SIC ITUR AD ASTRA

Volition refers to the ability to make choices. And science is organized knowledge. For the first time in the history of the world, we have an integrated science that refers to volitional interactions. This has never happened before. There have been approximations to it. There have been attempts at it. But nobody has ever succeeded. We have to grow up now and begin again, and we begin with the theory of freedom contained in SIC ITUR AD ASTRA which is the great integration between volition and physics. They’re now unified, using the same epistemology.

SIC ITUR AD ASTRA is a unique publication of a very great scientist’s work. Professor Galambos never wrote any of his theories out. Fortunately for the world, and for us, he recorded all of his lectures on reel-to-reel tapes and we have been able to transcribe the material on those tapes down to the last syllable. And from those transcripts, edit—very sparsely—what he said. And organize it in a way that reads very rationally and very elegantly. Professor Galambos always said that repetition is the mother of learning. And it’s a very effective, pedagogical tool. And sometimes when his sentences would appear to be run on, we would not try to rewrite that or paraphrase it at all. We would simply put a comma in, here and there. And the beauty of it was that, after a while, we found out that this had its own unique style and it was cumulative. And we found also that when you read the transcripts of his live lectures, you had a profit from it that was an example, in the sense that you remembered so much more. And it’s pleasurable reading because it’s got a homely touch to it, like a fireside chat.

The voluminous writings are all necessary because there is an awful lot to know and there are many delusions that man has to get rid of. And this really is not too much different from learning the Theory of Relativity and how it challenged previous notions of classical physics. If you wanted to learn the theory of celestial mechanics, you would have to pay the price.

How can I emphasize the magnitude of this late addition to the subject of philosophy? We have the ability to destroy ourselves and we don’t have the ability to prevent that from happening. We have a doomsday machine. We have for the first time a non-theological, non-science-fiction doomsday machine where the body of the science of the world is controlled by the brain of a Frankenstein. The collective insane minds of political opportunists and those who are behind them. So this final addition is all-important. It’s morality, non-theological and non-mystical. And mankind, for the first time, can have a cosmic destiny. That’s what he was born for.

Nowhere is this taught anywhere in the colleges. Nowhere is this taught in the universities. It’s not taught in the magazines. You can’t go to any bookstore. You can’t get it anywhere. You get it through what I would call the underground press. You’ve got to go where men chase the Holy Grail of knowledge and travel light. They will sacrifice everything for it.

Professor Galambos had a very unique attitude about education. He taught that the subject was basically the transmission of absolutely right concepts to those who could understand them and derive them and who, furthermore, would go out and live them and apply them in the real world, which he defined as the world which is derived from rationality and morality, those terms being defined absolutely. Very few people will ever pay the price to become truly educated.