The more I researched the “matter of wonder,” the more complicated I found it to explain—it combines many elements of the unknown that I intend to put into a metaphysical context. Thankfully this intriguing subject was approached by brilliant thinkers who mostly considered it as a perception that relates to other cognitive functions; most of them viewed wonder as belonging in the family of emotions. Some, such as Rene Descartes, included wonder among the six basic emotions and considered it to be part of the soul. Hegel went further and stated, “the attitude proper for the philosopher is a state of wonder.”
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason brings attention to “sensation” as a perception of “matter,” and “the form of appearance” which depends on a prior form of sensibility or “pure intuition.” When we feel wonder, we are witnessing all these elements in action. We usually don’t process this phenomenon that addresses more than physical senses. It takes a metaphysically trained mind to put all the components together in order to understand the nature of wonder. Kant used that process as “synthesis” that he explained “is the mere result of the power of imagination, a blind but indispensable function of the soul, without which we should have no knowledge whatsoever, but of which we are scarcely ever conscious.” [Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith, (1964: 66, 112]
Wonder may come and go, but its undeniable existence and effect on us can be said to qualify it as a primary emotion, very close to a reflex. To experience wonder we do not have to put ourselves in a special mood or plan an event. Richard Dawkins in Unweaving the Rainbow (1998:114-115) credited humans with having a predisposition for an “appetite of wonder” because it generates a soothing state of mind and a feeling good attitude. He went on to say, “We have an appetite for wonder, a poetic appetite, which real science ought to be feeding but which is being hijacked, often for monetary gain, by purveyors of superstition, the paranormal and astrology.” The Oxford University Professor implied that because of the enigma of wonder “astrology books outsell astronomy books.”
Since the time of ancient thinkers—when Socrates and Plato believed that wonder was the beginning of philosophy and Aristotle was convinced that wisdom began with wonder—this mysterious subject has made humans think more deeply and look for clues from metaphysics. Whether they were religious or not, people of all times have asked what are known today as “the big questions,” including: Where do we come from? What is the meaning of life? Is there another life after death? Many other questions can be added that likewise are imbued with the meaning of wonder.
Because only nothing comes from nothing, wonder must come from something equally wondrous, which is its matter. Unlike gravitational matter, spiritual matter cannot be physically measured, but it is fully charged with energy that creates certain spiritual forces. I could not find any references that led to a straight answer, but I contend that wonder easily can be identified with primitive spirituality because any important revelation creates an idea of wonder.
The origin of spiritual matter can be highly disputed, but I am convinced each human has inbuilt spiritual genes with a specialized nerve center in the primitive brain; therefore it is unconscious. It may be part of the soul, as well, and for sure it is acquired from a spiritual energy that comes through our thinking. Wonder may relate to another genetic inheritance of wonder with its own important matter located in an intellectual zone that analyzes spiritual perceptions, evaluates reality, creates values, detects spiritual truth, and achieves understandings that are applied to spiritual life. Certainly wonder is not limited to a pleasurable sensation with a marginal and temporary use.
As mentioned before, the experience of wonder leads to an instantaneous “Wow!” moment, which generates an “open mouth effect,” which has many hidden actions. What we see is only the tip of the wonder iceberg. A display of wonder radiates spiritual energy that feeds spiritual thoughts, inducing spiritual ecstasy and spiritual renewal. Ultimately it creates that confident euphoria that leads to firm belief and faith. And thus through a holy matter we are born with, wonder connects mortals with God and forms a permanent divine link. Among others, it creates a “wonderland” in which everything is possible and stimulates leaps of imagination in most unexpected directions and fields of life.
But how much of a “thing” is wonder, and how much is subjective emotion? Despite potential for philosophical and religious study, wonder has remained an isolated manifestation of curiosity and a passive phenomenon about which scarcely anyone seems to have shown an interest. How something so important to our thinking and existence has such a neglected place in study is a wonder in itself.
Since ancient times religion nourished any discussion of the reality of the soul and the nature of consciousness. Science played a secondary role, and it was brutally restrained when it came to interfering with the mystical wonder of existence. In the sixteen century Galileo had the courage to expose the truth about the solar system, and the Inquisition suppressed further scientific discoveries that could diminish the wonder described in Genesis.
In our modern days science strives to diminish the importance of religion, explaining any wonder in logical mathematical terms. Is wonder on its way out of our lives because of the incredible progress of the technological knowledge? If that is the case, can science tell the real story about life and the universe?
Not according to Frances Wosmek who in Acknowledge the Wonder (1988) described an event literally out of this world—when Russell Rchweichart, the first man to venture out of a space ship, floated above the Earth in wonder. Later he described the “Earth as a small thing…so fragile…such a precious little spot…that you can cover with your thumb.” Clearly this rare experience produced a wonder that changed his perspective—as shown in his statement, “the relationship [with his earthly home] is no longer what it was.” In this reflection we can see that his spirituality was stronger than his scientific mind, as was also the case with the astronauts who, returning from the Moon, crossed their hearts and thanked God for helping them with a safe journey.
Strictly speaking, the body and mind may process wonder differently, while the soul has its own wonder. There is a fine balance between conscious and subconscious thinking, and different energies are involved to generate wonder within each of them. Innocence and positive energy is more likely to be identified with a wonder momentum. A well schooled scientist may react differently than a puritan thinker, since his regimented training and mathematical precision tend to exclude spirituality. Rigidity in thinking and lack of religious faith seem to be the norm for highly specialized scientists who may find themselves too busy with their research projects to enjoy delicate and undocumented wonder. Ironically, science was included in philosophy for thousands of years, just because it was part of what I call “the wonder question.”
The great benefits of scientific progress are well known. But the focus on precise facts also has consequences that are less positive. Caught up with their sophisticated experiments, with searching tools that defy the imagination, eager to prove their capabilities at any risk, seeking grants and promotions, hungry for fame and fortunes, engaged in fierce academic wars with their competitive peers, too many scientists are on a mission to shock us with their findings. They make news by throwing information and numbers we cannot possible verify or contest. In no time they found there are more than 200,000 galaxies, more than a billion suns, and the Earth is exactly 4.8 billion years old.
Legions of scientists with doctorates in astronomy scan the skies with the most powerful spying devices ever invented to find the mysteries of universe and reduce eternal wonders to mere mathematical explanation. One of their missions is to find life on other planets and to contact extra-terrestrial aliens, whom they believe can be befriended. The idea of encountering those E.T.s may solve little of the mystery of wonder and may add more problems to the already overstretched menu of human worries. First of all our space neighbors may not be so friendly, they may carry diseases that may prove incurably deadly for us, or they may want to replace our race with theirs. One may happily wonder how wise indeed was the Creator to put vast distances between us and the rest of unknown.
While common individuals care very little about these inflated cosmic statistics or about the size of the brain of the first humans, they do care a lot about the science of medicine, its discoveries, and achievements in healing deadly diseases. Extensive research in the past century has greatly increased the life expectancy in developed countries. Surgeries considered impossible in the recent past now are routine in and out the office, and medics are in a position to play God. The naked truth consists in the huge business created by the fear of dying. It is a blessing in disguise since humans refuse to die, living for no purpose but to overcrowd the earth and help deplete its natural resources faster. All kinds of wonder are associated with any progress.
Competing astronomers keep pushing the limits of the unknown universe; and our space ships have already landed on Mars, without realizing that the farther they explore, the less control they have. In spite of the infinite territory open to the human imagination, wonder has physical, accessible limits when it comes to human colonization or takeover of solar space.
It looks like the more we advance in technology, the less the scientific community is inclined to understand the real sense of wonder. However, in the words of Albert Einstein, “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is good as dead: his eyes are closed.” [Robert C. Fuller, Wonder: From Emotion to Spirituality (2006:110)] The American philosopher Ralph W. Emerson succinctly noted, “Men love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science.” Indeed, people who stop wondering stop thinking.
That was not the case for Benjamin Franklin, who retired as a successful business man at age 42 to dedicate his life to respond to the call of many wonders. With no formal training he studied electricity and invented an entire vocabulary to describe his findings. His experiments with the static electricity from the clouds led him to the invention of the lightning rod, which from then on protected countless dwellings from the destructive “act of God.” Many other practical inventions ensured Franklin’s immortality in the history of science and honorary doctorate degrees from Oxford, Edinburgh, Yale, and other citadels of education.
It was wonder that led this self-made hero with only two years of grammar school who arrived in Philadelphia with two pennies, to pursue so many interests. Franklin’s legacy is well represented by his mottos, “A good example is the best sermon” and “God helps those that help themselves.” He remains an American guiding spirit for success, and people still toss a penny for good luck on his funeral stone.
The phenomenon of wonder is not by any means restricted to abstract thinking. Once in a while the wonder in science takes unexpected turns, defies rigid establishments, and produces genius out of individuals who did not belong to any elite groups. This includes Nicholas Copernicus who never graduated in anything but proved to be a revolutionary astronomer, and Michael Faraday, the brilliant chemist and physicist who never attended any school. The high school dropout and self-educated George Eastman, with no training in chemistry, invented the roll of film and a standard camera to fit it. In fact more discoveries were made by accidents or laboratory mis-functions than planned experiments. It is that kind of wonder over unpredictable results that leads to new discoveries.
The business world offers examples of the illustrious careers of men who built empires not because they were inspired by their studies in economics or finance, but because they followed a trail that was illuminated by their sense of wonder about trying something that was never done before. The American land of opportunities abounds with such names. An example is Rowland H. Macy, a whale hunter at age 15 who failed in numerous businesses only to end up investing $500 to found what became the largest department store in the world. With the same amount of money borrowed from a neighbor, Bill Gates, a college dropout, began a computer business in his garage, ending up as the richest man in the world.
The reverse side of wonder, with equally fascinating impact, is the monumental failure of huge successful businesses like Enron and WorldCom and their top executives with gilded diplomas and impeccable resumes. When economic depressions strike in the middle of prosperous times, the ruined investors and out-of-job people wonder what happened and how to get back to normality of life. Once again, something out of the ordinary must happen to bring things to normality.
A good amount of wonder is invested in science fiction books and movies with amazing predictions of the future. French author Jules Verne described a moon landing, which seventy-five years later materialized in a rocket module of the same size as the one he envisioned. American cinematographer George Lucas fascinated us with his vision of the future with Star Wars, without losing the human touch. It looks like many wondrous predictions from the past from the Bible to Nostradamus have a certain historical validity.
All that is described above shows that we live in incredible times of technological wonders that make distances insignificant and reduce global communications to local phone calls. While adults try to catch up with the latest portable electronic tool that practically replaces the work of a fully-staffed office, a new generation of children consider all these Jules Verne-ian inventions to be routine. Words like carburetor, typewriter, and washboard were eliminated from their vocabulary, and many have never seen a pig or a rooster, while others never learned to write in script.
It would seem that living in such technologically exploding times would eliminate the sense of wonder. But that has not been the case, as exemplified by my daughter Lynna, who at age 10 wrote and published a short poem entitled “I wonder why” (1992). The first two verses are:
It is round, it can be found
Not under the ground, or in the sky;
It’s all around you: beautiful Earth, beautiful sky,
Beautiful trees and I wonder why?
Why are there weeks? Why are there months;
What is the Earth? What is the sun?
What is the moon? I wish I knew soon…
Fifteen years later, as a college graduate sitting on the beach in California and observing the activity around her (including a truck at work and a flying helicopter), she found herself drawn to the sunset about which she instantly wrote:
As the sun drops in my hand
It is red and getting bigger
More brilliant
It has already started
Is it ok to stare?
Do I realize anything sitting there?
A short while later, she explained to me that her initial focus was on the surfers and activity that involved mechanized vehicles on the water and people having a good time. But then her eyes were drawn to the indescribable beauty of the sunset. She felt “outside of myself,” connected with the wonder things from her childhood that she had never lost. “I was alive but not in my body, experiencing with my eyes something that I could not possible put into words because it was beyond description. It was a wonder I’ve experienced before, but this time I felt that God was trying to talk to me! It brought me back to what the meaning of life as it used to be.”
Lynna’s description of her feelings and thoughts made me realize why people take expensive and long trips to see well known wonders, many listed as one a must see before we die. Others go to remote places to “discover” hidden wonders and experience unique revelations that activate their dormant spirituality. In both instances, the tourists want to get in touch with a world presumably untouched by civilization. Yet, they take along cellular phones and use the ATM or eat at American fast food restaurants. It looks to me like primitive but pure wonders are tainted by modern pagan invaders.
When I asked my daughter if she remembered the “I wonder why” poem, she answered that she was born with a “utopian ideal about everything” and always felt “the force of wonder.” To her, all wonders are equal from a spiritual point of view, but sadly not all people share that view. According to my daughter, some reduce wonder to, “It is what it is and nothing else.” I briefly told Lynna about my study of wonder, to which she replied, “I sure inherited that gene, didn’t I!” Happily, that is so—but we all have that wonder gene; some of us, for a variety of reasons, are just not sufficiently open minded to share that magic gift we are all born with.