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Gary Lachman discusses his book The Caretakers of the Cosmos: Living Responsibly in an Unfinished World, which brings together many strands of esoteric, spiritual and philosophical thought to form a counter-argument to the nihilism that permeates the twenty-first century.

Why are we here? Where do we come from? Where are we going? Human beings have asked themselves these questions for millennia. Modern science usually argues that humanity is the chance product of a purposeless universe. All too often, however, its facts are found to be merely theories hanging on the next great new discovery which will give us all the answers, but which somehow always seems to be just around the next corner.

The result is a nihilistic postmodern world of politics, pop stars and pornography where millions live out empty lives, consumed by consumerism and haunted by a fear of death. For misanthropic environmentalists who view mankind as a cancer or a virus, this can’t come soon enough.

But is this really all there is to our existence? Many ancient traditions believe that humanity has an essential role and responsibility in creation. Is it possible that we are a species with amnesia which has forgotten its place in the cosmos? And does the inexpressible longing and profound homesickness that so many of us feel point the way to our destiny?

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’ Klaus Schulze ‘Kontinuum’

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Modern industrial civilization is a mode of existence which most of us take for granted. The abundant food, supercharged sanitation, endless entertainment, and constellation of other seemingly unlimited choices laid before us is rarely questioned, and its complexities are poorly understood. But in our headlong charge to consume more of everything whatever the cost, we have set in motion a chain of events which is currently cascading towards catastrophe.

Within the realms of energy, the economy, the environment, and the dilating danger zone where all three meet, mounting crises are already undermining our ability to keep the wheels of the capitalist road-show turning. The dream of infinite growth on a finite planet is being exposed as the fantasy it always was. And yet still we pursue the impossible as if it were inevitable, billions of conditioned consumers unwilling or unable to imagine life without their technological trinkets and toys, and still billions more impatiently awaiting their share of the techno-industrial spoils.

For most of those aware of our predicament, the future belongs either to a utopian paradise in which technology unfailingly offers solutions to each and every problem, or to a dark dystopian nightmare where the remnants of our race wander the wastelands preying on each other and praying for death. But another world is possible - a world in which we may lose everything, and yet ultimately, once again find ourselves.

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’ Moskva-Kassiopeya ‘Black Rainbow’

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Fred Kuttner discusses his book 'Quantum Enigma - Physics Encounters Consciousness', co-authored with Bruce Rosenblum. In trying to understand the atom, physicists built quantum mechanics, the most successful theory in science. But they found, to their embarrassment, that with their theory, physics encounters consciousness, a mysterious phenomenon that science cannot explain and cannot ignore. Attempts to interpret the meaning and implications of all this are often controversial. But every interpretation of quantum physics involves consciousness, and the connection of consciousness with the Universe suggested by some leading quantum cosmologists is mind-blowing. There exists a boundary beyond which the expertise of physicists is no longer the only sure guide.

In the few decades since experiments established the existence of quantum entanglement, interest in the foundations, and the mysteries, of quantum mechanics has accelerated. In recent years, physicists, philosophers, computer engineers, and even biologists have expanded our realization of the significance of quantum phenomena. Quantum theory tells us that an object can be in two places at the same time, that its existence becomes real only when observed, and that the observation of an object can instantaneously influence another distant object even if no physical force connects the two. Quantum theory thus denies the existence of a physically real world independent of its observation.

Bumper music: Cliff Martinez ‘Traffic OST’ Ian Boddy ‘The Uncertainty Principle’