Say No To Boredom

By Genrich Krasko

Science and Religion

Genrich L. Krasko^*

 

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Albert Einstein[1].

 

I discuss somewhere else the difficult problem of religious education.  There is no religious education in American public schools, and yet America is today the battlefield of an endless struggle between religion and science.  Of course, I mean the renewed discussion of whether creationism as a literal interpretation of the Bible should be taught in public schools.

Unfortunately, in America, the discussion of world creation takes on an irrational and even ugly form.  A scientific truth is becoming a matter of approval (or disapproval) of taxpayers.  Katha Pollitt, a noted essayist and poet wrote:[2]  

In France, where the curriculum is national and firmly in the hands of educational authorities, it does not matter how many ordinary citizens think the earth is only 10,000 years old.  In Kansas it matters.  

No doubt, the irrational and absurd discussion of creationism as a substitute for and an alternative to the scientific theory is a reflection of our educational and cultural crisis.  And yet, in spite of the struggle between the extremes—the religious fundamentalists and the uncompromising atheists—the relationship between religion and science is now entering a new, more constructive and meaningful phase.

The substitution of creationism for modern science in public school curriculum, whether some tax payers like it or not, is wrong.  It is wrong not because the story of creation as we know it from the Bible should not be taught as a substitution for the scientific facts, but because in the 21^st century, one should expect a more profound understanding by our children of both religion and the physical world around them.

Some 14 billion years ago, all of a sudden, the Universe was born by an explosion that does not have any parallels, and is ungraspable by our imagination.  This event is now called the Big Bang. 

Sometimes it is described as an explosion of a super-gigantic star, which presumes that this happened in some part of the universe.  But this cannot be true, because before this explosion, the Universe itself did not exist.  Which means that not only were there no stars, galaxies or planets, but that even the three-dimensional space we now live in did not exist.  And the concept of time also did not make sense either.  This is so difficult to imagine, that many people do not even make the attempt.  What does it mean that three-dimensional space and time did not exist?  So what did exist then?  NOTHING!  An ABSOLUTE NOTHING!

Thus there was a creation.  Therefore, the theory of creation – call it creationism – must be taught in our schools and colleges but, in the 21^st century, that course would have to consist of three parts: Cosmology, Molecular Genetics, and, of course, Evolution, with the necessary prerequisites of a few years of advanced physics, biochemistry and general and molecular biology.

Let me explain what I mean.  This is important not only from the point of view of the unification of the school curriculum or improving the quality of science education but for the understanding of our goals as human beings in the 21^st century.

The revolution in modern science, not only in physics (and especially in cosmology), but also in molecular biology and medicine, has had a dramatic impact on the world outlook of a category of people who were traditionally ardent and uncompromising materialists:  the scientists.  Not only is it the Big Bang theory of world creation that has influenced their thinking.  The origin of this intellectual revolution lies much deeper.

The reductionist approach, when understanding of a complex phenomenon can be attained through detailed understanding of the simple components of that complex object, as applied to science in general—to physics, biology, medicine, psychology—is under fire today.  It is under fire not by some mediocrities, but by leading world-famous experts in those scientific fields.  A less dogmatic, perhaps less materialistic, a so-called holistic approach to the world, which is against reducing the complex phenomena to the simpler and easy understandable ones, and which, instead, focuses on the properties of the complex object that do not follow from the analysis of its components, is in the minds of the pioneers of contemporary science.[3]

For the first time in the history of science, God is mentioned by scientists not in a negative, confrontational or ironical context, but as a constructive possibility, a synonym of something challenging but as yet unreachable.

In 1999, the Templeton Prize for Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities, the largest world monetary award, was awarded to Dr. Ian Barbour, a theologian with a background in nuclear physics.  In 2000, for the first time this prize was awarded to a man with no religious background—the Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Studies’ professor emeritus Freeman Dyson, one of the most distinguished theoretical physicists of our time; in 2004, 2005 and 2006 the prize was awarded respectively to George F. R. Ellis, cosmologist and philosopher, Charles Townes, physicist and Nobel laureate, and  John D. Barrow, cosmologist and theoretical physicist.  A book with the title God & the New Physics[4] would have been impossible, say, thirty years ago.  The Anthropic Principle that was always in the realm of philosophers is now an object of a constructive discussion by physicists.  One of its formulations reads:  “The universe must have properties, which allow life to develop within it at some stage in its history.[5]”  It means that a Homo sapiens might have been the ultimate objective of creation.

I address the interested reader to the excellent and fascinating book by John D. Barrow and Frank J. Tippler.[6]  The authors, world-renowned experts in cosmology and astrophysics, discuss the various aspects of the Anthropic Principle.  The Anthropic Principle reveals this new aspect of creation; the one that can be confirmed and verified by the contemporary science and, at the same time does not contradict the ideas of the Hebrew Testament.  Half of the book, filled with formulas from advanced cosmology, is for specialists.  The other half (in fact, the first half) is a thoughtful analysis of religious, philosophical and general scientific aspects of that quality of our world:  It is well possible that it had been created in order that you and I could appear one day and could observe and witness that miracle with awe.

To physicists, the universe is no longer something meaningless and completely estranged.  Roger Penrose, a famed mathematician and theoretical physicist, wrote:[7]  

Some people take the view that the universe is simply there and it runs along— it’s a bit as though it just sort of computes, and we happen by accident to find ourselves in this thing.  I don’t think that’s a very fruitful or helpful way of looking at the universe.  I think that there is something much deeper about its existence, which we have very little inkling of at the moment. 

The same applies also to understanding the process of evolution of life on earth, the natural selection.  Yes,  

…nearly every important bone in the human body can be traced back to the skeletons of the first fishes that left the water 350 million years ago.  The modification in the bodies of the backboned animals runs in a clear line from the fishes to the amphibians, the reptiles, the mammals, and, finally to man. 

But, as Robert Jastrow, an acclaimed scientist and founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute, from whose book The Enchanted Loom: Mind in the Universe this quote was taken, adds on the same page: 

Whether this long process, culminating in man, is the expression of a plan or purpose in the universe seems to me to be a question beyond the reach of human understanding, or at least beyond the reach of science.  

And yet, we are passionately willing to understand, to find out why we exist, and how we came to be, together with the universe and (possibly) as its indispensable part.  Stephen Hawking, who perhaps shares first and second places among the world’s greatest physicists with his colleague and friend Roger Penrose, writes, in his famous book A Brief History of Time:  

There may be only one unified theory that allows for the existence of structures as complicated as human beings who can investigate the laws of the universe and ask about the nature of God.   

And a few pages over:  

If we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists.  Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists, and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the discussion of the question of why it is that we and the universe exist.  If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God. 

This is Hawking’s dream.  Understanding the great achievements of science must not be the intellectual privilege of just a few.  Understanding the world we live in and our role and mission in it, is a must for Homo sapiens in the 21^st century.

The foundation for this understanding, as a part of a broad general education, can be laid as early as in high school.  A good teacher, even now, can easily enable students to grasp the main ideas of the Big Bang—a sudden emergence of our physical world with its space, time, and matter some 14 billion years ago—and the anthropic aspects of the events of the “first two days” of creation.  But that would require a strong scientific knowledge (and even, perhaps, a definite level of intellectual development) that our school does not give these days.  Against the background of understanding the events of creation as seen by physics and biology, religious studies in public school (and this is just a pipe dream now) can also be made interesting and exciting.

However, with all these fascinating discoveries of science one should not forget that religion is not so much about how the world has been created, but rather about how we became human.  That is why religion is so important, especially in the time of our crisis of meaning.

This resonates with the thoughts of Albert Einstein – one of the greatest physicists of all time.

Was Einstein religious?  Both religious people and atheists claim Einstein.  But he was neither.  He was not religious in the traditional sense: he did not believe in a god that interferes in people’s lives, punishes or rewards, or performs miracles (neither Steven Hawkins nor Roger Penrose believe either, nor thousands of scientists who dare to use the word God).  However, unlike atheists, he believed in “the cosmic order,” and “the Reason that manifests itself in nature” (Einstein’s words).  Unlike ardent atheists who insist (even today) that there is an abyss between religion and science, Einstein believed that there was none.  Many a time did he – in his speeches and writings – claim:  Science and religion are not, cannot be, in conflict with each other.  Rather, they need each other.

That is what Einstein said in his address before the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1939[8]

Objective knowledge provides us with powerful instruments for the achievements of certain ends, but the ultimate goal itself and the longing to reach it must come from another source… Here we face, therefore the limits of the purely rational conception of our existence…

And, in the same speech, Einstein summarizes his view in the sentence I have chosen as an epigraph for this essay:

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

 

APPENDIX 1

 

The Big Bang, the Anthropic Principle and the Emergence of Life in the Universe.

 

The Big Bang is the commonly accepted model of the Universe’s birth.  As I mentioned above, some 14 billion years ago, all of a sudden, the three-dimensional space, time, and the universe itself were born from nothing.

What does it mean, “from nothing?”  You may attempt to understand what happened if you imagine that you create a two-dimensional “universe.”

First you create an infinitesimal balloon – just one dot. Before that, the two-dimensional balloon did not exist: there was no two-dimensional space (balloon surface), no universe. Now begin pumping air into it. The balloon begins inflating: its volume increasing. The two-dimensional universe has been created! In time, two-dimensional stars – shining lesions on the rubber surface – and two-dimensional planets – even smaller lesions – rotating around stars on the balloon surface will appear. The creatures that live on two-dimensional planets are unable to see or feel anything but the balloon’s surface. They are able to move only forward, backward, left and right, but never up and down. Their universe has finite dimensions; however, moving along the balloon surface they will never run into any obstacles or borders. Obviously, such a two-dimensional analogy makes sense only if we have a three-dimensional space in which that two-dimensional balloon appears.

However, the universe created as a consequence of the Big Bang is three-dimensional! This means that there exists a fourth spatial dimension into which our three-dimensional universe is folded. And that is what is most difficult to imagine because in no way can it be directly detected!

Here what is remarkable about the rubber analogy.  Sitting in any point on the inflating balloon, you will see that all the other points around you move outside. Likewise, it has been proved that, no matter from what point in the universe we observe it, we see that all the celestial bodies: stars and galaxies are moving away.  This is because the space is expanding; and the speed of expansion is proportional to the distance from the observer.

The fact that there is, probably, at least one more special dimension is most difficult to imagine because in no way can it be directly detected!  But science-fiction writers discuss a possibility of shortcuts through higher dimensions; likewise, in our primitive two-dimensional model of a balloon universe, one could reach a remote part of the inflated sphere by shortcutting through its “inside.”

Returning to that dramatic event some 14 billion years ago.  In the moment of the Big Bang, the newly developed three-dimensional space of infinitesimal volume was created and began growing and expanding under the tremendous push of heat and radiation (coming from higher dimensions? – like we inflated our rubber balloon).  The temperature in that area cannot even be imagined: billions upon billions of degrees!  Within this intense heat and radiation, the simplest nuclei were born: first hydrogen, and then helium.

After some time – in fact, a few hundreds of millions of years! – when the universe had grown to a significant size, this hydrogen and helium became the first building blocks for future celestial bodies.  The gravitational force among the particles became the cosmic builder.  Hydrogen and helium nuclei were pushed toward each other, fusing together and gradually forming huge agglomerates that, under the influence of gravitation, became increasingly tighter.  Enormous temperatures and pressures within those agglomerates started nuclear reactions, producing enormous energy emanating as light and radiation.  First-generation stars were born.  But before that, the universe was a very dark place: not a spark of light: absolute darkness!

The reactions of fusing together hydrogen and helium nuclei produced light elements, lithium and beryllium.  Then two crucial nuclear reactions were initiated:  Beryllium fused with helium and gave birth to carbon.  And then carbon again fused with helium and produced oxygen.  By giving birth to carbon and oxygen, the cosmic furnace created the necessary prerequisites for organic life in the future.

When all the “fuel” within a first-generation star has been “burned,” the star dies.  Most often, the dying star explodes, throwing out into space enormous energy and all the nuclear products it has produced.  Such exploding stars are now called Super-Novae. 

Now gravitation again takes over, and the nuclear remnants of the Super-Novae begin compacting again.  Depending on the size of the agglomerate, it can be either a new star or a planet.  That is how the Sun’s planetary system was born.

Religion insists that the physical world has a meaning, that it was created as a place where humans could live.  In the stories of Creation the creation of humans is a finale.  The idea that the sole purpose of Creation was to provide the place for humans has been discussed by religious philosophers for centuries.  This branch of religious philosophy is called teleology.

But now this idea is under scrutiny of contemporary physics and cosmology.  It is called the Anthropic Cosmological Principle.  It speculates that the universe is not something that is completely arbitrary.  Rather, it has a meaning in itself: It provides conditions for the existence of intelligent life, or, as the scientists say, “observers.”  In a more radical formulation, the principle claims that the evolving of intellectual life in the Universe has been the sole purpose of its creation.

The idea that something is wrong with the Universe, that possibly its creation was not meaningless and arbitrary, was born when scientists discovered strange coincidences. 

The so-called Cosmic Coincidence is that life on earth could not have appeared much earlier than 14 billion years after the Big Bang: In order to have the building blocks for the creation of organic life, carbon and oxygen were necessary.  It also could not have appeared much later, when the Sun would begin to age.  This means that our planetary system must belong to the second cosmic generation.  And the Universe’s assumed age – 14 billion years – is compatible with this time requirement.

Coincidences that are more impressive were discovered when the nuclear reactions in first-generation stars were scrupulously studied.  The two most important reactions for emerging the organic life I mentioned – between beryllium and helium that would produce carbon, and between carbon and another helium that would produce oxygen – were possible only if the nuclear reactions were “tuned” very precisely.  Tiniest imbalances in time and energy of these reactions would have made them impossible.  Thus, the remarkably tuned chain of coincidences was the necessary condition of any carbon-based life in the universe, and hence human life!

However, scientists believe that the so-called fundamental physical constants – the parameters governing nuclear reaction – may not be the same throughout the universe.  Thus, there may be parts of the universe where carbon-oxygen life is impossible because there is neither carbon nor oxygen in that part of the universe: they have not been produced within the first generation star’s furnaces.

But even if the necessary chemical elements are present in a planetary system, the requirements of the star’s brightness, and the planet’s orbit and stability are so stringent that another delicate “tune-up” is necessary for organic life to exist.  And do not forget that when a planetary system is born from the nuclear debris of first-generation stars, the size (and hence the brightness) of the central star, and the masses and orbits of planets and their possible satellites, may be completely arbitrary.  But for a planet to be habitable with even the lowest forms of organic life, the conditions for a stable atmosphere and appropriate temperatures must be quite stringent. 

What many people do not know is that biological evolution on such a planet would have crucially depended on existence of tidal waves; this, in turn, means that the planet must have only one natural satellite of quite a definite size and orbit.  The earth has Moon, and also a more remote giant planet (Jupiter) that stabilizes the earth’s orbit.

However, even if all the physical conditions on a planet were properly set up to support the existence of organic life, there is a serious problem.  All life evolves via natural selection.  But there is a time limit.  If, for example, the selection takes a wrong turn and is too slow – which is quite possible – an intelligent life may not appear before the star begins to age.  When a Sun-like star exhausts all its hydrogen fuel, the gravitational pull will weaken, and the outer star’s atmosphere will expand and engulf an Earth-like planet.  This will destroy everything organic on the planet. 

Evolutional biologists have proved that even if the evolution is not too slow, the emergence of an intelligent species may not be advantageous in some conditions.  Suppose that evolution on the Earth brought about an intelligent mammal in the era of dinosaurs.  The mammal’s intellect, most probably, would not help it to compete with Tyrannosaurus Rex!  And, by the way, a most probable explanation of the dinosaurs’ extinction is not natural selection but rather a cosmic catastrophe: a huge meteorite, or the burst of a Super-Nova in the vicinity of the Solar system.  If not for that catastrophe, there might have been no intelligent life on the Earth!

Thus, the emergence of intelligent life in the universe, and even just prerequisites for it, is extremely unlikely. 

However, according to various estimates, a high-technology civilization could have colonized a galaxy within just a few million years.  And our galaxy is at least 1000 times older!  Then a question may be asked –it is known a the Fermi[9] Paradox:

If there are billions of planets in our galaxy that are capable of supporting life, and possibly millions of intelligent species out there, then how come none has visited earth?  Where Are They?

There have been quite a few attempts to resolve it. But thus far we are alone…

 

 

APPENDIX 2

 

Inflation, Quantum Cosmology and the Anthropic Principle[10]

 

Andrei Linde

Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA

 

1 Introduction

 

One of the main desires of physicists is to construct a theory that unambiguously predicts the observed values for all parameters of all elementary particles.  It is very tempting to believe that the correct theory describing our world should be both beautiful and unique.

However, most of the parameters of elementary particles look more like a collection of random numbers than a unique manifestation of some hidden harmony of Nature.  For example, the mass of the electron is 3 orders of magnitude smaller than the mass of the proton, which is 2 orders of magnitude smaller than the mass of the W-boson, which is 17 orders of magnitude smaller than the Planck mass M_p.  Meanwhile, it was pointed out long ago that a minor change (by a factor of two or three) in the mass of the electron, the fine-structure constant a_e, the strong-interaction constant a_s, or the gravitational constant G = M_p^-2 would lead to a universe in which life as we know it could never have arisen.  Adding or subtracting even a single spatial dimension of the same type as the usual three dimensions would make planetary systems impossible.  Indeed, in space-time with dimensionality d > 4, gravitational forces between distant bodies fall off faster than r^-2, and in space-time with d < 4, the general theory of relativity tells us that such forces are absent altogether.  This rules out the existence of stable planetary systems for d ≠ 4.  Furthermore, in order for life as we know it to exist, it is necessary that the universe be sufficiently large, flat, homogeneous, and isotropic.  These facts, as well as a number of other observations, lie at the foundation of the so-called anthropic principle (Barrow and Tipler, 1986; Rozental, 1988; Rees, 2000)  According to this principle, we observe the universe to be as it is because only in such a universe could observers like ourselves exist.

Until very recently, many scientists were ashamed of using the anthropic principle in their research.  A typical attitude was expressed in the book The Early Universe by Kolb and Turner: "It is unclear to one of the authors how a concept as lame as the ‘anthropic idea’ was ever elevated to the status of a principle" (Kolb, 1990).

This critical attitude is quite healthy.  It is much better to find a simple physical resolution of the problem rather that speculate that we can live only in the universes where the problem does not exist.  There is always a risk that the anthropic principle does not cure the problem, but acts like a painkiller.

On the other hand, this principle can help us to understand that some of the most complicated and fundamental problems may become nearly trivial if one looks at them from a different perspective.  Instead of denying the anthropic principle or uncritically embracing it, one should take a more patient approach and check whether it is really helpful or not in each particular case.

There are two main versions of this principle: the weak anthropic principle and the strong one.  The weak anthropic principle simply says that if the universe consists of different parts with different properties, we will live only in those parts where our life is possible.  This could seem rather trivial, but one may wonder whether these different parts of the universe are really available.  If it is not so, any discussion of altering the mass of the electron, the fine structure constant, and so forth is perfectly meaningless.

The strong anthropic principle says that the universe must be created in such a way as to make our existence possible.  At first glance, this principle must be faulty, because mankind, having appeared 10¹⁰ years after the basic features of our universe were laid down, could in no way influence either the structure of the universe or the properties of the elementary particles within it.

Scientists often associated the anthropic principle with the idea that the universe was created many times until the final success.  It was not clear who did it and why was it necessary to make the universe suitable for our existence.  Moreover, it would be much simpler to create proper conditions for our existence in small vicinity of a solar system rather than in the whole universe.  Why would one need to work so hard?

Fortunately, most of the problems associated with the anthropic principle were resolved (Linde, 1983a,1984b,1986a) soon after the invention of inflationary cosmology[11].

 

••••••••••••

 

10 Does consciousness matter?

  

A good starting point for our brief discussion of consciousness is quantum cosmology, the theory that tries to unify cosmology and quantum mechanics.

If quantum mechanics is universally correct, then one may try to apply it to the universe in order to find its wave function[12].  This would allow us find out which events are probable and which are not.  However, it often leads to paradoxes.  For example, the essence of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation (DeWitt, 1967), which is the Schrödinger equation for the wave function of the universe, is that this wave function does not depend on time, since the total Hamiltonian of the universe, including the Hamiltonian of the gravitational field, vanishes identically.  This result was obtained in 1967 by Bryce DeWitt.  Therefore if one would wish to describe the evolution of the universe with the help of its wave function, one would be in trouble:  The universe as a whole does not change in time.

The resolution of this paradox suggested by Bryce DeWitt is rather instructive (DeWitt, 1967).  The notion of evolution is not applicable to the universe as a whole since there is no external observer with respect to the universe, and there is no external clock that does not belong to the universe.  However, we do not actually ask why the universe as a whole is evolving.  We are just trying to understand our own experimental data.  Thus, a more precisely formulated question is why do we see the universe evolving in time in a given way.  In order to answer this question one should first divide the universe into two main pieces: i) an observer with his clock and other measuring devices and ii) the rest of the universe.  Then it can be shown that the wave function of the rest of the universe does depend on the state of the clock of the observer, i.e. on his 'time'.  This time dependence in some sense is 'objective': the results obtained by different (macroscopic) observers living in the same quantum state of the universe and using sufficiently good (macroscopic) measuring apparatus agree with each other.

Thus we see that without introducing an observer, we have a dead universe, which does not evolve in time.  This example demonstrates an unusually important role played by the concept of an observer in quantum cosmology.  John Wheeler underscored the complexity of the situation, replacing the word observer by the word participant, and introducing such terms as a 'self-observing universe'.

Most of the time, when discussing quantum cosmology, one can remain entirely within the bounds set by purely physical categories, regarding an observer simply as an automaton, and not dealing with questions of whether he/she/it has consciousness or feels anything during the process of observation.  This limitation is harmless for many practical purposes.  But we cannot rule out the possibility that carefully avoiding the concept of consciousness in quantum cosmology may lead to an artificial narrowing of our outlook.

…

 

Now let us turn to consciousness.  The standard assumption is that consciousness, just like space-time before the invention of general relativity, plays a secondary, subservient role, being just a function of matter and a tool for the description of the truly existing material world.  But let us remember that our knowledge of the world begins not with matter but with perceptions.  I know for sure that my pain exists, my 'green' exists, and my 'sweet' exists.  I do not need any proof of their existence, because these events are a part of me; everything else is a theory.  Later we find out that our perceptions obey some laws, which can be most conveniently formulated if we assume that there is some underlying reality beyond our perceptions.  This model of material world obeying laws of physics is so successful that soon we forget about our starting point and say that matter is the only reality, and perceptions are nothing but a useful tool for the description of matter.  This assumption is almost as natural (and maybe as false) as our previous assumption that space is only a mathematical tool for the description of matter.  We are substituting reality of our feelings by the successfully working theory of an independently existing material world.  And the theory is so successful that we almost never think about its possible limitations.

Guided by the analogy with the gradual change of the concept of space-time, we would like to take a certain risk and formulate several questions to which we do not yet have the answers (Linde, 1990a; Page, 2002):

Is it possible that consciousness, like space-time, has its own intrinsic degrees of freedom, and that neglecting these will lead to a description of the universe that is fundamentally incomplete?  What if our perceptions are as real (or maybe, in a certain sense, are even more real) than material objects?  What if my red, my blue, my pain, are really existing objects, not merely reflections of the really existing material world?  Is it possible to introduce a 'space of elements of consciousness,' and investigate a possibility that consciousness may exist by itself, even in the absence of matter, just like gravitational waves, excitations of space, may exist in the absence of protons and electrons?

Note, that the gravitational waves usually are so small and interact with matter so weakly that we did not find any of them as yet.  However, their existence is absolutely crucial for the consistency of our theory, as well as for our understanding of certain astronomical data.  Could it be that consciousness is an equally important part of the consistent picture of our world, despite the fact that so far one could safely ignore it in the description of the well studied physical processes?  Will it not turn out, with the further development of science, that the study of the universe and the study of consciousness are inseparably linked, and that ultimate progress in the one will be impossible without progress in the other?

 

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