quantum physics, holographic universe, implicate order, david bohm, the secret, mind over matter, matter does not exist, matter is energy

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Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Unpredictability, 9/11

Innumerable scientists, philosophers, theologians, religionists, atheists, theosophists, teleologists, geeks, mathematicians, quantum physicists, geniuses on wheelchairs, apes, dolphins, amoebae, artists, thinkers, inventors, baby universes, Artificial Intelligences, subatomic particles and neurons have asked the question - Is The Universe Absurd? Or is there a Purpose and Reason to it all?

I had just completed my reading of yet another intelligence-raising book by Paul Davies called, The Cosmic Jackpot. Next to Hyperspace (by Michio Kaku), The Physics of Immortality (by Frank Tipler) and perhaps The God Delusion (by the godfather of godlessness, the Honorary Sir Richard Dawkins), I dub it as one of the most significant books I have ever read.

To sum all 315 pages of the book up, I quote only 3 words that make up a simple question, “How Come Existence?”. It might be the new question that replaces ”To be or not to be?” as the most significant question of all time (if that Shakespearean line was the most significant one of all time in the first place).

Reading this book has confirmed a notion I have had for a while that is now transformed into a belief that even the most respected scientists of our time, with their so-called objective reasoning, are not free from some form of ideological or philosophical bias. There are areas that scientists would not dare or bother to venture into, where philosophers take over, but then there are also places where philosophers just give up and leave the game to (usually escapist) speculators.

Taking a step back, I realise how funny this antic of humans is to try and understand the nature of existence. Most of us think in terms of words. We use words to rationalise. Sometimes words take on a vivid image in our minds and those images may or may not be useful. The more advanced amongst us thinkers use mathematics to understand things. Mathematical symbols are simply the cousins of words.

Words. Numbers. Symbols. Images. Analogies. All these are tools that might have helped us evolve from simplistic beasts whose only concern was survival and procreation (if you follow the Darwinian line) but like Einstein himself said, “We cannot solve problems from the same level of thinking with which we had created those problems in the first place…” (not his exact words).

I am a practical optimist. I believe there can be no end to how deeply the human mind can fathom the important questions of existence, but to go further, we need better tools, better models, better conceptual infrastructures and better processes. Perhaps, where mathematics, cosmology, musing philosophy and physics have left off, neuroscience should take over…

Is The Universe Absurd, Paul Davies, The Cosmic Jackpot, Hyperspace, Michio Kaku, The Physics of Immortality, Frank Tipler, The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins, How Come Existence?, ”To be or not to be?”, neuroscience

Paul Davies, physicist and cosmologist, wrote a book which I am now reading, titled, “The Cosmic Jackpot”, subtitled, “Why our universe is just right for life”. I saw the same book once in Borders bookstore, but it was an alternative title, “The Goldilocks Enigma”, if I am not mistaken. I am sure they are both one and the same because I had browsed through both titles’ contents. They are the same.

While Dawkins and his memetic ancestor, Darwin, had set out to establish that the theory of evolution by natural selection as the most satisfactory explanation for the origination and development of life as we know it today, there is yet to be an argument that is as strong as evolution in the context of cosmology to explain why the laws of the universe are the way we observe they are.

I don’t have Dawkins’ The God Delusion now (I borrowed and read it early this year), but I remember him talking about the ‘Crane’, referring to the theory of evolution as the best answer that we have now for explaining the formation of biological life on Earth. He also said, there is yet to be a ‘Crane’ that can save the field of cosmology from superstition and biased thinking.

The Cosmic Jackpot is one of the many books that attempts to explain the seeming orderlines, beauty, complexity and ‘intelligence’ of the universe sans pointing towards an Intelligent Creator and Cosmic Architect (but Paul Davies does hold some Deistic views).

The premise that has been receiving the most light in this field is that of the existence of multiple (possibly infinite or near-infinite; i.e. a vast, unfathomable, but limited number of) universes or the multiverse. Just as genetic variation is crucial to the theory of evolution by natural selection, cosmic variation is central to the theory of the multiverse. In this premise, there are multitudes of universes, each having its own set of laws, one different from another, and our universe is just one of those in which, by probability, its laws are fit to ultimately allow for life and subsequently sentient intelligence (humans) to evolve.

Of course, my attempt at an explanation above is my simplified way of putting it according to my understanding. So, instead of genes that have different strands, we have universes that have different settings and laws. Some pop into existence and out of it too fast (how ‘fast’ is ‘too fast’?), some do grow like ours and sustain some potential for life but die off too soon to get to the sentient being part, some even, perhaps, go all the way to being able to sustain life and sentient intelligence, but with utterly different timelines and circumstances.

Imagine infinite possibility. It would even be possible - if we follow this premise - that any thought or imagination we have ever entertained or created would exist literally, physically and essentially, in a parallel universe (would we then exercise our imagination with more discipline, then? I can imagine another universe in which there exists a religion that tyrannises its believers into controlling their imagination because they know of this ‘truth’ and they have the tools and capabilities to detect deviance in imagination). But then this notion is absurd because it is not our thoughts that actually create that reality in a parallel universe, rather, in an infinite probability system, anything and everything - fathomable or not - will exist, even those that match exactly what we have imagined. Even if we do not imagine it, there will be other beings in other universes that will. Even if no one imagines it (then what would it be if it is not imagined?), it would still exist because of infinite probability. Or is infinite probability - or anything infinite at all - an impossibility? Would a thing be impossible just because we cannot rationally conceive of its possibility of existence?

Alright, I feel I have digressed.

I am still reading the first 5% of the book, and it would not be fair for me to pre-judge its entirety without completing it first. For now, I shall list a few premises and notions that I currently have an irrationally exuberant fascination with, which you can probably look forward to reading my discussions on them in future -

- Will Intelligence saturate the Universe? Is that its ‘Destiny’? (Tipler’s Omega Point and Kurzweil’s Singularity)

- Could this Universe and all of us inside it be a supremely advanced computer simulation run in a reality or level of existence beyond our own?

- Is Reality ultimately composed of - not matter or energy - but Information? Or Consciousness?

We have just entered the rabbit hole…

Paul Davies, The Cosmic Jackpot, Why our universe is just right for life, Dawkins, Darwin, evolution by natural selection, The God Delusion