The NY Times had a recent article on cosmic physics and the increasing pessimism within it that we will ever truly understand the nature of the universe. The discovery some years ago of dark energy threw all of the “big picture models” out of whack. Most everything now being proposed as a mathematical / conceptual explanation for what has been observed about atoms and galaxies seems messy and ad-hoc. And even worse, there isn’t just one explanation; there are plenty of different forms and formats of equations that, with the right tuning of their parameter values and starting conditions, can equally well explain what is going on. But when you get four or four hundred explanations and they’re all unique, but they all give the same answer, than which one is right?
So, a lot of the high-powered theorists are abandoning the notion that there is “one truth”, and are adapting a “multiverse” view. This posits that our universe isn’t anything special; there have been, are, and will yet be trillions of universes out there, each with different sets of parameters regarding stuff like gravitational attraction and internal atomic forces and quantum sizes. For some universes, nothing much happens. But for just a few that randomly hit the right balance, time evolves and little convergence points occur amidst the vast expanses of nothingness, tiny points where interesting things occur. One of those things is nuclear fusion, that which makes the stars shine. Another is the gravitational collapse of certain stars which causes great explosions, supernovae, which form and scatter a wide variety of heavy elements like copper and silicon and carbon. When these various elements come together in just the right way under the right conditions, the phenomenon of life somehow occurs.
And in some super-tiny portion of that tiny portion of “convergence points”, conscious / sentient life occurs. We just happen to be in the right spot in the right kind of universe; we’d never know a “wrong universe”, because we couldn’t exist in it. So, the cosmic science institution is a rather atheist undertaking these days. After reading the article, I couldn’t help but imagine the start of a conversation between a typical atheist cosmologist (e.g. Neil Grasse Tyson) and the relatively rare “believer” scientist.
Atheist: We and our consciousness, and the matter and energy which support us and in which we delight, represent just a tiny spec, a “disputatious froth” in the vast, bizarre voids of the universe.
Believer: This is just one way that God tells us that we are important.
Atheist: The equation parameters are bizarre, there is no ‘harmony of the spheres’ behind it. It’s ugly, no beauty and elegance to it at all. We just happen to be in one of the extremely few ‘cosmic accidents’ that supports sentient life — and not much of it, and not always a very sensible version of it, for that matter.
Believer: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. One man’s mess is another’s work of art. Ever been to a museum of modern art? And how could we ever know what is ‘sensible’ if we hadn’t come from a mixed reality?
Atheist: Just as life here on earth evolved over unimaginable time spans from random, senseless forces, the biggest of the big pictures must involve a multiverse, something that just keeps on stupidly and randomly knocking out universes. Some involve time and space and tiny congregations of interesting events, like ours does; most probably do not. To the degree that we do have “sense”, despite our wars and crimes and cruelties, it is overwhelmed by the insensate randomness of the cosmos.
Believer: Why do you apply evolutionary theory to the cosmos? Evolution is responsible for your “tiny spec” of life, the “disputatious froth” that humanity is. I would not disagree with that. But why should something that applies on the scale of this ‘froth’ apply across the vastness of the ‘vacuum reality’? Why shouldn’t the bedrock reality behind everything surprise us just as evolution surprised the 18th century worldview, and quantum physics the 20th? Have we experienced our last meta-surprise?
Atheist: [TILT — not that there aren’t arguments that a smart atheist cosmologist could make at this point; but for now, I can’t think of what they would be. So I’m gonna leave it here for now, unfairly enough.]
Jim,
I read the NYT article and am struck by two things: One–According to “some scientists” $600 Mil is not enough! to study dark energy/matter. Good grief, isn’t $600 Mil enough to at least GET A START at studying it? Two–Then the TRUE problem comes out: The intense competition among scientists about who will turn out to be RIGHT! Oh, good grief, again. Give me a break. What “universe” are these guys living in when $600 Mil is not enough to get at least a good start in studying anything at all? (I’d have liked perhaps just a few thousand of these $600 mil when I was searching for money for my own education; I tell you I could have made say $50,000 of that $600 Mil go pretty far in learning quite a bit about any topic I wanted to learn.)
And the scientists consider that $600 Mil is not enough why? Likely because it’s going to end up in a bizarre competition of who will be first to make the “big discovery” and get all the credit instead of these guys being interested in finding out some truth.
Then to back up a bit: My first thought on reading your blog was: I wonder just how much of what atheists and believers have to say tells us more about particular psychological needs of the individuals in each group. I find myself asking: Just what is it that leads certain people to believe one concept over another? For that matter, what is it that leads other people to consider (and here I basically put myself) why can’t there be some kind of combination of the two ideas?
And then there is the old saying that is only too true: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” When life’s troubles get bad enough, one ends up turning to God. (And I find myself wondering about Madelyn O’Haire (sp?), the great atheist and the strange and terrible death she and her son endured. (Were there others in her family too? I don’t recall.) I wonder: Did they when they came to that strange end, an end that had one saying, What? Did they at the last moment find themselves turning to God?
And then there is the concept I keep coming back to: Perhaps WE are the creators–and what we THINK actually brings into BEING our ideas. So the atheists would then actually live in a universe where no god exists; believers, on the other hand, would live in a universe where the particular god they believe in actually does exist. And in the end, isn’t that the way it really is?
As far as I can figure out, nobody has gone up to “heaven” to say exactly what/who/how God might be; for that matter, the atheists really have no “proof” either for their BELIEF. And we are back to the point where the word “belief” means accepting something as true with no proof.
And on another tangent: (I realize the above has been totally tangential to your comments) Today I hear that there is a group hold up in Texas–again Texas–that is waiting for the “start” of the end of the world on June 12. The “start” is supposed to be some nuclear event. If they are right, all these discussions will become moot. On the other hand, if they are not right, we will all stay in our own self-created universes.
(I ask: What is there about Texas that brings out what seems so-far-from-usual thinking in so many people? I reference the Waco incident, the latest polygamist group and their beliefs, and now this group.)
And on an absolutely, truly non sequetur point, again: The leader is said to have a great many wives. And I cannot help but wonder just how many of those wives are all sweet young women; none of these guys who marry mega times ever seems to pick out an old–or even older–woman, or one in his own age range.
And I should probably apologize for my stream-of-consciousness thinking in this comment. But probably I will not. Sorry. Just had to get some of these things out of my system.
MCS
Comment by MCS — June 6, 2008 @ 10:47 am
Jim,
I read the NYT article and am struck by two things: One–According to “some scientists” $600 Mil is not enough! to study dark energy/matter. Good grief, isn’t $600 Mil enough to at least GET A START at studying it? Two–Then the TRUE problem comes out: The intense competition among scientists about who will turn out to be RIGHT! Oh, good grief, again. Give me a break. What “universe” are these guys living in when $600 Mil is not enough to get at least a good start in studying anything at all? (I’d have liked perhaps just a few thousand of these $600 mil when I was searching for money for my own education; I tell you I could have made say $50,000 of that $600 Mil go pretty far in learning quite a bit about any topic I wanted to learn.)
And the scientists consider that $600 Mil is not enough why? Likely because it’s going to end up in a bizarre competition of who will be first to make the “big discovery” and get all the credit instead of these guys being interested in finding out some truth.
Then to back up a bit: My first thought on reading your blog was: I wonder just how much of what atheists and believers have to say tells us more about particular psychological needs of the individuals in each group. I find myself asking: Just what is it that leads certain people to believe one concept over another? For that matter, what is it that leads other people to consider (and here I basically put myself) why can’t there be some kind of combination of the two ideas?
And then there is the old saying that is only too true: “There are no atheists in foxholes.” When life’s troubles get bad enough, one ends up turning to God. (And I find myself wondering about Madelyn O’Haire (sp?), the great atheist and the strange and terrible death she and her son endured. (Were there others in her family too? I don’t recall.) I wonder: Did they when they came to that strange end, an end that had one saying, What? Did they at the last moment find themselves turning to God?
And then there is the concept I keep coming back to: Perhaps WE are the creators–and what we THINK actually brings into BEING our ideas. So the atheists would then actually live in a universe where no god exists; believers, on the other hand, would live in a universe where the particular god they believe in actually does exist. And in the end, isn’t that the way it really is?
As far as I can figure out, nobody has gone up to “heaven” to say exactly what/who/how God might be; for that matter, the atheists really have no “proof” either for their BELIEF. And we are back to the point where the word “belief” means accepting something as true with no proof.
And on another tangent: (I realize the above has been totally tangential to your comments) Today I hear that there is a group hold up in Texas–again Texas–that is waiting for the “start” of the end of the world on June 12. The “start” is supposed to be some nuclear event. If they are right, all these discussions will become moot. On the other hand, if they are not right, we will all stay in our own self-created universes.
(I ask: What is there about Texas that brings out what seems so-far-from-usual thinking in so many people? I reference the Waco incident, the latest polygamist group and their beliefs, and now this group.)
And on an absolutely, truly non sequetur point, again: The leader is said to have a great many wives. And I cannot help but wonder just how many of those wives are all sweet young women; none of these guys who marry mega times ever seems to pick out an old–or even older–woman, or one in his own age range.
And I should probably apologize for my stream-of-consciousness thinking in this comment. But probably I will not. Sorry. Just had to get some of these things out of my system.
MCS
Comment by MCS — June 6, 2008 @ 10:47 am