Shown here, a scene from Stanley Kubrick's famous 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey based upon Arthur C. Clarke's science fiction novel of the same name.The other morning, Jaelle awoke at 5:49 a.m. I was exhausted, but Nicole was *more* exhausted, so I got up with my daughter. Too tired to do much else, I let her play on the floor, and I mindlessly flicked on the TV. It just so happened that the Sci-Fi channel was playing the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. The movie fascinated me for a number of reasons. So here are my reflections:
- First of all, HAL9000 has got to be one of the creepiest villains in film history. Darth Vader. Hannibal Lecter. Wicked Witch of the West. The Shark from Jaws. And HAL.
- Second of all, despite being made before man landed on the moon, the movie is not dated. It still works mainly because (like Blade Runner and other films) it invites us to think deeply about our own existence.
- Thirdly, I was thinking that one of the reasons the movie is genius is because Kubrick (a poet and artist) attempted to make a movie out of a book written by Arthur C. Clarke (a scientist). Artists and Scientists are different species. They see the world in totally different ways. And as I was watching it, I had to think that Kubrick included ideas and themes that Clarke never would have imagined. The interplay of the world views was fascinating.
For example:
1. The Mistrust of Technology. Hal9000 goes haywire, killing nearly everyone. Watching it, it made me think of Jurassic Park, another great Sci-Fi book. There’s a part in that novel where a string of unfortunate events lets all the dinosaurs out despite the myriad of “failsafe” security measures. Chaos theorist and mathematician Ian Malcolm says to the cloning engineers this famous line. He says, “You were so busy wondering if you could do it, you never stopped to think if you should.” The tendency of the scientist is (often) to elevate man’s intelligence and his potential to nearly god-like status – and yet the Greeks and poets across the ages have kindly warned against this type of hubris by painting vivid pictures of what happens when man thinks he can control everything. It always results in tragedy.
2. Evolution (With Some Outside Help)In the first scene of the movie, prehistoric apes, confronted by a mysterious black monolith, teach themselves that bones can be used as weapons, and thus discover their first tools. The bone is thrown into the air and dissolves into a space shuttle, which must be, in the words of film critic Roger Ebert, the longest flash-forward in the history of the cinema. Apes have “evolved” into space-exploring man.
But if you think about it, this scene is NOT conventional scientific evolutionary theory. The reason why the apes “evolve” is because of the monolith. The smooth artificial surfaces and right angles of the monolith (which was obviously made by intelligent beings) triggered the realization in an ape brain that intelligence could be used to shape the objects of the world. Which means that a “higher intelligence” had to be inserted into the world of the apes for them to “become human.” This didn’t happen by chance – but by a purposeful interaction with a “higher being.” This sounds a lot like intelligent design, doesn’t it?
FOOTNOTE: Ben Stein recently did a documentary movie called Expelled in which he interviewed Christian scientists about their beliefs. Not just like 4th grade science teachers in Paducah, Kentucky, but renowned DNA-researchers, cellular biologists, and fossil record experts at some of the nation’s best universities who have come under withering attacks from the scientific community because they believe in God and believe in the right to follow the scientific evidence to where they believe it leads – which is to the possibility of God. Their stance in a nutshell, is this: "At the most basic level of human life, the cellular level, there is a ton of information (in the DNA code). There is also very clear order. This could not have happened by chance, because we know that things left to themselves tend toward chaos and disorder."
But this position is not popular at all. In fact, there has been a surge of “new atheism” which is increasingly aggressive and intolerant of any mention of God as being “unscientific” or “irrational” or “simply stupid.” Now I understand the fear of religion in the scientific community (think Galileo and Copernicus and their encounters with the Catholic Church) but this strikes me as really bad science.
3. The Final AuthorityIn the final scene of the movie, Man is confronted with a monolith, just as the apes were, and is drawn to a similar conclusion:
This must have been made.This made me think about the Book of Genesis and the Biblical account of Creation. Now, the Bible isn’t really a good scientific text book, and those who attempt to make it one are often frustrated. It's like using an ice cream cone to change a tire. Genesis is Hebrew Poetry, and what Moses is doing in Genesis isn’t really about science; it is theology. In the ancient near East, you had a myriad of cultures and religions, almost all of whom worshipped parts of nature. In fact, the very words “sun” and “moon” and “stars” that Moses uses would have been names of ancient gods. What Moses is doing is clear – he’s saying, “Hey everybody around here! You worship the sun, the ocean, the land – but there is a Creator who made all those things. The highest thing. The Creator. The one who was not created. You should worship that God.”
I find this same sentiment in the final scene of 2001, when man sees the monolith for the first time. There is a clear sense of awe and fear. There is an irresistible draw toward it. And there is the sense that this is something “other.” Higher. Bigger.
The difference between the movie and the Bible is that Kubrick doesn’t feel comfortable pointing anyone toward an answer about what this “other” is. Moses, on the other hand, does.
Final ThoughtsWatching
2001: A Space Odyssey at 5:49 in the morning made me think about the contrast between the brilliance of science and the brilliance of artists. I thought about the Arthur C. Clarkes of the world who I know and marvel at. I'm no scientist, but I'm sure glad my doctor is. And the structural engineer who built the bridge I drive over every day. And the surgeon who just operated on my friend's 4-year-old son to give him a liver transplant.
But there are moments, I think, when even scientists doubt. Moment when science comes to an end. When we realize that even if we mapped out every contour of the Universe, that wouldn’t explain why it’s here. Why we’re here.
Moments when we’re faced with the a sense that certain things are wrong – transcendently wrong and transcendently right – and we wonder where that conscience comes from and why it seems to be universally present.
There’s that moment of when we encounter a moving piece of art, or a stunning landscape, or an emotion of love crashes over us – what is a scientist to do with these? And this is why we have poets and philosophers. To remind us that there seems to be something inside us that yearns for...something else.
In the 20th century, we’ve seen a few societies convinced that religion is dangerous and have systematically attempted to pave over these streams with the thick, rough asphalt of communism and secularism and strict materialism. The idea that all we have is what we can observe. Science is God. And yet, those societies don’t function well. Strangely, those paved-over steams find ways to bubble up. And thirsty, parched men drink from them (even if they are polluted, they still drink). What is a scientist, a rationalist, to do with these signposts that seem to point to something even bigger than science?
Maybe, in those moments, the words of Moses are worth considering.
