Walter Miller's sci-fi novel A Canticle for Leibowitz brilliantly addresses humanity's relationship to knowledge. This is one that we don't often question because it seems so intuitive. What does the acquisition of knowledge mean to the human race? According to most anthropologists and psychologists today the acquisition of knowledge is the only major evolutionary distinction between man and ape. In our quest for knowledge we developed consciousness and intellect. Why? Because knowledge is a tool which can be used to provide for the advancement of the species. While prehomonids devoted their attention to hunting and gathering whatever food was present at that time, modern humans direct their focus toward future food. Information has become synonymous with food in our brains' reward centers, so it would seem that our relationship to knowledge is survival-based. It has become essential to the development of our brains.
In this book, Miller considers this relationship to knowledge from multiple angles. His unique advantage on the topic is in setting his hypothetical discussion in such a lengthy time-period. He is prepared to trace the development of hundreds of thousands of centuries of human development in order to prove his point. At the outset humanity has already passed the crisis point of global nuclear warfare. Those who survived have sworn never to pursue their intellectual capacities to test nature in such a way again, so they collectively decide to outlaw technology and any format which would allow subsequent generation to build upon the knowledge of their forefathers, especially the format of the written word. A few religious men take it upon themselves to covertly preserve books and ancient documents because they disagree with the premise that the development of knowledge itself was responsible for the near obliteration of all life on Earth. Centuries go by and the Catholic monasteries which harbored the books are now a global superpower, and people have surpassed the level of technology which they previously knew at the time of the "Flame Deluge" or the nuclear war. A few more centuries later and nuclear warfare is back on the table, along with space-dwelling human colonies. When the geo-political situation devolves into chaos, the Church sends an elite squad of monks to New Rome in order to launch an independent spacecraft which will preserve the Earth's anthology of knowledge for future colony formations. Brother Joshua and his team are successful on their mission and end up floating alone through the unimaginable reaches of deep space as they witness the near complete annihilation of life on Earth.
Interestingly enough, Miller chooses to make the Catholic Church the force which preserves knowledge for humanity. Throughout many centuries this was one of the main purposes of monasteries. Monks would gather to read and recite sacred scriptures as well as scientific advancements, philosophy, etc. As Miller sees the future from his seat in the 1950s, he believes that nuclear warfare is inevitable and that religion will regain its former purpose and power in human society. He sees knowledge as the homo sapiens only clear path to evolving further. And the Church becomes the guardian of that knowledge tool because of its devoted, motivated, and intelligent body.
