Becoming aware of the shock (even ‘terror’?) of our EXISTENCE

The brute force of “Why is there something rather than nothing?”


[Draft Dec 01, 2024]

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’ questionshoping 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 thishoping 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 allowlife’ 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.]

 

 

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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…]

 

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Excursus 4:  A question of METHOD? (e.g. Dark Matter and Dark Energy)

 

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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." )

 

 


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