by Okey Ikechukwu

But, just hold it right there! Since when did common sense become a good candidate for the advancement of knowledge, throughout the history of mankind on earth? All the people who ever tried to advance human knowledge throughout the ages upset common sense by what they said!

 When is something real? When you say that it is real? Does the reality of a thing depend on human opinion? If, for instance, you find yourself playing a game of football in your dream and you wake up later to discover it was all a dream, were playing or not? Oh, I get it; you were not playing in the ‘real’ world. So what makes it unreal and by whose verdict is the real real and the unreal unreal? We can answer that question by saying that we all know what the world is made of. We know the difference between wakefulness and sleep, do we not? But do we, really?

The answer to the the question ‘What is a material object?’ for most people lies in simply pointing to a chair, or any other thing in front of them, and saying: ‘This is a material object’. And they would be absolutely right, wouldn’t they? A chair is surely a chair, is it not? It is solid, it is in a definite location where it occupies space and it has weight. For all you know, someone may even be sitting on it. So a chair is a material object and it is all solid and nothing else.

But if you put a wooden chair under a powerful microscope you will find that it is full of holes. The microscope and all instruments that give us deeper and better knowledge of our material world have great potential for confounding us, don’t they? They have acquired a reputation, over thousands of years, of compelling us to abandon what we know for sure from time to time. That has been their conspiracy all through history. Imagine the uproar that greeted the discovery of microorganisms. We would all be in trouble today, if doctors and scientists threw away all their scientific equipment and relied only on their eyes, ears and other physical senses. It was through the scientific equipment that we got better insights that led to the improvements in our lives as human beings over thousands of years.

So, getting back to what we were saying about putting a chair under a microscope, the first thing you discover when you put the wood of the chair under the microscope and magnify it thousands of times is that no particle of it is actually in touch with the other. If you pursue the matter further and take the discussion into the domain of quantum physics, you will end up accusing scientists of outright witchcraft! They will tell you, for instance, that there is actually nothing solid in the chair you thought you were seeing. Now, that is pushing it a bit, is it not? we ‘know’ that our world is as solid as it has always been. In fact, ‘everyone’ knows that; nuclear physics or no nuclear physics! But then, nuclear physics is science. Science gives physically verifiable evidence, which it calls scientific knowledge. And science has come to the painful conclusion that this world of ours is not solid at all!

The question then is: ‘what is it that people see when they speak of a material object? The scientists will tell you that you are only talking about a field of energy and nothing more. They will tell you that the reality we see everyday boils down to what they call agglomerations of elementary particles at different degrees of motion. In short, that it is all nothing but light energy, which give rise to forms through friction and union. And that makes things worse for our nuclear physicists as far as the average person is concerned, does it not? Most people are bound to tell the physicist that they have no idea what he is talking about. In fact common sense will be very upset to hear the sort of thing you find in nuclear physics; especially if it finds out that it is expected to take such ‘nonsense’ seriously. How can anyone say that a solid chair is not solid at all?

But, just hold it right there! Since when did common sense become a good candidate for the advancement of knowledge, throughout the history of mankind on earth? All the people who ever tried to advance human knowledge throughout the ages upset common sense by what they said! Some even lost their lives into the bargain; while man and his common sense knowledge of his world triumphed. Sad, is it not, that common sense and the average man’s concept of the world is actually part of his problem in understanding it?

Common sense will assure you that a strong concrete wall cannot be brought down, except by a very strong and visible physical force. But science will tell you that the strongest concrete wall in the world can be made to collapse by directing sound waves at it. Sound waves, as in invisible sound waves? But the scientist will assure you that what you call ordinary sound waves are actually a species of radiations. They travel in waves and can undermine a concrete wall’s holding structure, make the component stones and sand to ‘free’ themselves and collapse. But common sense will have serious problems with that. I mean, how do you explain that to the average person who has no knowledge of science!

But do we really need to explain everything to common sense? If you place a radioactive substance near a concrete wall it will eventually crumble because the nuclear material is harmful to its atomic structure. So, which one is the real world; the one common sense sees or the one we know from observing matter more closely the way scientists are now doing? In the end it is all actually a question of one’s level of consciousness.

Take, for instance, a child who defines a refrigerator as something that contains ice cream, biscuits and cold drinks. The child’s definition is ‘correct’, but an engineer will laugh at it; and the child will be very upset to hear what the engineer has to say about a refrigerator. The child will even doubt the engineer’s knowledge and his sanity. Yet the child and the engineer both represent different levels of understanding. The only difference is that you do not use the child’s understanding to solve engineering problems. So the engineer’s knowledge will simply be a much deeper appreciation of what the child has to say; and we must move from a child’s knowledge of what makes up our material universe if we are to understand it.

It is just like a child realising that a refrigerator is nothing but wires, a compressor, electric current and much more. The problem is how to explain that in simple terms, because it is really a long journey for a child’s mind; to ask it to forget about ice cream and think of wires and compressors instead.

Going back to how radiations can affect everything we do, if you place a powerful magnet, or combination of certain objects, near your television set you end up with poor, or no, reception. If you place your cell phone beside your radio or television set, you will hear very unsettling noises whenever there is an incoming call, or a text message. If you pass electric current through the living human body it will be short-circuited, leading to death. All these visible and serious reactions occur because of a simple exchange of invisible radiations. From here we can even go further to say that if you place a piece of radioactive material beside a living cell the cell will ‘die’ after some time. The radioactive substance would have reversed its currents of life, dismantled its animating, genetic signature and disintegrated its holding structure. Yes radiations, which are really invisible, can be that far reaching in their effects!

The human body, for instance, can be easily disintegrated into its original substances by a change in the combination of radiations around it. What is the physical body, if not chemicals and minerals? Is that not the earth, with which the human spirit covers itself in the world of matter? So, going back to what we were saying earlier, every object we encounter in everyday life is actually nothing more but a species of radiation. Once you combine the radiations wrongly, you create disharmony and distort the naturally intended purpose of things. But nothing can go wrong when the currents of life are used in the right way.

We have trouble on earth today in our personal lives as well as national and international affairs because most things are out of tune: in pour thoughts, words, interpersonal relations, power relations and the management of the commonwealth. Even our physical environment is now on its knees, thanks to the violation of its “Laws of Life” by our excesses. As scientific discoveries and the prophesies of seers are pointing to a cosmic plan to correct these anomalies, it comes down again to nothing but a realignment of forces and the elimination of the wrong connections caused by man’s activities and untoward lifestyle. If, as science has shown, the world is made up of ‘fields of energy and radiations’, it should follow that fundamental changes in the types, and nature, of radiations reaching us will also affect our life in a radical way. Naturally! And it should also follow that all sorts of radical changes can be brought about by introducing new radiations; such as scientist can now see approaching and bombarding the earth through the damage ozone layer in the earth’s atmosphere. It will all eventually lead to the ‘end’, or a fundamental change, in the life we know on earth today; even as deluded ‘activists’ and social crusaders are fighting for equity, shelter  and the welfare of the masses in a house that is marked for demolition.

As the nation and the world reels from one grave danger to another, as presidential and governorship aspirants emerge and are demystified, as alliances are forged and formed, as political parties and sundry interests crawl out of the woodwork, each determined to hold sway, the real march of events proceeds apace. They all have what they call reality – and it is unfortunately different from the real!

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Op-ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija.