Is the Universe Absurd? Or Feeble Attempts by Finite Sapience to Swallow the Totality of Existence
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