In my defense ... I don't write this stuff quickly. * (In fact I wrote the following essay several years ago, and could tighten it up with a re-write.) |
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| "There often does appear to be some profound reality about these mathematical concepts, going quite beyond the deliberations of any particular mathematician. It is as though human thought is, instead, being guided towards some eternal external truth -- a truth which has a reality of its own, and which is revealed only partially to any one of us."1 -- theoretical physicist Roger Penrose, speaking of "a profound and timeless reality" beyond the material universe. |
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I have for several years been fascinated with many areas of science; from theoretical and quantum physics to biochemistry and environmental science to the structure of the universe. The more I read, the more I reflect on what I learn, the more one pervasive mystery comes to the fore. From nature's beauty and wonder does emerge one small set of seminal questions -- simple, direct questions whose best answers are likely to make an atheist more than a little uncomfortable. Plato, a mathematical theorist, taught that truth could only be revealed through pure reason. He said that the material world was but the realized thoughts of an eternal and truer realm, more necessary although unseen. The finite "natural" world was rational and knowable because it was the derivative -- the creation -- of the "Chief Good," the eternal, [unseen] source of reason and goodness. Plato's conception of ultimate truth somewhat resembles that of Judeo-Christian thought, as is apparent in Augustine's consideration of "how Plato has been able to approach so nearly to Christian knowledge."2 Aristotle, who in combining reason and empiricism is said to have framed the materialist view, held that matter was perhaps sufficient to explain it's properties, and yet saw that this condition itself -- required an external explanation. He called the intelligence which imposed the conditions of matter the "Prime Mover." Here the Greek philosophers seem almost to echo the patriarchs of monotheism -- not some silly claim of "mind over matter," as might be offered by a magician, rather something mysterious and powerful, something inescapably fundamental -- Mind before matter, Mind beyond matter, Mind bestowed matter, Mind throughout matter. Just as a sequence of mathematical derivatives must infer its cause -- a specified differential equation -- so a precisely ordered universe infers a "specifier" (we might say, as some physicists have, a "great mathematician"). The principle of "cause and effect" flowing ever in one direction appears to infer the necessity of a primordial, ultimate Cause. An uncaused Cause. Today, as throughout the history of western philosophy, we therefore find that it is difficult to avoid the existence of this mystery -- this "First Cause." Yet, many eighteenth century philosophers and nineteenth century zoologists were enamored with the doctrines of philosophical materialism. Newton had revolutionized the intellectual landscape. Science exposed attributes of the world in terms of tangible mechanisms. Science is a human dialogue with the material world and for reasons readily apparent, materialist philosophy swept the world of science academia. It was claimed that Matter, and the energy attendant to it, was all that did or could exist. When, in 1929, Edwin Hubble discerned that matter and time were finite, the thin intellectual facade of materialism quickly developed obvious fractures. Matter and time, as we can know and [within observed parameters] even imagine them, had a Beginning. The zoologists* persisted that that which could not be examined was "immaterial" and therefore nonexistent; but physicists and mathematicians found that they could not affirm the materialist's doctrine. The new sciences of cosmology and quantum physics suggested another story. Nature increasingly came to be known as mathematical laws. Mathematics itself is immaterial, and yet is more real than our sense-perceptions. Einstein likened the universe to a powerfully authored work when he stated "We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books."3 (* Please note: I reference zoologists not to demean their science in general but simply because so many of materialism's [and atheism's] most adamant apostles, Ernst Haeckel and Richard Dawkins, for example, have been zoologists. The problem for the atheistic materialist in this discordance is evident. The study of larger-scale biological forms -- such as zoology, botany, or even bacteriology -- is now built on the relatively new science of biochemistry, which is based in the science of chemistry, which is powered by the laws of the ghost-like realm studied by quantum physicists (and cosmologists), whose work is illuminated by the tools of information theorists and other mathematicians. A zoologist insisting that there is no purposeful design in nature is thus analogous to a steward in the last car of a moving train insisting -- while comfortably ignorant of the design and purpose of the locomotive and the willful intent of its designer and builder -- that the train and its movements are strictly random, purposeless occurrences, not because he knows this to be true but because it is an idea which appeals to him. That the steward in our analogy is willing to deceive himself, becomes obvious. That his claim is spurious, must at some point become evident to an honestly skeptical thinker... There is, of course, a very great deal of evidence for intelligent design in extremely complex and sophisticated biological systems -- photosynthesis for example. Attempts to explain such systems and structures as purposeless accidents must quickly become both vague and highly convoluted4, appealing to blind faith in presumed mechanisms not known, however this is not part of the scope of this brief essay.)
| "Scientists animated by the purpose of proving that they
are purposeless constitute an interesting subject for study."5 - Alfred North Whitehead, mathematician/ philosopher |
Along with quantum physics, the new sciences of biochemistry and information theory have emerged to further refute philosophic materialism. The physical realm could no longer be understood as having only the two manifestations of classical physics -- matter and energy. Information -- information -- is also a fundamental attribute of nature. Within a careful reductionistic understanding, nature is only information! Highly specific information. For example, the proton weighs 1,836 times as much as the electron. Why? There is no mechanistic answer, but were this ratio even slightly different, baryons (all strongly interacting particles such as we find in the 'elements') could not exist. Chemistry and biology could not exist (of course we wouldn't be here to notice). We find that this curious specificity describes the mysterious quantum world, and the physical world generally. Nature IS an astounding set of instructions. From quantum mechanics to the cosmic Omega ratio, from the sophisticated "language" of DNA to human consciousness, nature testifies ever more forcefully to deeper mysteries and to an Intelligence beyond itself. Einstein's cosmic "library" authored in "different tongues" has burgeoned. The simplistic world view of the materialist is repudiated by nature herself. Consider the gluon, the mysterious agent which binds quarks, thus creating nucleons which in turn are bound by the strong nuclear force to make the elemental baryons, the stuff of our physical world -- planet, atmosphere and biota. While we can describe the gluon and the strong nuclear force (the strong force is understood to be the "glue" arising from the information relayed by gluon messenger particles) in terms of what they do, the deeper questions of why they should exist, and exist precisely as they do, remains beyond the scope of human science. While "unifying" theories attempt to simplify our understanding of the relationship of elemental forces and particles, and to provide a deeper level of explanation -- the precision and power of nature's informing laws, their very existence, indeed the very existence of any potential "deeper level of explanation," is a transcendent mystery. Leibniz' question -- "why is there something, rather than nothing?" -- applies even [and we might say especially] to grand unification theory, as it does to the whole of our universe -- and to any potential universe(s). Logic indicates that the Ultimate explanation must have unique, mysterious, and wondrous qualities, beginning with the fact that, by definition, it must have an Uncaused existence / supra-existence. (The only alternative to a First Cause is an "infinite regress" of causes. As Aristotle rightly argued, in such an infinite regress there can be no absolute basis for anything, not even in principle. Within such a regress, empirical "knowledge" becomes an absolute illusion, as do reason and ethics. We must also note that an infinite regress cannot explain itself or ever answer Leibniz' famous question).
We also see that, given its externalness to the material world, the Ultimate explanation can never be proved in a classic physical sense, as by definition, it must supra-exist all things physical. The reductionists desires and efforts to reduce First Cause to mere mechanism, or to dismiss the need for a First Cause by appeal to an infinite regress, are, by definition, doomed to be mere shadow boxing. It is also true of these materialistic ideas that they can never be proved. This is rationally obvious, but for the sake of argument, let us suppose that such a "proof" were claimed. It would necessarily follow that there could be no absolute basis for such a judgment, no external guarantor of truthfulness. Such a would-be "proof" must also claim to have no meaning.
The mathematician/ philosopher/ logician David Berlinski describes evidence of the mystery beyond the universe in these words: "The Newtonian universe is a closed physical system. Whatever happens takes place as the result of causal interactions between material objects. There is nonetheless one aspect of the Newtonian world that is not explained by Newton's theory, and that is Newton's theory itself. The law of universal gravitation binds the world's far-flung particles into a coherent whole; but the law is itself transcendent. It cannot be given an explanation in material terms. This is true as well for the equations governing the electromagnetic field, Einstein's field equations for general relativity, and Schrödinger's wave equation in quantum mechanics. The laws of nature by which nature is explained are not themselves a part of nature. No physical theory predicts their existence nor explains their power. They exist beyond space and time; they gain purchase by an act of the imagination and not observation, they are the tantalizing traces in matter of an intelligence that has so far hidden itself in symbols. Efforts to explain the laws of nature in terms of still further laws of nature that explain themselves have been unavailing. They are what they are. The great physicists have always recognized that the organization of nature represents a profound mystery. They have for this reason paid homage to those laws, seeing in their symmetry and perfection something of great and ineffable majesty."6
... in meditating on what is now known about the nature of Nature, we find that of the various philosophical arguments for the existence and the nature of God -- the arguments which appeal to reason and to physical science -- the "cosmological argument", and the "teleological argument" as well, have been imbued with great intellectual strength in the light of twenty-first century scientific insight. We might be tempted to compare the arguments to grand physical theories which have been strengthened by observation, but we consider here the One thing that claims to be more than a human idea, not simply a Theory of Everything but in fact the Truth of everything. We here consider the One Truth which can only be inferred through empirical methods because it's claim is of a transcendent existence beyond empirically knowable realms. The material world -- the realm of natural science -- in no way contradicts the arguments, in fact we find the opposite....
"...it is incontrovertible that where there is a plan there is intelligence - an orderly, unfolding universe testifies to the truth of the most majestic statement ever uttered -- 'In the beginning God.'"7 - Arthur H. Compton, Nobel Prize-winning quantum physicist
| The plan is to (eventually) post other science essays here [if I can keep them short, and from experience I know that this is not easy]. Possible essay topics: | ||
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| "If from the indubitable fact that the world exists,
someone wants to infer a cause for this existence, his inference does not
contradict our scientific knowledge at any point. No scientist has at his
disposal even a single argument or any kind of fact with which he could
oppose such and assumption. This is true, even if the cause -- and how could
it be otherwise -- obviously has to be sought outside this [material] world
of ours." - Werner Heisenberg, developer of quantum theory |
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| "I seem to myself to have been like a child on the seashore finding pebbles and shells while the great ocean of truth lay undiscovered before me." -- Isaac Newton |  |
