The problems of whether or not there is a
creator of the universe and if so, how his existence or non-existence
may be connected with the meaning of our lives have always been debated
in the West since the Renaissance. Cosmology is thus
never merely cosmology and biology never merely biology. Those
institutions which feel that their power, influence or authority may be
affected, like the monotheistic religions which are committed to a
particular view of how the universe and man came about have thus
always fought with tooth and nail against the advances of science once
they perceive any threat from that direction. We are all familiar with
how Copernicus and Galileo in the 17th and Darwin in
19th and 20th centuries were viewed and treated by some "Christians".
This tug of war between science and monotheistic religions has taken on
new twists with the discovery of the Newtonian laws of motion in the 17th and Einstein's
theory of relativity and the laws of quantum mechanics and now the
theory of multiverse in the 20th centuries. This impression is
particularly strong last night when I read the last chapter of a book
called Parallel Worlds (05) by the best-selling popular science writer Michio Kaku, entitled "Beyond the Multiverse".
Kaku begins with three quotations: Cardinal Baronius: "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heaven go."; William James: "Why there is something rather than nothing? The unrest which keeps the never-stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the non-existence of the world is just as possible as its existence." and Einstein: "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." Kaku keeps on adding more thought provoking quotes from some of those famous scientists and philosophers throughout the ages who have pondered on the existence of the universe and concludes with his personal observation. He provides an excellent run down of all kinds of views on this complex, perflexing and fascinating question. It is so full of jewels of wisdom that I don't think I cannot do better than by recording his quotes and those by Kaku himself. So let them speak for themselves:
Charles Darwin confessed in his autobiography to "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity for looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity" and said that "My theology is simply a muddle."
Thomas H Huxley, Darwin's "bull-dog" : The question of all questions for humanity, the problem which lies behind all others and is more interesting than any of them, is that of the determination of man's place in the Nature and his relation to the Cosmos. (1863)
Issaac Newton in the Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica ( The Principles of Mathematics in Natural Philosophy): "The most beautiful system of the sun, planes, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
Albert Einsten: "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this phenomenon or that. I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details...Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
Kaku says that Nicholas Copernicus wrote his De Revolutionibus Orbius Celestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs) on his deathbed in 1543 so as to evade the reaches of the Inquisition but that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in the streets of Rome in 1600 for holding that there were an infinite number of planets in the heavens, harboring an infinite number of living beings, writing that "Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest; he is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds." They suffered their fates, Kaku says, "not that they dared divine the laws of heavens; their true sin was that they dethroned humanity from its exalted place at the centre of the universe....It would take over 350 years, until 1992, for the Vatican to issue a belated apology to Galileo. No apology was ever issued to Bruno."
In the days of Galileo, "the universe was seen as a dark, forbidding place. Earth was like a small, flat stage, full of corruption and sin, enclosed by a mysterious, celestial sphere where omens like comets would terrify kings and peasants alike. And if we were deficient in our praise of God and church, we would face the wrath of the theatre critics, the self-righteous members of the Inquisition and their hideous instrument of persuasion. Newton and Einstein freed us from the superstitious and mysticism of the past. Newton gave us precise mechanical laws that guided all celestial bodies, including our own...Einstein revolutionized how we view the stage of life. Not only was it impossible to define a uniform measure of time and space, the stage itself was curved. Not only was the stage replaced by a stretched rubber sheet, it was expanding as well. The quantum revolution gave us an even more bizarre picture of the world...the downfall of determinism meant that the puppets were allowed to cut their strings and read their own lines. Free will was restored, but at the price of having multiple and uncertain outcomes. This meant that the actors could be in two places at the same time and could disappear and reappear. It became impossible to tell for certain where an actor was on stage or what time it was. Now the concept of the multiverse has given us another paradigm shift, where the word "universe" itself could become obsolete. With the multiverse, there are parallel stages, one above the other, with trapdoors and hidden tunnels connecting them. Stages, in fact, give rise to other stages, in a never-ending process of genesis. On each stage, new laws of physics emerge. Or perhaps only a handful of these stages are the conditions of life and consciousness met. Today, we are actors living in act 1, at the beginning of the exploration of the cosmic wonders of this stage. In act 2, if we don't destroy our planet through warfare or pollution, we may be able to leave Earth and explore the stars and other heavenly bodies. But we are now becoming aware that there is the final scene, act 3, when the play ends, and all the actors perish. In act 3, the stage becomes so cold that life becomes impossible. The only possible salvation is to leave the stage entirely via a trapdoor and start over again with a new play and a new stage." This is the best short summary of the development of our cosmologies throughout the ages that I have found so far!
(To be cont'd)
Kaku begins with three quotations: Cardinal Baronius: "The Bible teaches us how to go to heaven, not how the heaven go."; William James: "Why there is something rather than nothing? The unrest which keeps the never-stopping clock of metaphysics going is the thought that the non-existence of the world is just as possible as its existence." and Einstein: "The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. Whoever does not know it can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead, and his eyes are dimmed." Kaku keeps on adding more thought provoking quotes from some of those famous scientists and philosophers throughout the ages who have pondered on the existence of the universe and concludes with his personal observation. He provides an excellent run down of all kinds of views on this complex, perflexing and fascinating question. It is so full of jewels of wisdom that I don't think I cannot do better than by recording his quotes and those by Kaku himself. So let them speak for themselves:
Charles Darwin confessed in his autobiography to "the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity for looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity" and said that "My theology is simply a muddle."
Thomas H Huxley, Darwin's "bull-dog" : The question of all questions for humanity, the problem which lies behind all others and is more interesting than any of them, is that of the determination of man's place in the Nature and his relation to the Cosmos. (1863)
Issaac Newton in the Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica ( The Principles of Mathematics in Natural Philosophy): "The most beautiful system of the sun, planes, and comets could only proceed from the counsel and dominion of an intelligent and powerful Being."
Albert Einsten: "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this phenomenon or that. I want to know God's thoughts. The rest are details...Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind."
Kaku says that Nicholas Copernicus wrote his De Revolutionibus Orbius Celestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Orbs) on his deathbed in 1543 so as to evade the reaches of the Inquisition but that Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake in the streets of Rome in 1600 for holding that there were an infinite number of planets in the heavens, harboring an infinite number of living beings, writing that "Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest; he is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single earth, a single world, but in a thousand thousand, I say in an infinity of worlds." They suffered their fates, Kaku says, "not that they dared divine the laws of heavens; their true sin was that they dethroned humanity from its exalted place at the centre of the universe....It would take over 350 years, until 1992, for the Vatican to issue a belated apology to Galileo. No apology was ever issued to Bruno."
In the days of Galileo, "the universe was seen as a dark, forbidding place. Earth was like a small, flat stage, full of corruption and sin, enclosed by a mysterious, celestial sphere where omens like comets would terrify kings and peasants alike. And if we were deficient in our praise of God and church, we would face the wrath of the theatre critics, the self-righteous members of the Inquisition and their hideous instrument of persuasion. Newton and Einstein freed us from the superstitious and mysticism of the past. Newton gave us precise mechanical laws that guided all celestial bodies, including our own...Einstein revolutionized how we view the stage of life. Not only was it impossible to define a uniform measure of time and space, the stage itself was curved. Not only was the stage replaced by a stretched rubber sheet, it was expanding as well. The quantum revolution gave us an even more bizarre picture of the world...the downfall of determinism meant that the puppets were allowed to cut their strings and read their own lines. Free will was restored, but at the price of having multiple and uncertain outcomes. This meant that the actors could be in two places at the same time and could disappear and reappear. It became impossible to tell for certain where an actor was on stage or what time it was. Now the concept of the multiverse has given us another paradigm shift, where the word "universe" itself could become obsolete. With the multiverse, there are parallel stages, one above the other, with trapdoors and hidden tunnels connecting them. Stages, in fact, give rise to other stages, in a never-ending process of genesis. On each stage, new laws of physics emerge. Or perhaps only a handful of these stages are the conditions of life and consciousness met. Today, we are actors living in act 1, at the beginning of the exploration of the cosmic wonders of this stage. In act 2, if we don't destroy our planet through warfare or pollution, we may be able to leave Earth and explore the stars and other heavenly bodies. But we are now becoming aware that there is the final scene, act 3, when the play ends, and all the actors perish. In act 3, the stage becomes so cold that life becomes impossible. The only possible salvation is to leave the stage entirely via a trapdoor and start over again with a new play and a new stage." This is the best short summary of the development of our cosmologies throughout the ages that I have found so far!
(To be cont'd)
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