In July 1945, as Oppenheimer and other scientists gathered to watch the Trinity nuclear test, the intensity of the explosion would surpass the limits of their imagination. A passage from the Gita would flash through Oppenheimer’s mind: “If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst at once into the sky, that would be like the splendour of the Mighty One”.
His thoughts would then quickly turn to Krishna’s words from the same epic: “Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds”.
‘Oppenheimer vs Arjuna’, a session hosted by Bharat Nivas in Auroville on Sunday, will examine the eternal and contemporary moral dilemmas faced by the iconic warrior from the Mahabharata epic and the controversial Father of the Atomic Bomb in their encounters with the truth.
The free-entry session will be led by Sehdev Kumar, bio-ethicist-science historian and Professor Emeritus of Environmental Studies at the University of Waterloo, Canada, who will examine questions around ethics, morality and global peace and human dharma.
The presentation, which will be followed by screening of Christopher Nolan’s multiple-Oscar winning eponymous film and discussions, will juxtapose the epochal discovery of nuclear energy in 1945—an event without parallel in human history in its power for devastation and impact on the fate of the planet—with the timeless exchange between Krishna and Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, said Prof. Kumar, currently residing in Auroville.
Prof. Kumar, a winner of the Templeton course prize on Science-Religion dialogue, will also discuss concepts of the freedom of conscience, the militarisation of scientific pursuit and its consequences for the fate of the earth. The essential question is whether the force of rationalisation, justification and self-preservation stronger than any moral impulse of dharma and the human conscience.
As he points out, Robert Oppenheimer’s premonition that a genie had just been unleashed would turn true when, in August, the first atomic bomb was dropped by the U.S. over Hiroshima, followed by another on Nagasaki, turning the course of mankind forever. While the scientist, both revered and reviled, would rue that we did the devil’s work, a critical threshold had been crossed.
He remarked that with Hiroshima, a snake had entered the Garden of Eden of science.
In fact, an article he wrote for the Canadian daily The Globe and Mail in 2000, says, ”A Snake in the Garden of Eden, “ providing broad framework of philosophical inquiry central to the presentation at Bhumika Hall from 11 a.m on Sunday.
From the secretive alchemists, to Greek scientists like Euclid and Pythagoras and the great minds of the modern era, science over the centuries represented a rarefied realm; the pursuit of scientific truth was, perforce, insulated from dogma or human passions. The exalted pursuit had made the scientist a symbol, not only of penetrating intellect and detached reasoning, but of highest human integrity itself, he said.
Prof. Sehdev Kumar contends that as important as it is for science to embrace an unwavering commitment to dispassionate reason, that alone may not suffice. “Science, merely by virtue of its immense power, must equip itself to choose between right and wrong”.
As he argues in the article, while science knows how to do many things, it does not always know what to do, or why. And, this has a bearing on mankind in an array of ways, from nuclear arms race or world-wide ecological crises to intractable problems in bioethics.
