Sci-Fi🔭/ Spirituality🔱

The photo below was put across Madrid bus stops in 2020. The poster hugely comprises of a real mirror with the text announcing its release- it reads, "Black Mirror, 6th season, live now, everywhere." The series focuses on the human and technology relationships in a rather bleak perspective.

Black Mirror was quite popular on Netflix in recent times. The show explores how we live in a post-modern world of information technology, cyberterrorism, virtual reality and cybercrime. Despite its success, one good thing about Black Mirror is that relatively unknown actors have been cast in lead roles. 

Science fiction is a strong genre, as it aims to predict and explore possible future scenarios. Most of its episodes represent a terrible future in which humanity's obsession with technology has led them into adverse situations. The most memorable Black Mirror experiences, especially at the beginning of the series, leave you alternately horrified and hypnotized by what the episodes say about the way we interact with technology. The show is simply one of the smartest and comprehensive science fiction works of recent times.

It is a matter of fact that in today's world, science fiction hugely focuses on all that could 'go wrong' in the world with its highly intelligent devices. Sci-fi needs to move a bit away from space opera and fantasy to overcome the mood of 'digital-darkness'. I believe that today's science fiction is too bleak a representation, incapable of opening up new perspectives to the betterment humanity. This is not just a question of sci-fi pop culture, it is a question of our fallen culture and the nature of humanity as a whole. Perhaps the most obvious way science fiction depicts spirituality is the use of predictive forces (pun intended).

Arthur Clarke, is one such example who has managed to shed a better light over the ability of fiction to reshape the world through the technologies of the future. He had not only succeeded in writing a spectacular novel about the future, but also in bringing satellite communication to the pages of the popular Wireless World magazine before anyone had even conceived the idea.

Source - lightmellenium | Image by - lightmellenium

Science fiction stories have been around for decades, but the race between America and the Soviet Union gave them a new energy and meaning. When Jules Verne wrote "From the Earth to the Moon" in 1865, the first manned mission to the Moon seemed like a fantasy flight. Soon after, Vernes's words proved to draw a startlingly accurate vision of the unfolding future when the Apollo 11 mission, which touched down on the lunar surface a little more than a century later. 

To the moon 🚀

Science fiction continues as a fantastic story - going back to the roots of human civilization, with its own history, exploration and discovery. Author and critic John Clute outlined a science fiction story that begins with a scientific revolution that would shape modernity. The story originated from the idea of unprecedented events that would be triggered due to the innovations arising from science. It roughly reiterates the fact that the world we live in is indeed a world of mystery- a place of wonder, of limitless discovery. 

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Philip K. Dick is the author of a series of stories exploring the relationship between science fiction, religion and spirituality coupled with his own personal experiences. His collection of letters and notes was published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other publications and is one of the most popular collections of his writings to date.One can also immerse oneself in the secular side of spirituality like the famous astronomer Carl Sagan.

Breathe 🌿

It's clear that the truth is, just as Carl Sagan once said, " 'Spirit' comes from the Latin word 'to breathe'. What we breathe is air- which is certainly matter, however thin it might be. There is no necessary implication in the word 'spiritual' that we are talking of anything other than matter outside the realm of science. Science is not only compatible with spirituality, but it is a profound source of spirituality. When we recognize our place in an immensity of light years and in the passage of ages. When we grasp the intricacy, beauty and subtlety of life; then that soaring feeling, that sense of elation and humility combined, is purely spiritual. So are our emotions in the presence of great art or music or literature, or of acts of exemplary selfless courage such as those of Mohandas Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. The notion that science and spirituality are somehow mutually exclusive does a disservice to both."

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