The brute force of “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
Becoming aware of the shock (even ‘terror’?) of our
EXISTENCE
Introduction – the brute force of this innocent-looking
question:
“Why is there something rather than nothing?”
The haunting (perhaps
terrifying, at least at first) implication of “Why there is something rather
than nothing?”
The question is one that I did not
understand the force of until around 2018 or so.
It has become an ‘immovable object’ in my
thinking since then, and the immensity of the issue (IMO) – and at some level,
its ‘inscrutability’—sobers me up DEEPLY and I almost tremble at the concept of
there being “something bigger than” the “something we KNOW about” and
experience as our universe.
Can’t really find the words for this
feeling. But here’s my attempt at communicating this.
When you get around to ‘noticing’ the
vastness of our universe, the fathomless amount of energy in it, and the
‘volumes’ of energy condensed in matter (E=MC2, remember – that is a
huge number), it is delightfully easy to lose yourself in its wonder and
beauty and immensity and intricacies. There are levels of almost-infinity
seemingly in both directions of scale, but we might never get around to
asking the question BEHIND that experience: “Why is there a universe
AT ALL?” – before you get to any questions about the wonders in it.
Or more properly/classically — “Why is
there ANYTHING at all?” … Why is there ‘something’ rather than ‘nothing’?
The more you ponder on this, the more you
will grasp how BIG an ISSUE this is. There is NO REASON that there
should be a universe or ANYTHING.
Sit still and let that sink in for a moment:
there should not be (i.e., we should not EXPECT there to be) ANYTHING AT ALL.
Nothing would be the expected default, with ‘nothing itself’ not able to
‘generate’ a/our ‘something’.
“Nothing” means “Nothing”--
§ No space,
no time, no matter
§ No
‘place’ to put anything into
§ No
‘primordial’ existent ‘from which’ to get a ‘something’
§ NO
FRAMEWORK for even CONCEPTIONS of it!
§ No
physical ‘laws’ or ‘math’ or ‘ideas’
§ No actual
content to the word
§ No
quantum vacuum, fields, forces, or fundamental particles
§ Cannot
even get there by via negativa
(which starts with ‘something’)
But – somehow?! – there IS a something,
with us in it, with staggering size, complexity, and subtlety.
And the psychological pressure arises from
this inescapable reality:
Our/My Existence ‘screams’
for an Explanation—an ‘explanation’ that is APART FROM / independent from our
existence.
We are essentially FORCED to admit that
there is a ‘something’ OUTSIDE OF our ‘something’—that produced, generated,
made, created, and/or ejected our ‘something’. And we can only refer to it as
‘OTHER’ and “OUTSIDE”, since it must be different from – in every sense – our
‘something’.
And an OUTSIDE OTHER that is essentially
UNKNOWN to us, yet has some ‘ability’ to make a SOMETHING like our SOMETHING,
is something that should be recognized as being formidable, and even
fear-inducing.
It is what it is. Face it. Accept it.
Brute Fact – start realizing it is/will be a reality that will require you to
think about how it might impact your conscious experience, now and in a
possible post-mortem experience.
It can be easy to miss the psychological ‘pressure’
of this question, if the question gets ‘downsized’/reworded to be about the
‘universe’ (instead of just SOMETHING / ANYTHING at all).
The question can ‘disappear’ via
equivocation:
·
Where did the Universe come from?
·
How did we get a universe from nothing?
·
How would a ‘singularity’ come about?
Or via answers that need explanations
themselves – not really starting from ‘nothing’:
·
“Just another cycle in an infinite cycle
of universe creation/destruction”
·
“Freak accident in the quantum vacuum”
·
“Random explosion of virtual particles
into reality”
·
Any/all ‘multi-verse’ theories
When you read popular science articles on
the origin of the universe or the existence of virtual particles that can pop
in and out of existence, they all start with something – not with ‘nothing’.
·
They postulate a tiny ball of immense
energy that ‘bangs’ into this expanding universe, with the physical laws
being ‘created’ in the process of the initial moments of the expansion, which
shape how the universe looks. [Theoretically true enough.]
·
Or they talk about vast amounts of
energy and particles just ‘at the threshold of existence’, with this vast
“invisible virtual something” brimming with virtual particles just ‘yearning’
to become real. [Theoretically true enough.]
·
Or they describe a quantum vacuum which
can ‘fluctuate’ and produce universes… [Theoretically true enough.]
That can give you a comfortable ‘feel’
that we are somehow ‘on top of things’ concerning our existence.
The deeper question—is why ANYTHING?
·
Why was there a ball of energy at the
‘origin’—and not, rather, NOTHING AT ALL.
·
Why teeming masses (pun intended) of
virtual particles ‘yearning’ to become ‘real’ (and have mass)?
·
Why a quantum vacuum?
Our discussion here is NOT about our
space-time universe – which we know very, very little about anyway (e.g. dark
matter, dark energy, quantum strangeness, biogenesis, consciousness).
Our question here is not about the method
of origination of the universe, matter, energy, or quantum fields, but
their very EXISTENCE. The chasm between NOTHING and SOMETHING is infinite.
[Even the image of ‘chasm’ is inappropriate – it presupposes ‘something’ on
both sides of the chasm. “True” Nothing just cannot be there….]
But we should note one ambiguity in this
wording. At this stage of our exploration, when we use the word ‘WHY” we are
NOT asking “for what PURPOSE is there something rather than nothing?” but
rather “How can it even BE THE CASE–with no prior existence to CAUSE this
one--that there is something AT ALL?”.
The physicists and cosmologists who work
on the ‘simpler’ questions of the origin of the universe and the origin of the
fundamental elements of our universe (e.g. the Standard model of quantum
physics) face this question, but—as seen below—realize that they have no answer
to offer.
For example, the physicists that work on
finding the reality ‘underneath’ our universe are all searching for a TOE
(Theory of Everything) that explains how the fundamental forces/fields of the
universe interact and have interacted in the past. So far nothing comes close
to being a TOE, and interest (even hope?) is even waning.
But as Stephen Hawking pointed
out once (emphasis mine):
“Even if there is only one possible
unified theory, it is just a set of rules and equations. What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe
for them to describe? The usual approach of science of constructing a
mathematical model cannot answer the
questions of why there should be a
universe for the model to describe. Why
does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
[Cited in Quantum Enigma -- Physics encounters consciousness 2nd ed. Rosenblum, Bruce and Fred Kuttner.
OxfordUP:2011, page 265.]
But as is saliently noted—a ToE wouldn’t
really answer the question anyway:
“Some suggest that an eventual ToE will predict
all we see, even though it will not ‘explain’ it. We must therefore see
the ToE as an ultimate goal and be satisfied with it if we find it. That’s all
we can expect of science.” [Loc cit.]
And many technical/specialist discussions
end up at the same point:
Cosmology for the Curious. Perlov,
Delia and Vilenkin. Springer:2017.239-240:
“We have described how an inflating seed
could emerge from what seems to be literally nothing-a state with no space, no
time, and no matter. However, the birth of the universe by quantum tunneling is
described by the same laws of physics that govern its subsequent evolution.
So the laws must somehow be "there" prior to the universe. And
the laws of physics are definitely not "nothing". This is why we put
the word "nothing" in quotation marks.
“The notion of "nothing"
transmuting into "something'' under the spell of abstract laws of nature
is deeply mystifying. If there is no
time and space, where and how are these laws encoded? After all, the laws
of physics have been carefully deduced over centuries by observing and
experimenting with matter in space and time. They are supposed to describe our
physical reality. Yet if the universe quantum tunneled as prescribed by the
laws, then it seems that the laws must be more fundamental than the universe itself.
One could become a "matheist" and assert that the laws of physics
exist outside of space and time, much like a theist assigns the ultimate first
cause to God. Or perhaps the fundamental laws and space and time emerged
together?
“We have stumbled far into the unknown.
But we will press on with the optimistic hope that as the boundaries of
scientific enquiry expand, what is currently unknowable might one day be known.”
Ultimate Explanations of the Universe. Heller,
Michael and Teresa Baluk-Ulewiczowa (trans).
Springer:2009. 120/121:
“But a structural explanation cannot
transcend the structure. Chains of logical inferences, be they infinitely
long, will always remain within their structure. For they are the things that
make up the structure. That is why a structural explanation is unavoidably
committed to, and constrained within itself. If we ask for an explanation of
the structure, all we get is the structure itself.
We have seen how this crucial constraint
on the method works in cosmology.
Can there be a better explanation for the
existence of the universe than that the universe needs no explanation, since it
has always existed? However, a closer look at this problem in cosmology
immediately reveals a series of assumptions which have to be adopted if a model
of a universe that has always been in existence is to be constructed. Strictly
speaking, from the purely methodological point of view it does not matter
whether we are to construct a model of an eternal universe or of a universe
which had a beginning, we still have to assume some mathematical structures
(mathematical formalism) to model these universes, and the following questions:
where do these structures come from? Why these particular, and not other structures? And how is the transition to be
made from the mathematical formalism to the real existence? In both cases they
are the same questions.
And if we adopt the mathematical
structures of the general theory of relativity, which lie at the basis of
contemporary cosmology, then, as we have seen, the idea of an eternal universe
breaks down when confronted with the theory ( the problem of the cosmological
constant, the expanding models) and observation (the red shifts in the galactic
spectra). The universe was in a state of expansion, starting from the
singularity; and new investments had to be made in order to get rid of the
singularity. A variety of these were suggested: a cyclical universe, a universe
with closed timelines, the continuous creation of matter in the steady state
theory. None of these proposals brought any permanent results. Not only because
the results of observation turned out to be unfavourable, but also because they
got tangled up in theoretical problems. In the background of all of these
attempts to understand - both in the purely speculative ones as well as those
which were confirmed by observation - lurked Leibniz's haunting question:
"why is there something rather than nothing?" Perhaps the boldest
attempt to face up to this question came in the model of the quantum creation
of the universe put forward by Hartle and Hawking. But even if we admit that
the mechanism proposed by this model really does produce something out of
nothing, Leibniz's question is merely relegated from the realm of research in
physics to the realm of the laws of nature. Nothing can be produced without the laws of nature. But why do the laws
of nature exist - rather than there being nothing, genuine nothingness, with no
regularities and no rationality?
The concept of an infinite number of
universes does not take the edge off these questions at all, quite the contrary
- it makes them all the more urgent.”
Nothing--A Very Short Introduction. Close,
Frank OxfordUP:2019.143,144:
“It is possible to imagine that what we
call the Big Bang was when the compact universe emerged from the era of quantum
gravity, which is when time took over from imaginary time. Questions about
where everything came from, how it all 'began', are sidestepped; the universe
in this picture has no beginning, no end: it just is. Do you feel that this is
the answer to the question of the ages, that the paradox of creation has been
resolved? I am not convinced; imaginary time is, for me at least,
unimaginable. We may have given a name to the big question but that is not the
same as understanding the answer. Why
the universe is, and in what, remain enigmas.
“If multiple universes have erupted as
quantum fluctuations, such that our bubble happens to have won the lottery
where the laws, dimensions, and forces are just right for us to have evolved, this still begs the question of who,
what, where were encoded the quantum rules that enable all this. Was
Anaxagoras right: the universe emerged as order out of chaos, the ur-matter is the quantum void? Or perhaps Hawking and
Hartle's conception of a universe that has no beginning or end, and simply
exists, is the answer, such that Thales, who insisted that something cannot
come from nothing, is right. The paradox
of creation is thus an as yet unresolved mystery about the nature of space and
time.
“In the 3,000 years since the philosophers
of ancient Greece first contemplated the mystery of creation, the emergence of
something from nothing, the scientific method has revealed truth that they
could not have imagined. The quantum void, infinitely deep and filled with
particles, which can take on different forms, and the possibility of quantum
fluctuation lay outside their philosophy. They were unaware that positive
energy within matter can be counterbalanced by the negative sink of the
all-pervading gravitational field such that the total energy of the universe is
potentially nothing; when combined with quantum uncertainty, this allows the
possibility that everything is indeed some quantum fluctuation living on
borrowed time. Everything may thus be a
quantum fluctuation out of nothing.
But if this is so, I am still confronted
with the enigma of what encoded the quantum possibility into the Void.”
All such theories do not really get to the
heart of the problem.
Famous ex-atheist Anthony Flew gives John
Leslie’s conclusion:
“The philosopher of science John Leslie
has shown that none of today’s fashionable cosmological speculations preclude
the possibility of a Creator. A number of cosmologists have speculated that the
universe emerged from “nothing.” Edward Tryon, in 1973, had theorized that the
universe was a fluctuation in the vacuum of a larger space. He argued that the
total energy of the universe was zero because the gravitational binding energy
of the universe is shown as a negative quantity in physicists’ equations. Using
another approach, Jim Hartle, Stephen Hawking, and Alex Vilenkin have
speculated that the universe quantum-fluctuated into existence “from nothing.”
“The “nothing” is in certain instances a
chaotic space-time foam with fantastically high energy density. Another
suggestion (from Hawking) is that “time becomes more and more space-like at
earlier and earlier moments in the big bang.”
“Leslie does not think these speculations
are relevant because, he says:
‘No matter how you describe the
universe—as having existed for ever, or as having originated from a point
outside space-time or else in space but not in time, or as starting off so
quantum-fuzzily that there was no definite point at which it started, or as
having a total energy that is zero—the
people who see a problem in the sheer existence of Something Rather Than
Nothing will be little inclined to agree that the problem has been solved.
“If you had an equation detailing the
probability of something emerging from a vacuum, you would still have to ask
why that equation applies. Hawking had, in fact, noted the need for a creative
factor to breathe fire into the equations.
Flew, Antony; Varghese, Roy Abraham. There
Is a God: How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (pp.
142-143). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Science cannot help us, so the psychological
pressure of the question remains large, stark, urgent, and even ‘oppressive’
(the more you ponder it).
So, for me the ‘brute fact’ of EXISTENCE
itself—when there should not be any ‘EXISTENCE’ at all—forces me to postulate
(even ‘accept’ and logically even ‘demand’?) the ‘existence’ (which is not like
OUR existence) of some ‘thing’ (which is not like any of the things in our
existence) that started the existence ball rolling.
We are ‘locked inside’ our existence, and
do not even have WORDS for what MUST BE the case. We can use words like
‘produced’, ‘created’, ‘made’, ‘generated’, and ‘caused’, -- all or none of
which might be reflective of some aspect of how our ‘something’ IS HERE—but
these are all ‘action words’, all have a ‘before and after’ sequence in them, and they all have some kind of ‘primal’
agency/agent reality ‘hidden’ in them.
It is simply impossible for me, us, and
all “non-anesthetized” people(!) to accept as truth (and therefore bet any
possible post-mortem future experience on!) all this to have COME INTO
EXISTENCE without SOMETHING (outside of us/all ‘our something’) CAUSING
this.
And now
Risk raises its head—
And if I am LOGICALLY FORCED to
believe that there is something OUTSIDE which produced/created the reality we
all know (which I am), then my mind –being VERY risk adverse-- IMMEDIATELY forces
me to worry about the WHY question.
WHY did whatever it ‘is’ even make
SOMETHING??
And even MORE urgently—WHAT DOES IT ‘WANT’
WITH ME SPECIFICALLY (i.e., WHERE am I in that ‘WHY’ rationale / purpose
/etc.; and will I be forced to ENCOUNTER that something AFTER my human
death)???
I am risk-averse, and I recognize a HUGE
RISK hiding in this question…
I am stuck in this existence and am
aware of this OUTSIDE OTHER, and the best I can do (on my own) is to keep asking the ‘WHY’ questions—hoping
that the SOMETHING that I am a part of, indicates / suggests something
about the ‘OUTSIDE’ something and perhaps about some ‘reason’ for our SOMETHING
to come to BE.
Instead of stumbling around blindly in
this ‘container of existence’ we call the universe, only to possibly find
myself OUTSIDE IT at death, and confronted with some OUTSIDE OTHER something, I
am motivated by fear (mostly, but curiosity is also there) to try to discover
something about this OUTSIDE OTHER (which I might potentially be confronted
with).
As risk-averse, I need to get as much
information as can be had (if any) about the WHAT that is ‘underneath’ this
SOMETHING that I am a part of.
A problem of method—the example of a human
artist:
In our limited type of existence, we are logically
forced to believe in the existence of an artist when confronted with a work
of non-AI art, but the nature/character/intentions of that artist can only be inferred
from the art in front of us (if then even). And if we know (or even ‘suspect’)
that we are going to meet that artist after the art show, then we might be practically
forced to try to infer something about that artist beforehand.
If we have no explicit self-disclosures by
the artist nor any first-hand reports from people who perhaps met the artist
before us, we would be limited to scraping together some thoughts about the
artist from viewing their works.
If the gallery we are in contains only
works by this specific artist, then we would no doubt view the works and try to
‘get into the mind’ of the artist.
If all the pieces are dark, gloomy, scenes
of torture, pain, misery and death (without even a glimmer or thread of
life/goodness), then we might be a little apprehensive about our meeting—or we
might have a sense of solidarity. If all the pieces are light, upbeat, scenes
of Pollyanna-ish happiness (without a glimmer or
thread of the decay/despair that is very much a part of our experience), then
we might be less apprehensive, but still expecting someone perhaps a little ‘odd’
or ‘well-medicated’ (who might even offer us some drugs…lol).
But none of these expectations would be
considered ‘logical’ or ‘inferential’. They would be based on us asking a
question like this:
“I notice this theme/aspect/feature of
this art piece. What might this suggest about the artist’s character,
perspective, and/or skill level?”
Most of our guesses would be based on our
experiences of others and of other artists. But in some cases, we can see vast
differences in ability between ourselves and some extraordinary artist. In many
cases we might not even be able to SEE and/or APPRECIATE some craftsmanship
that perhaps would be noticed by an artist ‘better than’ us.
We might not be able to grasp HOW much
ability they might have, but we are nonetheless able to be AMAZED at it (and
even ask questions about how the artist GAINED that skill level).
This is an entirely natural and plausible
way to attempt to form a notion / image of this artist, under the assumption of
some type of continuity between them and ourselves (e.g. agents who choose,
communication, express themselves, have moral and aesthetic notions).
But when we get to trying to use a similar
approach to getting some idea of the OUTSIDE OTHER (artist), we have some
definite limitations/constraints.
Most importantly (and creating a huge
difficulty for such a discussion) this “something beyond” cannot exist in
the same way the universe exists, or the problem just pushes back one more
step (i.e. why does IT exist, rather than nothing?). Its existence has to be
unconditioned, uncaused, non-material, non-spatial, etc. DIFFERENT IN EVERY
SENSE and ASPECT of existence—but NO LESS actually “THERE” – because WE are
“HERE”! It is no less actually ‘in our face’ (or at least our ‘future
face’)! It is NO LESS an absolute CONTEXT in which our existence ‘sits’. It
MUST ‘exist’ since we (as part of ‘something’) exists.
“Moreover, faced with science’s in
principle silence regarding questions like ‘why does anything exist?’, ‘why
does the Universe obey mathematical laws?’, ‘what is it that breathes fire into
the equations and makes a universe for them to describe?’, as Stephen Hawking
famously asked, and ‘why is the Universe as it is and not otherwise?’, a beardy
man in the clouds will not do. Santa Claus will not do. Sky fairies will not
do. The Flying Spaghetti Monster will not do. The many gods of ancient Greece
were at the disposal of Plato and Aristotle, and yet they saw the need for
something else, something that wasn’t just another thing, or even just another
god.” [Lewis, Geraint F.; Barnes, Luke A.. A
Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos (p. 330). Cambridge
University Press. Kindle Edition”
There is no escaping this conclusion at
all. Let this sink in. And perhaps you can feel the potential terror this could
have on us…
We do not have the conceptual apparatus or
language or imagination to ‘describe this’. All we can do is ‘point’ to the
‘outside’ , the ‘beyond’, and all the other words we use to ‘label’ that which
“cannot BE” (in the same sense as us) but which “MUST BE” (in a way far beyond
our ability to even conceptualize).
So I
still will keep asking the ‘WHY’ questions, like the one for the artist:
“I notice this theme/aspect/feature of
this art piece (SOMETHING). What might this suggest about the artist’s (OUTSIDE
OTHER’s) character, perspective, and/or skill level?”
So I do
this—hoping
that some ‘clues’ might surface, but realizing that those clues might
not apply to such an ‘Other’ Agent/Being/something anyway.
………………………………………………………………………………………
.
Here is an outline of the questions I would raise,
looking at OUR experienced existence (limited as it is to our limited knowledge
of ‘only’ our piece of SOMETHING—our universe):
Question 1: “How is there
something, rather than nothing?” (e.g. method of origination)
Question 2:
“Why is there something, rather than nothing?”
Question 3:
Intelligibility / Comprehensibility
“Why -- rather than nothing–
--
is there something – so ‘law-like’ ,
such that physics is possible?”
This
is unexpected – there is NO REASON for our something to be such.
Question 4:
Scale
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something – so ‘law-like’ ,
such that physics is possible,
-- and of
a scale that is incomprehensible in itself?”
This is unexpected – there is NO REASON
for our something to be such.
Question 5:
Complexity, Patterns, Space, Time, Matter, Fields, Energy, etc.
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something – so ‘law-like’ ,
such that physics is possible,
-- of a scale that is incomprehensible in
itself,
-- and containing levels of complexity and patterns that stagger the mind?”
This is unexpected – there is NO REASON
for ‘our something’ to be such. It could have been law-like, massive in scale,
and BLAND and/or UNIFORM – could have been all ‘solid rock’ or even TRULY empty
space everywhere…
And—according to the best theory—it should
have been EMPTY anyway.
Question 6A:
Structured to allow biogenesis
(universe level)
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something that looks
structured to allow ‘life’ as we know it?
This is the question of ‘how or why’ the
shape / configuration of the natural order (universe level) is in such an almost
impossible alignment as to allow life to (potentially) emerge (as
well as even later conscious observers of the grandeur of the universe).
This is called by many the “fine tuning of
the universe” and the ‘anthropic principle’, although I disagree – along with
many others--with both those popular terms. ‘Fine tuning’ suggests an initial
state that requires adjustment – and we see no variance at all in the physical
constants of our universe to suggest such a thing. ‘Anthropic principle’ makes
this about human life, but the impact of all the basic constants / chemical
processes are basic to all life (not just ‘consciousness’ forms).
Also known as the Goldilocks Enigma…
Question 6B
:
Structured to allow the existence
of chemically-based complex (‘living’) organisms, such as we see in our
current (and past) biosphere.
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something that looks
structured to allow ‘life’ as we know it?
-- and which contains basic elements which
can combine into compounds which form the basis for ALL lifeforms in our past
and present.
This is the question of ‘how or why’ the
properties of some (‘most’?) elements in the Periodic Table are such that they
form certain compounds (with ‘odd’ specificity) that are the major constituents
of ALL lifeforms in our biosphere.
We have noted the ‘oddness’ of the
EXISTENCE of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, etc. – (Hoyle’s discovery)—but not WHY
they are so important to life (especially carbon) and would this be ‘expected’
at all – in a something from nothing scenario. Or is this something ELSE
that looks ‘contrived’?
Question 6C
:
Structured to support our current
biosphere (planetary level)
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something that looks
structured to allow ‘life’ as we know it?
-- and which contains basic elements which
can combine into compounds which form the basis for ALL lifeforms in our past
and present.
-- and which contains at least one
location in the universe that is CURRENTLY positively FAVORABLE to life as we
know it—and perhaps UNIQUELY SO? (In spite of it being anti-life for most of
its history?!)
This is the question of ‘how or why’ the configuration/location
of OUR PLANET SPECIFICALLY –and the ecological processes in/around it--is in
such an almost impossible synchronization as to positively FAVOR
the existence (once it ‘appeared’) and then to ‘finish building out’ the
ecosystem to support the variety, complexity, and interdependence of life forms
currently living on the earth.
This is called by some the ‘privileged
planet’ scenario.
Here we have to examine some of the
oddities of our planet Earth – in its current state and location – that provide
a stable base for the existence and development of life forms.
This would include planetary features,
our neighbors in the solar system, and our location in the galaxy
and universe.
=======================================
Notice
some important things about the questions above
1.
They
are ALL pre-biotic (and therefore pre-Darwinian).
2.
These
are all questions about the FUNDAMENTALS of this ‘something’—although seemingly
framed to be ‘about life’.
3.
They
are questions ONLY about the current situation.
Questions of origins of life, for
example, have NO BEARING on these questions. When we ‘awoke in history’ and
started our scientific observations of what is/was around us, EVERYTHING WAS
COMPLETE as what we see today.
The life forms we find in the
oldest rocks are fully functioning, complex living cells—most of which are
still thriving on the planet. All these ‘cycles’ of carbon and oxygenation WERE
in place when we woke up. All these planetary formative events were in the
past, and we were in the ‘habitable time and the intersection of the habitable
zones’..
It is this finished work – our
experienced SOMETHING – that is the ‘smoking gun’ to deal with.
As many of the scientists quote
early on point out, to simply say ‘it just is’ (the just-so approach) is
intellectually slothful, and I am suggesting that it is also potentially
dangerous in the extreme.
====================================================================
[TBD]
Question 7: Chemistry: active
bio-information and “struggle to
survive”
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something – so ‘law-like’ , such that
physics is possible,
-- of a scale that is incomprehensible in itself,
-- containing levels of complexity and patterns that
stagger the mind,
-- that looks structured to allow ‘life’ as we
know it,
-- that contains uber-complex chemical structures (of
inexplicable origin) that are so
finely-tuned with OTHER chemical structures that they REPEATEDLY ‘act on’ one another, maintain a shared ‘clock’,
cooperate to maintain and reproduce themselves, respond to threats
as a unit, and occasionally MODIFY EACH OTHER to protect the unit (e.g. living
cells)—when
all other assemblies of chemical structures DO NOT?”
Up to this point, all we have been confronted with is
a universe (subset of SOMETHING) that has the building block elements necessary
for life—but which are not alive themselves, and which actually do NOTHING
without some ‘mixing and stirring up’. And, because of ‘timing’, we have them
in a narrow window of the universe in which ‘life’ COULD appear (and be
sustained for a while).
But once our species ‘woke up’, we noticed the amazing
biosphere—we were surrounded by ‘living things’. And during our history, we
discovered that there were single-celled living things that had been around
longer than we had, and which—without a ‘brain’ or ‘nervous system’—did all of
the things above—as ‘living cells’.
We note here how ‘odd’ this ‘life’ is – maybe even
worse than the previous series of ‘oddness’.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Excursus
2: Where did reductionism go?? Information usurped ALL thrones! (Rethinking
physics and biology)
Question 8A: Social-Ontology
in Biosphere: Starting Point?
“Why
-- rather than nothing–
-- is there something – so
‘law-like’ , such that physics is possible,
-- of a scale that is
incomprehensible in itself,
-- containing levels of complexity
and patterns that stagger the mind,
-- containing assemblies of inert
chemical structures of matter that co-operate to maintain and reproduce
themselves (e.g. living cells)—when all other assemblies of chemical structures
DO NOT,
-- and in which these ‘active’ assemblies interact with other active
assemblies in relationships of
DEPENDENCY, such that independent existence could neither be initially achieved
nor subsequently sustained?”
Question 8B: Social-Ontology
in Biosphere: Staying in Balance
Question 8C: Social-Ontology
in Biosphere: Pre-built prep for Predator / threat behavior
Question 8D: Social-Ontology
in Biosphere: Anticipation of Predator ‘psychology’
Question 9: Organism changes
– adaptive, passive, biased, and ‘gratuitous’
“Why -- rather than nothing–
-- is there something – so
‘law-like’ , such that physics is possible,
-- of a scale that is
incomprehensible in itself,
-- containing levels of complexity
and patterns that stagger the mind,
-- containing assemblies of inert
chemical structures of matter that co-operate to maintain and reproduce
themselves (e.g. living cells)—when all other assemblies of chemical structures
DO NOT,
-- and in which these active assemblies (via internal processes) could CHANGE
their internal CHEMISTRY or BE changed by external processes, such that they
become distinctly DIFFERENT active assemblies?
Question 10:
Intelligent-looking behaviors, not emerging from lower-level bio-processes
Question 11: Consciousness / Awareness
Question 12:
Meta-consciousness (Awareness of awareness)
There are several elements to this
issue:
·
The ‘hard problem’ of consciousness
(advanced consciousness, mind-brain interactions)
·
The issue of ‘spirit’ and ‘memory’
in the widest range of living forms
·
The problem of the observer in
quantum reality (with a glance back at the fine-tuning topic)
·
Discontinuity within the spectrum
of life: the weirdness of a being who develops and uses abstract mathematics to
design/plan/build (using tools and a complex eco-system of supply-chain
relationships) a factory that MAKES tools for other minds to read about
(language, symbols, shared semantics) and visualize them using such tools, and
then does a social, legal, and ethics-bound ‘transaction’ to deliver those
tools to the end-user.
·
The abandonment of the reductionist
paradigm: nobody tries to explain sociology in the terms of physics, nor
psychology in terms of neurology. [I.e. teleology is pervasive and always
resurgent.]
________________________________________________________
Excursus 3: Gratuitous value/goodness/whimsy/beauty
Question 13: The Meta-meta
question of wonder
Question 14: The meta-meta
question of consciousness and physics
This is
connected to the ‘fine-tuning’ point above, but raises the ‘scientific
mysticism’ levels to new heights: “Why would life seem to be
'inevitable'--according to some scientists?” [but not me…]
______________________________________________________________________________
Excursus 4: A question of METHOD?
(e.g. Dark Matter and Dark Energy)
___________________________
Excursus 5: Destructive elements
Conclusion: If inescapable confrontation, what to do…
(Socrates: "All the wisdom of this
world is but a tiny raft upon which we must set sail when we leave this earth.
If only there was a firmer foundation upon which to sail,
perhaps some divine
word." )