This is very striking. It is a curious thing that we find ourself saying similar things about the material world at both its largest and its smallest scales. The thing we find ourself saying here is: “There is no such thing as Nothing.” At the very smallest sub-microscopic scales. what used to be thought of as empty space (all right, spacetime) turns out to be a “quantum foam,” with particles fizzing in and out of existence. At the very largest scales, as this video clip illustrates, what looks like an empty patch of sky is chock-full of remote galaxies when stared at hard enough.
I have heard Heather say that she has never been afflicted with any musings about the significance of human consciousness, or the place of humanity in the universe. (I hope I am not misquoting her.) I can’t say the same. Images like this fill me with wonder, with something quite close to terror, and with something considerably closer to despair.
They also of course make the notion of a loving god with a particular interest in humanity, seem pretty darn ridiculous.
A rich man who loves his wife more than anything else in the world will keep his most treasured picture of her on one corner of his dresser in one room of his great house, or in one picture slot in his wallet. I don’t see how the wondrous images you’ve shared make unreasonable the notion that a Creator intended and treasures the existence of self-conscious beings on one tiny world in a vast universe.
Ain’t nothin’ new about this idea… Aristotle disproved the void (cf. his Physics, Book IV, chapters 6-9) in the 4th century BC.
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You evidently also do not see how frightfully vain such an attitude is.
Well, I look at the beauty and terribleness at our incredible universe and it makes me feel incredibly grateful and awed at the natural world and our tiny place in it. And the fact that we occupy a tiny space, and are just flawed and limited creatures, doesn’t tend to undermine by own belief in a deity and his concern for us. If anything, our littleness in the grand scheme of things simply reinforces my own sense of gratitude and awe.
“Consider the lillies of the field” as someone once encouraged us to do. Simply because something is plain and little and appears of minor consequence does not mean that it is necessarily outside of divine providence, if such a providence does in fact exist. I don’t think that our littleness is a proof of God’s existence, mind you, but I don’t think it is a disproof of his existence either.
@HFS
Please explain the “frightful vanity” you see, instead of just labeling the post as such. Heck, I might even agree with you–I just want you to follow up a little more.
There is no nothing, it’s always been here, there is no God. Got it.
For pretty much all of human history, people have constantly confused size with some metphysical idea of moral importance. The universe might be ten times bigger than it is – or a million. In neither case would be be any more important – or any less.
“They also of course make the notion of a loving god with a particular interest in humanity, seem pretty darn ridiculous.”
It has the opposite affect on me since something has to come from somewhere, does it not? Oh I know, “but the math says …”. Well where did 2+2=4 come from? Who made it so? There is nothing left but faith in the Creator as being the only “logical” conclusion no?
As frightfully vain as say, a single, self-conscious being on one tiny world in a vast universe believing it can know without a doubt the source and purpose of that same vast universe?
“What is man that Thou art minful of him or the son of man that Thou visits him.”
“Images like this fill me with wonder, with something quite close to terror, and with something considerably closer to despair.”
You are filled with despair because of the emptiness inside of you. If you were filled up on the inside, then you would see beauty.
Someone else a long time ago was musing about man’s place in the universe:
Psalms 8:3-4 When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained;
What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him?
All of your answers you seek will be known to you when you die….professing to be wise, become you a fool….Good Luck!
I would think its pretty clear that belief in the existence of a vast universe, does not establish or preclude the existence of God. Making ad hominem comments has nothing to do with what the reality is either. The issue is dfficult enough without getting into unnecessary personal comments.
I share the same feeling of awe at the mystery of the universe that Derb describes. The universe is one of the few things that gets more and more mysterious the more we study it. Unlike, say, when Penn and Teller explain how a particularly baffling magic trick is done or some TV show explains how M & Ms are made, the wonder never goes away. Each new discovery of physics only deepens the mystery and this explains the terror Derb alludes to: this is one thing we can’t explain away. It is a REAL mystery. Every logical impulse seems to insist that by all rights the universe shouldn’t even exist. But it does.
I don’t blame the religious for finding the scientific explanations of the origin of the universe unbelievable. I find them unbelievable myself – just a heck of a lot less unbelievable than the various religious explanations.
I believe that billions of years ago a singularity exploded creating the universe and the after billions of years stars and planets formed. Billions of years later amino acids formed and billions of years later plants and simple animals developed. The animals got more sophisticated until finally homo sapiens appeared and we got farming, the wheel and other tools. A few thousand years later, the humans flew a spaceship to the moon and exploded an atom bomb. I believe all of this – from primordial plasma of interstellar particles to modern civilization – happened by natural forces of self-organization and evolution without any “supernatural” explanation. Who needs the supernatural when the natural is so weird?
I’m an atheist, so I won’t plead the idea that we’re God’s special little moonbeams. But the hugeness, tinyness, marvelousness, complexity, variety and general mind-raping spectacularness of the whole universe doesn’t in any way diminish the individual amazing wonderfulness of any single minute component of same. Us included.
Until we discover otherwise, our species is the only object in the whole shebang that is in any way capable of appreciating the whole shebang. So maybe we are special little moonbeams after all.
Doesn’t the rejection of nothingness also suggest that something created the universe? If so, then the argument merely becomes one of degree of omniscience, no?
The insignificance of the Milky Way, Solar System, Earth, our personal nation, state, county, city, street, house, room, immediate space confirms rather than denies the existence of God. Any God that could create such a universe, with the tiniest portion beginning to grasp the infinite dimensions, is a Superior Being indeed.
An inferior god would never come up with this dramatic dynamic, the smallest against the grandest. It is the story of David and Goliath, the story of a fetus-God in the womb of a virgin, and the story of my life.
“They also of course make the notion of a loving god with a particular interest in humanity, seem pretty darn ridiculous.”\
??
I’ve never understood how being wowed by the scale of things should bear on what one thinks an infinite God thinks. To do so is to privilege the human scale, as if it’s of significance philosophically in considering God. And I can’t imagine why it would be if the presumption is that we’re relatively unimportant. In short, it’s using our presumed unimportance as an excuse to consider our scale of things to be terribly important. And that’s just weird. 😉
I am a physicist by education and an engineer by trade and a philosopher when the drinking lantern is a lit. I left religion when I went to college, not because I did not like waking up on Sundays with a hangover, only to somehow impress my parents. No, I left because all of these venues sell you some sort of eternalness and/or damnation, unless of course you pay your sin tax.
I do believe in a higher ordered being, though. A hyperintelligence if you will. There must be. The design of the universe…it is just too damn difficult to establish a “why”. Physics taught me to solve the “how”. Generate a solution and apply it across the range of negative-infinity to positive-infinity and determine where this solution blows up and where it is legitimate. Pretty much sums up why I look at the perspective that there must be something much, much greater than us. I am mortal. I have read a lot of philosophy on the soul and believe in that as well. It is not a scientific thing, mind you.
It is a belief. One should have a belief. Tooth fairy, Santa Claus…beliefs. Global warming? Not a belief. If you are smart and understand solar cycles, chemical kinetics, eco-cycles, you will find it is not a belief, but a struggle between good science and poorly done science, but this is not the venue for this topic.
Why do I believe in a higher ordered being, God or ET or a conglomeration of all souls ever to have lived in this universe…like a borg-like existence, but in an aetheral state? Why? Because of the nova process of a star. That is why. Not a black hole. Not because of DNA. Not because of some bible, scroll, or carving. It is because of the process behind the death of a star.
Life, such as ours is probably more commen than we think, we have only just began to find other planets outside. Our intelligence is feeble, nothing. We still know nothing compared to the amount of knowledge there is to know.
It is magnificent to view the universe from the subatomic state to the furthest reaches of the most distant. What is more spectacular, for all, is that we are literally looking at a past. What it once was. imagine another lifeform of some sort viewing our planet around our sun. Imagine what, if applicable, the constellation our star is a part of that may guide them at night, stir their myths, or allow them to adjust their cycles of life.
When I was in college, the standard model was san three quarks, black holes were still a theory, and the idea that planets circling a star would create a signal allowing scientists to determine the planets size and distance, among many other theories. That was in 1990. Imagine 20 more years from now.
This post is incoherent. There is not space without matter, therefore, there is no loving God. Huh? I can’t even figure out a way to parody this. It’s such a non sequitur it’s nearly dizzying.
Bradlaugh: “The significance of human consciousness, or the place of humanity in the universe” are obviously profound,compelling topics. What I have said, not that it matters, is that I don’t see any point in *my* dwelling on them, since I can’t imagine coming up with an answer that is grounded in any actual, verifiable knowledge. Perhaps one day, astronomy and neurology will provide us with a few more clues, perhaps not. But many of the answers offered to date to such ultimate questions strike me as fanciful products of finite mind seeking to cloak itself in a reassuring security blanket.
my own longtime person answer to why the majesty of the universe doesn’t shift me toward a religious perspective, human religion seems a mighty small & uninspiring answer to a big question.
From a purely secular POV it seems to me consciousness manifests the universe being aware of itself. Thus self awareness is a property of this universe. Given the size and length of time the universe has existed there should be levels of self awareness that compared to our limited faculties are god-like. Nevertheless, we are part of that.
For someone who appears to have mastered the deepest secrets of the universe, this posting is mighty short on evidence. For an example of the Science worlds blunders due to their own pre-conceived notions of the nature of things, google “cosmological considerations on the General Theory of Relativity”. Be sure to check out who wrote it.
As for evolution, why do all scientific fields observe the the laws of thermodynamics and entropy EXCEPT evolution?
“They also of course make the notion of a loving god with a particular interest in humanity, seem pretty darn ridiculous.”
At first blush that’s a very intuitive thought – but don’t we learn early on how counter-intuitive the infinite is?
How many integers are there? An infinite number. How many rationals? Again, an infinite number. Pick any two rationals, no matter how close, and how many rationals are between them? Again, that same infinite number.
How much attention and love might an infinite God choose to lavish on the conscious beings inhabiting his universe? An infinite amount. How much on the inhabitants of an insignificant planet in an obscure corner of that universe? An infinite amount. And on each individual on that tiny planet? Again, an infinite amount.
Isn’t the nature of infinity “we’ll make more”?
The theory of evolution does not deny entropy. This is a tiresome canard.
Evolution contributes to entropy – it heats up the universe – as do you, every time you clean up spilled milk, tidy up your living room, or wash the dishes.
To me, it is exceedingly simple, yet stunningly complex.
We are the microcosm of the macrocosm, of a microcosm, ad infinitum.
Space and time cannot really be comprehended, at least by our tiny little minds. No more than the possibility of a creator. One has to take those concepts on faith, and faith is just as real as anything else in this universe.
Braun
#1: Nice analogy. Religion is real good at analogies: "God the Father," etc. I guess I’m just not much impressed by analogical thinking.
#2: I looked up those chapters on the internet, couldn’t make head nor tail of them. Which is odd: I have no trouble with Quantum Field Theory, the modern account of the micro-vacuum (see e.g. Chapter 26 of Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality). Nor do I have any trouble with remote regions of space being full of galaxies, if you are patient enough to collect the photons. So one of the following: (1) Aristotle doesn’t explain himself very well, (2) Aristotle has his head up his bum, (3) Aristotle’s thinking is more profound than that of modern physicists and too profound for me to understand. But come now: surely Aquinas had something to contribute here?
#7: "The universe might be ten times bigger than it is — or a million. In neither case would be be any more important — or any less." Do you think so? That seems false to me. Surely our estimate of our own importance is connected rather directly to our notions about the size of the universe. When we thought that the world was a plate swarming with people, overarched by a decorated crystal dome, were not our ideas about human life and God quite different?
#8: If you insist on having a comforting answer to every question you pose, then yes. I find that "I haven’t a clue" covers a lot of territory; but I know that many people cannot utter those words.
#10: When I was a believer, it was verses like that that resonated most strongly with me. So perhaps I didn’t change, just added some punctuation here and there.
#11: "You are filled with despair because of the emptiness inside of you. If you were filled up on the inside, then you would see beauty." You are quite right. This is the cross (if you’ll pardon the metaphor) that persons of a skeptical disposition must bear. We look with some envy on the ability most people have to find psychological comfort in believing preposterous things. We just can’t believe those things ourselves, and so must do without the comfort.
This is a topic of interest to me. Here is a passage from my forthcoming book, chapter 7. The section heading is "Why You Should Consult a Melancholy Pessimist."
People think I’m kidding when I say I have set out to reclaim pessimism. No, I am in dead earnest. (Not that it’ll make any difference …) You should order my book now. I don’t suppose you will, though.
#12: Same as #10.
#13: When I die my brain functions will cease, so not only shall I not be capable of any knowing, there won’t even be an "I" to be capable of it. If you have any evidence to the contrary, please share it with us.
#19: Same as #7.
#20: "One should have a belief." I agree; but see my response to #11, and compare "One should be able to play a musical instrument," which I also agree with, and also can’t.
#21: Perhaps if you sit down for a while the dizziness will abate.
#23: Heather, I think I did misquote you, and I apologize. I entirely agree with what you say. I think ultimately there’s just a matter of temperament here. The slow, partial, occasionally misled uncovering of new truths about reality — i.e. scientific inquiry — is very fascinating to some. Others want to leap ahead to all-encompassing explanations. This keys to my response to #11 somehow, though I can’t be bothered to think through the details.
#24: Om.
#25: Where on earth did I make such a claim, or give the slightest indication that I am the kind of person who would make such a claim?
#26: Back to #11 again. Nice comforting stuff, if you can swallow it. If I could, I’d be someone else, though.
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Always stimulating discussion at SR encountering disparate viewpoints and well put insights for consideration that would otherwise not be encountered, a small departure point focused upon and expanded exposing
points of illumination. Per Mandelbrot, sort of recursive, and given our elemental constitution of star death cycle materials, in a sense
pondering a universe looking back on itself. Seeing from the comments there is a bit more in this patch than first glance revealed, the infinite unexamined patches as mind boggling, incomprehensible and humbling a universe of unknown depth and expanse as the physical.
I guess a despair, out of frustration, given innate curiousity seeking discovery and understanding, and finding only how much more it is that one doesn’t know about anything sought to understand, a disabuse
of whatever previously was thought to be known pretty surely but only flimsily assumed, the only further understanding is of one’s larger ignorance than previously known extending beyond imagination. Sort of a pursuit of knowledge and understanding that leads in the opposite direction of goal and redoubling of effort only achieves twice the speed.
Oh well, in vino veritas and in Blake’s eternity in a grain of sand,
where an ebb tide is perceived in motion, the hallucinogenic trees stand up from their roots on the shorecliffs, the sky is blue, the clouds three-dimensional, the moment replete and complete, every hair numbered,
synchronous and of none and every dimension (dementia?) stopped yet moving. Maybe fleeting and illusory, an artificially induced altering of perception, maybe not. Most any poet of centuries is happy to report back the gladness of visiting with sadness a place, one’s place, that can’t be lived.
I looked up those chapters on the internet, couldn’t make head nor tail of them. Which is odd: I have no trouble with Quantum Field Theory, the modern account of the micro-vacuum (see e.g. Chapter 26 of Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality). Nor do I have any trouble with remote regions of space being full of galaxies, if you are patient enough to collect the photons. So one of the following: (1) Aristotle doesn’t explain himself very well, (2) Aristotle has his head up his bum, (3) Aristotle’s thinking is more profound than that of modern physicists and too profound for me to understand. But come now: surely Aquinas had something to contribute here?
How about (4) the translation you read wasn’t terribly clear? Aristotle didn’t write in modern English, you know. (Moreover, none of Aristotle’s extant works were intended for publication. He did write many things for publication, but none of those survive to this day. What does survive are essentially lecture notes.) In any event, Mike I’s comment isn’t actually germane to this topic since Aristotle was not discussing vacuum when he was talking about the void. He was referring to the theories of the Atomists that void was necessary for locomotion to be possible. (They believed there must be empty space for anything to be capable of moving. Aristotle argued that matter changed places, giving the example of an air bubble moving through water.)
Really, Bradlaugh, one doesn’t have to read much Aristotle to realize that he’s a great deal cleverer than you or I and your apparent contempt for him does you no credit. The fact that he was also writing 2000 years ago and without access to, really, any scientific instruments whatsoever, obviously limits his usefulness on the natural sciences. But the man systematized all logic and was the first man to use what we would now recognize as the scientific method and more or less invented the empirical sciences (particularly in biology, the science where the most progress could be made without instruments like clocks and thermometers). It is absolutely true that reverence for Aristotle caused science (and philosophy) to calcify in certain respects for many centuries as even his errors were taken as givens. But this is certainly not the fault of Aristotle who clearly taught that observation and experience should overthrow mere theory. Aristotle gets a bad rap because of Francis Bacon, but it’s crystal clear that Bacon had never bothered to actually read Aristotle and just hated his disciples.
“up to a point, the more depressed and maladjusted you are, the more likely it is that you are seeing things right, with minimal bias.”
From an online dictionary:
disillusion – freeing from false belief or illusions. disenchantment, disillusionment
Not exactly a condition that many would choose freely. My father, an intelligent man who had more faith on any one day than I’ve been able to to muster in a lifetime, once told me that the bible warns that “your knowledge will damn you”. I have no idea where that warning is. And let me say this before others claim I am “bragging” of my intelligence, I am not. But what little awareness I have, has forced me to accept that I cannot “buy” what is sold by any of the supernatural.
One thing I do know is, once you finally know there is no Santa, you can’t just wish yourself back to thinking otherwise.
The Derb says:
Ideas and images of an eternally and endlessly expanding universe did not “make the notion of a loving god with a particular interest in humanity, seem pretty darn ridiculous” to the discoverer of the Big Bang. Georges Lemaitre was a priest by trade and proposed the Big Bang theory whilst moonlighting on his clerical job.
Incidentally Lemaitre titled his book on the subject “The primeval atom”, more or less anticipating the Derb’s “fractalised” view of physics.
The Derb’s physical theories are just fine. I am not so sure his psychological states are as perfectly tuned. He seems to have lost faith in his Church and State, which is understandable on recent performance. But not everyone is so stricken by such Welt-pessimism.
A little less projection is indicated.