So the Universe started with the Big Bang. But why did the Big Bang happen? What caused it? Atheists/physicalists/materialists put forward several arguments that try to get around the need for a metaphysical ('beyond physics') answer, but ultimately each one can be tripped over by the question "and what happened before?".
Some physicists suggest that 'nothing' is unstable at a quantum level. In this view, the universe could have emerged from a vacuum fluctuation where particles and energy pop into existence and expand. Right. So where does that fluctuation come from, ditto particles and energy? The Cyclic Model posits that the universe undergoes infinite cycles of expansion (Big Bang) and contraction (Big Crunch), meaning there was no 'first' cause because the system is eternal. Then explain where that eternity started. The Multiverse hypothesis puts forth that our universe is just one 'bubble' in a much larger foaming sea of universes. The cause of our Big Bang would be a physical process occurring in a parent universe. Which was formed how? Stephen Hawking famously proposed that asking "what happened before the Big Bang" is like asking "what is north of the North Pole." If time itself began at the Big Bang, there is no 'before' for a cause to exist in. OK, but what kick-started the whole process?
The established scientific paradigm tells us that every physical effect has a physical cause. Cause precedes effect. Scientists tell us that there are no unseen, indetectable, forces acting upon our reality from outside of our physical reality.
Everything can be described in terms of atoms and the forces acting upon them; there is no explanatory need for intercession from the supernatural. This way of looking at the world has been wildly successful since the days of Newton and Leibniz – billiard balls in motion, striking each other and bouncing off with predictable speed in predictable directions.
From the birth ot the Enlightenment, well into the 20th century, the scientific paradigm has forced supernatural worldviews into retreat. The unfolding of the universe is an entirely predictable process, claimed French polymath Pierre-Simon Laplace in 1814. He posited that an intelligence ('Laplace's demon') with sufficient processing capacity, knowing the location and momentum of every atom in existence, can foresee every possible atomic interaction until the end of time. A beautiful model, and one that is held dearly by causal determinists to this day. It is a model that implies no room for free will or ethics, no good, no bad – just that, which has been determined.
But then, a hundred years ago, along came quantum mechanics. By the early 20th century, the inner workings of the atom were shown to have strange, random qualities that classical mechanics could not account for. A sceptical Albert Einstein famously remarked "God does not play dice".
How does quantum mechanics differ from classical mechanics? Consider, for example, one atom of an unstable radioactive element that has a half-life of one day. This means that there is a 50/50 chance that within that time, the atom's nucleus will decay. Whether it does so or not is entirely stochastic (random; an effect without a cause). One day later you ask – has that atomic nucleus decayed yet? You know the statistical probability; half and half. But you don't know for certain. You need to make an observation to find out. Without an observer present to open the box and check on the experiment, there can be no certainty. The atom is said to remain in 'superposition' until the outcome is observed.
The observer principle is crucial to the quantum world. If a tree falls in a forest, and there's no one there, has it made a sound? No – because 'sound' needs somebody to receive the pressure disturbances propagated through air, someone equipped with a brain to receive the waves and interpret them as sound. Similarly, if there was no consciousness present in the Universe – would it exist?
Is the Universe conscious of itself, of its own awareness, in the sense that we are conscious of our consciousness? Is that consciousness distributed, atom by atom, across the Cosmos, dwelling within the very fabric of Creation? Or does a Universal consciousness reside outside of matter, in an aetherial realm?
Tomorrow I will consider the question of Big 'C' Consciousness and small 'c' consciousness, and where we conscious humans fit into the scheme of things
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