Perspective, Sarawak News - Sunday, October 19, 2008 10:00 - 0 Comments

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Knowable unknowns

I AM much amused by a recent report in the newspaper about one Mr Gazali who found a ‘magic’ stone in Kuantan. The rock floats and the finder claimed that it has healing properties, and he said that a faith healer wanted to buy it from him for RM10,000 but he refused to part with it. The report came complete with a picture of the floating rock.

Many things come to mind when I read the report. What is this floating rock? Does it really have healing qualities? More importantly, why would someone be prepared to fork out RM10,000 for it?

Let me start with the obvious, the rock in question is a pumice stone. The fact that it floats has nothing to do with its ‘magical’ properties. Rather, this type of volcanic rock is full of tiny air pockets making it very low in density. This is because it was formed from an airborne frothy magma. As the magma cooled rapidly it solidified into rock and at the same time trapping the gas in tiny pockets.

It was Archimedes — he of the running out of the bathroom naked and shouting ‘eureka’ fame — who found out that the buoyancy of an object is determined by its density. Simply put, if the weight of an object is heavier than that of water of the same volume, then the object will sink, and if it is lighter then it will float. If we were to pulverise that piece of ‘magic’ rock and the reconstitute it into a denser form, minus the air bubbles, it would lose its co-called magical property of positive buoyancy.

Mr Gazali is not the only one who is completely flummoxed by the phenomenon of the floating stone. In India, religious devotees have taken to making offerings of flowers and coins to one such a stone. They believe that it was part of the bridge built by Rama’s army of monkeys to cross the straits between India and Sri Lanka. The story of Rama is a 3,000 year old Hindu epic, the Ramayana, in which Prince Rama recruited an army of monkeys under the monkey god general, Hanuman, to rescue his wife, Sita, who was kidnapped by the demon king and taken to the island of Sri Lanka.

At least Mr Gazali or some other imaginative people have not yet linked the rock to some stories of Malaysian deities. Perhaps, the faith healer who offered to buy the rock for RM10,000 might have come up with some intriguing stories to ‘market’ the stone, had he bought it. The fact that he was willing to pay RM10,000 is an indication that he believed that the possession of that floating stone would boost up his business.

It is a shame that I was not aware of this fact some years ago when I was on holiday in New Zealand. I was staying at a lakeside camp. The water near the shore was covered with floating stones. Not surprising, as New Zealand is located on one of the volcanic belts. I could have made quite a packet had I collected the pumice stones and brought them home. Provided, of course, I could escape apprehension from the Park Rangers for stealing park property.

That brings me to the role of myths and religious stories. In the case of myths I believe they fulfil important functions. One of which is to enable us to cope with the unusual phenomena of the world, of which they are many. It is said that there is nothing unknowable, only that which is as yet not known. However, man cannot live easily with the unknown. Somehow he has to come up with some story as explanation, no matter how unreasonable. When confronted with something, which given his state of knowledge at the time made it impossible to understand, man has to come up with explanations to make the world comprehensible. Thus, not too long ago lightning and thunder were explained away as the consequence of the ire of the gods, not because of the collision of electrical charges in the atmosphere.

That myth is being used to assuage our fears of the unknown is well illustrated by an ‘old wives’ tale’ about how to drive away evil spirits in the jungle. This was told to me by my uncles who used to going on hunting trips in the jungle. The jungle could be a frightening place especially at night. Many times they would encounter strange sights and weird noises. One of the standard items in their travel kit was a pouch of rice husks. Apparently, the burning of the rice husks would drive away evil spirits.

There is a saying ‘knowledge is power’. Of course examples abound but the one which illustrates this succinctly is taken from the Henry Rider Haggard’s novel, ‘King Solomon’s Mine’. The hero Allan Quartermain and his party were captured by an African tribe which threatened to kill them. Quartermain got his party out of the hot soup by consulting his almanac, which as it happened, indicated a total solar eclipse that day. Quartermain told the tribal Chief that if he did not let them go he, Quartermain, would cause the sun to disappear. When the total solar eclipse happened it scared the Chief into releasing the prisoners.

The point is that the level of knowledge in the world is uneven. While some have fully embraced the 21st century, many are still lingering in the dim realm of the un-informed. People are driven by varying motives. Many are genuine but are genuinely misguided and would ascribe divine and spiritual explanations to anything which they cannot understand. They fully believe that the divine will directly intervene in everyday life. However, there are enough sharp entrepreneurs who are ready to exploit the gullibility of the public for a quick buck.

Such are the complications and the ways of the world, a good start would be to accept that while there are many things which are unknown but that does not render them unknowable.

The writer can be contacted at desee@pc.jaring.my