Refutation (II)

Lent 2020 - Day 24

"Michael - you're indulging in wishing thinking. The world - the universe around us, it is physical - observable, measurable. We're born - we die - get over it. Death ends all, it snuffs out our brief span of being conscious. No one has yet returned from the dead to tell us about it. Religion is nothing more than a collection of folk myths, woven into an easily-digested ideology and used to control societies. To offer people the carrot of immortality in return for good behaviour. 

"The Enlightenment opened mankind's eyes to the scientific method, to the need for provable, repeatable experiments, peer review and data-driven analysis. Newton, Darwin and Einstein gave us the tools to understand ourselves and the universe we inhabit. A 'divine hand' to steer the process is no longer necessary; the laws of physics explain how the universe functions. Divine destiny? Kismet? Karma? All superstition. Coincidence woven into faux narratives. Dressed up in fairy tales. Religion is so riddled with many cognitive biases it's hard to know where to start.

"Don't concern yourself with mystical woo based on pseudo-science - it will get you nowhere. Just focus on being a good human being. Be kind to others, be charitable, make the existence of everyone around you as pain-free as possible. Work hard, fulfil your human potential, look after your health. That's enough."

Well no, it's not enough. 

I don't refute science, it has brought many marvels into our lives, not least my ability to write to you via this medium. Medicine has greatly advanced thanks to science. Our understanding of physics at subatomic and cosmic scales has increased vastly over the past century. But it would be wrong to shut out the sense of wonder of just how unlikely it has been that we are here, thinking, alive, conscious. The astronomically huge coincidence that the laws of physics allowed conscious life to observe the expanding universe, which, despite the advances of scientific knowledge, is still full of mystery.

We are still a long way from understanding how our Universe began - whether it's one of many (in a cycle of Big Bangs, expansions, contractions and so on), or just this one (then what?), or whether indeed there's an infinite number of universes as well as our own. We don't know. And we are far from knowing what drives the increasing acceleration of our Universe's expansion. Dark Matter and Dark Energy? What are they? Nothing more than mathematical stop-gaps? And was there consciousness before life, or is consciousness an emergent property of life? Does consciousness exist throughout the Universe(s)?

We appreciate that lower-order mammals - our pets - display irrefutable hallmarks of consciousness as do cephalopods - octopus and squid. But biologists are beginning to appreciate that signs of consciousness can be found within amoeba and paramecium, which can show feelings and can learn. Very well.

But below that level? If (and it's one of the greatest 'ifs' that science has yet to prove or disprove), consciousness exists as a universal property - a proto-consciousness, a building block, like an electron or proton - then what's at that macro, galactic level?

[My brother asked me a great question last night - whether such a proto-consciousness is a field or whether it is granular and what would be the smallest unit, like Planck time or Planck distance.]

I would like to posit the notion of consciousness evolving, reaching ever-higher levels, and that such an evolutionary pathway is nothing less than the purpose of the universe. Prove me wrong.

There's one question I have when I ponder the Universe -

IT... JUST... IS...?

How is it? Why is it?

I'm trying to make sense of it philosophically as well as scientifically.

This time last year:
Young Betjeman by Bevis Hillier

This time three years ago:
The mature mind's power over the instincts

This time eight years ago:
Welcome to spring

This time nine years ago:
Giving way or standing firm?

This time ten years ago:
Summerhouses near Okęcie

This time 11 years ago:
A truly British icon