Gravitational Wave: Its Philosophical Value and Our Civilization

In case you still haven't got it, please be informed well that lately human race has finally discovered gravitational waves, a phenomenon 100 years ago was hypothesized by a great scientist, Albert Einstein. Gravitational waves are ripples in the curvature of space-time which propagate as wave transporting energy as gravitational radiation. They cause matters distorted following the distortion in space-time because of the radiation.

Just watch the video below if up until now you still can't comprehend what in universe the gravitational wave is.

Now you can continue reading. Of course someday when future scientists can research further in applied physics and thus invent high-technological tools using the information of gravitational waves, our civilization may look much different from what it is now, but I believe we must wait for some other centuries for such to happen. What I'm trying to talk about here is not really about the physics, but as usual and more relevant to our daily lives, how this discovery can truly contribute to our civilized society.

Understanding of gravitational wave gives us significant information about our perception of reality: it's not real. Of course the fact that I've written this article is real, and the fact that you're reading it is real as well. However, that's just as much as the law of physics allows it to happen, or rather fabricate things to be as what they seem like to us. Gravitational wave indicates that even the straight line curves, and the measurement of length and height will never tell us the true result because it changes over time impacted by the mass (don't forget that even the mass is determined by the Higgs boson). Meaning, there is no such a thing as absolute.

Funny more than 25 centuries ago some ancient Gurus already taught that this world we perceive is not real, and that's why no matter how firmly one holds on to one's belief of existence and attaches oneself to any materials, it's absolutely pointless. Please don't feel surprised. Try to remember our childhood and I think it will remind us to an old popular children's song: "Row, row, row your boat gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily. Life is but a dream". Doesn't it awe you to find out that even our modern civilization has been advised by children's song but we barely notice and care about it?

Sociologically speaking, norms and social values that determine civilization are based on how people perceive the world. The idea of what is right from wrong never stand alone on its own, but instead is based on the idea of what is beneficial from harming. The problem there is our perception to see whether something is beneficial or harming is limited by our knowledge. Just like our world used to be as small as the belief saying stars revolve around the Earth, Earth is flat and the mountains are pillars that hold up the sky from falling, our morality was as small as murdering and banishing those who argued against such dogmatic belief, and people were afraid to sail through the world because of the fear of falling from Earth.

Take a look at our country now. Regardless the discoveries of how reality is, people keep forcing their own assumptive ideology on other people's lives. People oppress and kill each other with basis of majority versus minority. LGBT groups, just because they want to be honest with themselves, are marginalized despite causing no harm.

Albeit we have been taught that life is transitory, corruption is done by those who are supposed to be the leaders and representatives of our country. A certain religious organization who self-claims to be accountable for distinguishing Halal from Haram refuses to be audited, not to mention that because of them now some headscarves are halal and some other are questionable.

Society is ironic, aren't they? If you cannot even be sure of your very own height and your distorted-by-gravity body shape, why do we force other people to swallow our personal ideology and faith? Why can't we simply respect the curvy diversity and hence live in peace? If life is but a dream, why do we have to be avaricious?

That is why I believe science is important for our moral development and civilization in philosophical manner. A friend of mine once said that people are afraid of things they don't recognize. Discovering the gravitational wave is not only about proving Einstein was genius and visionary. It is also about how humanity overcomes our fear of pursuing the change for better future.

If we can figure out that the Universe is vast and expanding, it's not difficult to understand that humankind is a plural being and it has potential to improve. Science is dynamic that it never stops growing, so is social norm and mankind's civilization.