But first, an overview of the fundamental physical constants that holds the Universe together. Two days ago, I wrote about the several-billion (if not trillion) to-one chance of your existence. Today I want to write about the similarly improbable odds against there being a Universe as we know it at all.
Science currently believes that there are 19 of fundamental physical constants, universal and constant across time, which determine the rules of everything. [Some are now saying 22.]
Let us look at one of them, the strength of the force binding nucleons into nuclei, denoted by the symbol Epsilon, (ε). According to Martin Rees, British astrophysicist and cosmologist, the value of ε is 0.007. If it were 0.006, no other atom other than hydrogen could possibly exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. Yet if it were above 0.008, no hydrogen would exist, as all the hydrogen would have been fused shortly after the Big Bang.
All the other fundamental physical constants are similarly fine-tuned for life. They ensure that galaxies are pushed apart at the right pace; that water freezes from the surface down rather than from the bottom up, unlike other liquids. That the energy state of the carbon atom allows for its abundance throughout the cosmos, a building-block of sentient life. That gravity is neither too strong nor too weak (as it is, gravity is 10-38 times weaker than the strong atomic force binding nuclei together).
Had any one of these fundamental physical constants differed only slightly from those observed, the evolution of the Universe would have proceeded very differently and life as it is understood may not have been possible.
Amazing, eh? Welcome to the fine-tuned Universe. British astronomer, Fred Hoyle (who first coined the term 'Big Bang') argued for a fine-tuned universe: "The list of anthropic properties, apparent accidents of a non-biological nature without which carbon-based and hence human life could not exist, is large and impressive".
So - you can either consider these many factors creating conditions to be mere chance, without all of which we would simply not be here to marvel at the fact - or we can begin to ask why the Universe has been set up in such a way. A miracle here, a one-in-a-billion chance there, a statistical improbability over there. [Some scientists posit that myriad Universes have failed to form because their fundamental constants were wrong.] But our Universe is here, because we are here to observe it. And the statistical improbability of the universe existing multiplied by the statistical improbability of you existing (see this post if you've not read it already)
So - you can either consider these many factors creating conditions to be mere chance, without all of which we would simply not be here to marvel at the fact - or we can begin to ask why the Universe has been set up in such a way. A miracle here, a one-in-a-billion chance there, a statistical improbability over there. [Some scientists posit that myriad Universes have failed to form because their fundamental constants were wrong.] But our Universe is here, because we are here to observe it. And the statistical improbability of the universe existing multiplied by the statistical improbability of you existing (see this post if you've not read it already)
Yet both are in place, the Universe, and you. Allowing life to exist here on our planet, at this particular time, and be observed by you.
This really should be freaking you out by now, even if you're an avowed atheist.
I'll be writing much more about the nature of God, my proposed definition of God (about as accurate as a cat's definition of electricity) over the course of this series. And what I believe God not to be. But for the time being here are some ideas:
God = a force/entity that enables the extremely improbable to happen - for you to observe and experience.
There was nothing, there was chaos. Now there is something; we know that, because you are consciously observing and experiencing something. So:
God = the journey from nothing to something, from chaos to order.
This time last year:
Bus shake-up for Jeziorki and Dawidy
Bus shake-up for Jeziorki and Dawidy
This time five years ago:
The Occult and mysticism
This time six years ago:
How do we see God?
This time seven years ago:
Who needs a Leica with a Noctilux lens when you can do this?
This time eight years ago:
Fides quaerens intellectum
This time nine years ago:
To the Devil with it all! - short story, Part II
This time 11 years ago:
Building the bypass as the snows melt
The time 13 years ago:
Two weeks into Lent
The Occult and mysticism
This time six years ago:
How do we see God?
This time seven years ago:
Who needs a Leica with a Noctilux lens when you can do this?
This time eight years ago:
Fides quaerens intellectum
This time nine years ago:
To the Devil with it all! - short story, Part II
This time 11 years ago:
Building the bypass as the snows melt
The time 13 years ago:
Two weeks into Lent
Posts
3 comments:
Bishop George Berkley, of the immaterialism stripe, claimed the tree in the university quad exists even if you are not there to see it.
The question: are we a miracle or an accident? is interesting not least because it is a proxy question for that other big question but the terms are loaded, as we are all heirs to the Judeo-Christian tradition and are not allowed to forget it for a moment. Thus, all the associations of the word miracle are positive in our language, while all the associations of the word accident are negative. Which would you rather be: positive or negative? The ‘miracle team’ have a chokehold on the ‘accident team’. Hundreds of expressions like: ‘Good Lord’, ‘The hell with it,’ ‘make one’s life hell’, ‘it would be a sin not to …’, ‘soulful’, ‘soulless’, ‘soul-destroying’, ‘devil in the detail’, ‘devil’s advocate’, ‘angelic voice’, ‘grace’, ‘apocalyptic’ etc, etc, etc. The only way I can see the playing field being leveled in the debate is the ‘Yes’ answer from Nasa’s Perseverance rover, or rather one of its future iterations, as we might not learn much more than we know already from the present mission.
In the Boeing 747 debate, the two sides claim the same evidence (big numbers) supports their argument. All the trillions, zillions, gazillions of things that might have possibly happened but hadn’t means we are unique (the miracle team), or that only with numbers of this order of magnitude can you have a confluence or conjunction of forces that will result in us being us (the accident team, or Dawkins team).
@ Jacek Koba:
You write "...as we are all heirs to the Judeo-Christian tradition and are not allowed to forget it for a moment."
I have delved into Buddhist and Hindu thought over the years, and they resonate with me personally far more than Christianity, which as you say is an overt form of social control (all organised religions are). Buddhism and Hinduism accept the notion of reincarnation, which is far closer to my own, personal, subjective experience than the Christian 'heaven' was ever sold to me in my childhood.
The notion of two teams is, I believe, an accurate description of a situation that's wrong. Science and spirituality should not be two opposing camps! I read Dawkins' The God Delusion and found it shallow, based on straw man arguments that I used to hear in the sixth form common room.
I believe that in millennia to come, the two 'sides' will become one understanding.
A propos of miracles, a joke from 1990. "How is Poland's economy going to come right?" "There are only two possibilities - the normal way, and the miraculous way. In one, the Blessed Virgin Mary will descend from the heavens, raise up her arms, and the economy will work. In the miraculous way, Poles will do it for themselves." Three decades on, I'll leave you to ponder which way prevailed.
So, God is a verb?
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