of how efficiently a given problem could be solved) highly reduced for various difficult problems in computer science.

For example, let’s consider RSA, a well-known algorithm (i.e., a set of instructions to solve a problem on a computer) for secure communication that was invented by Rivest, Shamir, and Adelman, hence the name, in 1977 at MIT. It is widely used in electronic commerce protocols. The details of RSA are out of scope in this article (See the FAQ section of the RSA Laboratories’ web site in Ref. [1] for a brief introduction to RSA). Here, we only want to mention its vulnerability to quantum computers if they were to exist. The security of the RSA cryptosystem relies on the difficulty of factoring large numbers, which is intractable with classical computers. Factorization for small numbers, say 15, is quite simple. When the number of digits increase up to a few 100s, for example, enormous computational resource is required. RSA Laboratories publish the RSA challenge numbers (see Ref. [2] for the list of challenge numbers and the prize) on their web site to test the security of their algorithm at various key lengths. The largest integer, RSA-640, which has 193 decimal digits (640 bits), was factorized recently by F. Bahr, et al. The next challenge number in turn is RSA-704, and the prize is $30,000. Imagine factorizing a 1000-digit number. You would probably be a considerably rich person in just a few minutes, if you had a moderate quantum computer and the RSA Laboratories kept feeding you with new challenge numbers, because the factorization of such a large number with current computational resources takes forever, perhaps even more than the estimated age of the universe. Of course, the RSA Laboratories will not let you be very rich, by simply quitting posting new challenge numbers. They would be interested in your quantum computer, though.

How does the quantum computer crack the world’s most secure cryptosystems with little effort? One can construct new algorithms for quantum computers based on above described principle of superposition. These algorithms can take the outcome of previous calculations and input them as a superposition to the next stage of the instructions, which results in a highly efficient form of computing (please consult Ref [3] to have for a simple explanation of quantum superposition for fast computation). In 1994, Peter Shor from AT&T’s Bell Labs in New Jersey just did that. He developed the world’s first quantum algorithm, which efficiently performs factorization. In 1996, Lov Grover also at Bell Labs invented the unstructured database (i.e., a disordered list such as a list of city names not in alphabetical order) search algorithm for quantum computers, so-called Grover’s algorithm.

Suppose that there is a basket with ten balls in it. You are now asked to find a specific one with your eyes closed, say red. It is known, however, beforehand that there is only one red ball in the basket. All you, or your smart digital friend, can do is just pick one randomly and see if it is red. If you are lucky enough, the first ball you pick might be red. In the worst case, however, you will be successful at your last choice. So, classically you have to repeat the process on average at half times the number of balls. If you made a quantum friend rather than classical, however, your life would be smoother. You would be able to find and manage your stuff easily, no matter how messy you are. Quantum computers speed up such unsorted database searches quadratically. You can find, say your favorite socks, in a number of trials that is about the square root of the total number of your stuff. You may think that you don’t have that much stuff. But consider identifying a specific element in a considerably large pool of unsorted data. As the number of elements in the set increases, it quickly becomes intractable to find what exactly you are looking for. In that case the significance of quadratic boost cannot be denied.

Motivated by the above mentioned factorization and unsorted database search algorithms, the power of quantum computing has inspired great attention, since their invention, among many disciplines including physicists, computer scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and material scientists.

Quantum computer today

Despite promising developments in theory, progress in the physical realization of quantum circuits, algorithms, and communication systems have been extremely challenging to date. There are many approaches for quantum information processing. Major model physical systems include nuclear spins, ions, neutral atoms, solid state nanostructures, superconductors, and optical circuits. In optics, for example, the qubit can be represented by the polarization (i.e., direction of oscillation of electric field) state of a single photon. So that the instructions described by the algorithm could be implemented by manipulating the polarization states of single photons. Unfortunately, all the models for quantum computing have their own drawbacks besides their advantages.

Given the trends, nobody knows whether or not a sufficiently scalable (i.e., large enough to harvest its potential power) quantum computer would be available in the decades to come. Nonetheless, D-Wave Systems, Inc., The Quantum Computing Company, was eager enough to unveil the “world’s first commercially viable quantum computer” (see Figure 1, and Ref [4] for the story.). D-Waves’ 16-qubit quantum computer makes use of superconducting element niobium, which operates at an extremely low temperature. It can search for molecular structures that match a target molecule, create a complicated seating plan, and fill in Sudoku puzzles. Although the device is very slow compared to an inexpensive PC, D-Wave intends to develop a 1000-qubit quantum computer.* The goal is to scale the quantum computer to about 10 thousand qubits to solve the most challenging problems outright, which are simply intractable with classical computers. The researchers, however, are not very optimistic. Prof. Lloyd of Massachusetts of Institute of Technology, a pioneering scientist in superconducting approach for quantum computing that underlies the D-Wave’s quantum computer, says “It’s too good to be true.”

Once quantum computers of reasonable power are built, the world will be unimaginably exciting and perhaps scary too. When the first commercial computer, Universal Atomic Computer I (UNIVAC I) (see Figure 2), was shipped to the United States Air Force in 1952, nobody was indeed aware of what this fat guy would lead to in our social, economical, political, and psychological life. Its descendants, however, are now inevitable parts of our lives. They are helping us in many aspects of daily life. Controlling machines, sending electronic mail, scheduling our plane tickets, communicating with our best friends, playing games, making our payments are only some of them.

In this article we only sketched the quantum superposition principle as an important ingredient for quantum computation. This is certainly not the whole story. “Entanglement” [6], for example, is another complementary resource for quantum computing and communications, as well as quantum mechanics to test its foundations.

Contrary to its classical counterparts, the power of quantum computers indeed comes directly from our granted capability of tailoring and mimicking the amazing design hidden in the microscopic world of atoms, photons or other quantum particles. Quantum computers sooner or later will bring the most science-fiction into reality. They will play a significant role especially in the development of ultra-intelligent machines and robots superior to classical ones, and communication systems whose ultimate security is guarantied by the nature’s architecture which was lay down by God. Quantum computers will reveal to us the deepest secrets of our Creator embedded in our universe, which cannot be explored using conventional computers. That day, the future will only be lacked by our limited imagination.

Acknowledgment

This article was produced in MERGEOUS [7], an online article and project development service for authors and publishers dedicated to the advancement of technologies in the merging realm of science and religion.

Omer D. Ikramoglu is a freelance writer in optics and quantum physics.

References

1. RSA Laboratories, http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/

2. RSA Challenge Numbers, http://www.rsa.com/rsalabs/node.asp?id=2093

3. A short introduction to quantum computation by A. Barenco, A.Ekert, A. Sanpera and C.Machiavello from La Recherche, November 1996. http://cam.qubit.org/articles/intros/comp.php

4. J. R. Minkel, “First “Commercial” Quantum Computer Solves Sudoku Puzzles”, Scientific American, Feb 13 (2007).

5. UNIVAC I, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNIVAC_I

6. S. Candaroglu, “Quantum Entanglement: Illusion or Reality?” Fountain, Issue 61 (January-February 2008).

7. http://www.mergeous.com/

* At the time of writing D-Wave Systems had only 16-qubit quantum chip and they were intending to develop a 1000-qubit quantum computer by the end of 2008. Although they couldn’t meet their goal, they now have a design of a 128-qubit most powerful ever quantum chip which awaits the tests (see http://www.dwavesys.com for up to date information).

 

 

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