Posted inScience Universe

In science, intuition arises from facts, not facts from intuition

I found a column by Chandra Prescod-Weinstein in the July 9, 2022 issue of New Scientist interesting for several reasons.  This professor of physics and astronomy at the University of New Hampshire has a take on the expanding universe that I hadn't come across before. As she says in the column, the simplest way to describe this is a familiar one: just as the distance between dots on a balloon that fills with air will increase as the balloon expands, so do galaxies within our universe. But this image is misleading, because a balloon exists in a larger reality, like…
5
Posted inReality Universe

Mystery of existence is a chill up the spine, not a concept

For many years I've gotten a thrill out of the mystery of existence.  This has nothing to do with what exists. It's all about the brute fact that something exists. Now, that something might well be infinite. For sure it's huge -- countless billions of light years huge. And it's old -- at least 13.8 billion years old and possibly infinitely old. All that is irrelevant when talking about the mystery of existence.  What blows my mind with marvelous regularity is the chill-up-the-spine realization that all this, no matter what it consists of -- is equally present at the tips…
19
Posted inReality Universe

Grappling with the fact that existence has always existed

Recently I got this email from a fellow marveler at the inescapable fact that existence must always have existed in some form, or the universe we are a part of couldn't have come to be.  Hello Brian, I recently read this article of yours and was amazed how precisely it described the issue that's been on my mind for a long time. It seems inescapable to posit that something has always existed, something that never had a beginning. And as you point out in the article, trying to conceive and imagine that seems impossible: "the very possibility of cognizing an answer vanishes". And I…
8
Posted inMorality Universe

Rejoice in the glorious indifference of the universe

I'm no Carl Sagan, but after coming up with the thought expressed in the title of this blog post I did some Googling to find an image to share which expressed that sentiment. So Carl Sagan and I are on the same indifferent wavelength, the difference regarding our realization of indifference perhaps being that I find this worthy of rejoicing in the gloriousness of it. Which is a decidedly minority opinion, because most people fall into these Belief Camps, which are not mutually exclusive: (1) Believing in a God who loves us, cares for us, watches out for us. Usually…
2
Posted inUniverse

Subjectivity is innate to material reality

Since I'm not privy to the Secret of Ultimate Reality, naturally I don't know whether this letter-writer's thesis is correct: that subjectivity is innate to material reality.But what Godwin says in his letter in the December 10 issue of New Scientist is both provocative and possible. He raises good questions. "What would be the substance of a universe with no subjectivity, unable to experience its own existence? How could such a universe ever be shown to exist, and by and to whom?" At first I thought this sounded unduly anthropomorphic. However, on second thought this letter points at issues raised…
1
Posted inReality Universe

“Existence exists” — the cosmic lock to which humans have no key

I'm obsessed, in a pleasing way, with a cosmic notion: existence exists.  (A Google search of my blogs reveals the posts where I've tried to "eff" this ineffable subject. Some are here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.) Seemingly there's not much I could add to what I've said about this ultimate mystery. Except... what I'm going to add right now. Which is another attempt to speak about the unspeakable feeling that comes over me when I contemplate the fact that existence exists. This feeling can't be produced on demand. Right now I'm talking about a memory of it,…
5
Posted inScience Universe

The “self” is like a web without a spider

Self... who am I? Will... who controls what I do? Being... do I continue on after death? These are big questions. Humans have struggled to find answers to them from the beginning of recorded history, and surely long before that.  Most people accept a view that is common to most religions: I am something other than my physical body; call it soul or spirit. I have free will; so I am responsible for my actions. I possess, or am, a non-material essence that is unaffected by physical death. Well, maybe.  But these answers go against the grain of modern science.…
12
Posted inReality Universe

Wow! Existence has always existed.

I've done a lot of pondering about the primal mystery of existence. As noted in the essay I wrote this month for the Spiritual Naturalist Society, I've gone from being blown away by the classic question Why is there something rather than nothing? to being awestruck at the amazing affirmation, There is something rather than nothing. Read on... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wow! Existence has always existed. Awe-inspiring. Spine-tingling. Vertigo-inducing. Something frequently produces these feelings in me. It isn’t a theme park ride. In fact, it isn’t even a thing. It is everything. Existence. Just typing that word produced a chill up my spine — a…
11
Posted inReligions Science Universe

Given size of the universe, is creation really all about us?

Religious belief involves lots of absurdities. For me, one of the biggest ones is the assumption that humans are the Big Deal of the universe.  Whether it be Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, or some other major religion, theologies differ about how people are special in the eye of God, Brahman, or whatever, but they agree that members of a recently evolved species on Earth, Homo sapiens, occupy a central place in the cosmic scheme of things. This is really difficult for me to accept for various reasons. One is our modern understanding of the size of the universe. Consider... (1) Light…
3
Posted inReality Universe

Even God can’t explain the mystery of existence

Re-reading the first chapter of Luther Askeland's "Ways in Mystery" this morning (one of my favorite meaning-of-life books), I liked how Askeland addressed The Seemingly Really Big Question of Existence. The Way of Unknowing chapter starts off with a Wittgenstein quote: Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is. Now, I've come to doubt that this that mystery is really as mystically mysterious as it appears to be. Maybe the classic question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" simply should be rephrased as a statement: "There is something rather than nothing." Offering support to  this…
12
Posted inBooks Science Universe

Here’s a science book with a radical view of reality

Oh, man. I'm so glad I got pulled in by the Book Magnet.  That's how I explained my purchase of two thick, serious books to the cashier at the Book Bin in downtown Salem, Oregon. I'd parked my car in front of the bookstore, gone to my Tai Chi class, and was all set to drive home until, poised to unlock the car door... Go inside and check out the new books, the everpresent voice inside my head told me. Must obey, I happily told myself. "The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time" stared me in the face almost…
5
Posted inMiracles Universe

No, the universe didn’t “have a message for me”

Giving up religiosity doesn't happen all at once. At least, not in my case. I wasn't able to go cold turkey, so to speak, and give up my addiction to unfounded faith-based beliefs all at once. They just have gradually lessened, weakened, become much less powerful.  Yet in subtler forms, my previous attachment to feeling that I'm being watched over by an all-knowing, all-loving transcendental presence still is evident from time to time.  Like, last Thursday.  It was a potentially traumatic day for me. After having my hair cut by the same person for 37 years, Betsy departed for central Oregon. But she…
3
Posted inScience Universe

No need for “making” in a mathematical universe. It just “is.”

I've finished Max Tegmark's fascinating "Our Mathematical Universe," a book I blogged about before here. The final chapter was a bit of a letdown. Tegmark ambled off into extraneous subjects, like how Earth might come to its demise and whether other conscious entities exist in the universe. Surprisingly, Tegmark thinks we humans probably are the most intelligent life-form in the universe. If true, and I doubt that it is, that's depressing. Geez, 14 billion years have passed since the Big Bang, and Homo sapiens are the most sapient entities the cosmos could come up with? But I still enjoyed the…
1
Posted inUniverse

If nothing is truly alive, maybe everything is

I'm not sure how I feel about Ferris Babr's opinion piece in the New York Times, "Why Nothing is Truly Alive."  On the whole, I think I like the idea. Why so much ambivalence? Why is it so difficult for scientists to cleanly separate the living and nonliving and make a final decision about ambiguously animate viruses? Because they have been trying to define something that never existed in the first place. Here is my conclusion: Life is a concept, not a reality. To better understand this argument, it’s helpful to distinguish between mental models and pure concepts. Sometimes the…
3
Posted inScience Universe

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey — great 44 minute science sermon

I don't go to church any more. But last Sunday I experienced an inspiring sermon... about the cosmic wonders discovered by science.  Here's the best thing about the new series featuring Neil Degrasse Tyson, an astrophysicist: "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" is all about reality. Not religious fantasy.  (First uplifting episode can be viewed online.) The computer graphics are excellent. Sure, these are simulations of how the universe appears beyond Earth's immediate surroundings. But given the immensity of the cosmos, there's no other way to describe expanses of space and time far beyond everyday understanding. I was deeply moved. Particularly, by…
No Comments
Posted inBooks Universe

Free will debate continues: Harris crushes Dennett

I don't believe in free will. There are good reasons for why I feel this way. And given the conditions of the universe at every instant during my lifetime, which encompasses those reasons, it isn't possible for me to believe or feel about free will in any way other than the way I do now.  That's why I don't believe in free will: I understand that I'm part of a whole, as Einstein put it, called "universe."  As I blogged about a few weeks ago, philosopher Daniel Dennett took some shots at Sam Harris, author of the excellent "Free Will."…
7
Posted inReality Universe

Robert Kuhn’s nine levels of nothing: mind-blowing

I'm a big fan of the age-old question, "Why is there something rather than nothing?" However, after spending many years marveling at the evident fact that existence exists, I'm inclined to take out the why. A statement seems more apt than a question. "There is something rather than nothing."  In other words, I'm highly dubious that the question is meaningful. We can ask why things within existence exist. But to ask why existence itself exists... absurd. My attitude is: It just is, dude. Nonetheless, I can understand the appeal of asking why there is something rather than nothing. I haven't…
4
Posted inScience Universe

There’s no “nothing” to compare with the cosmos’ “something”

Like I said a few days ago, it's absolutely awesome that existence exists. Oh, guess I should add, "awesome, dude... ." Which reflects how marvelously meaningful what I said is. And also how meaningless.  It happened again today. That sudden "bottom falling out from under me" feeling, sort of the mental equivalent of being startled by an elevator going into free fall. I like the feeling. It's the most genuine sensation of spirituality, not really an apt word, but best I can come up with, that comes over me in my churchless way of looking at the world. What it is…
1
Posted inScience Universe

Scale of the universe makes belief in God look very small

I'm not religious. But if I were ever to embrace a religion, I'd want it to be a modern one. A scientific one. Meaning, a religion that seeks to explain whatever might lie beyond the physical universe without denying the reality of what does indisputably exist. The dogmas of every major world religion, though, date from prescientific times. Back then, most people believed that the Earth was the center of the cosmos. The Sun and stars orbited around our planet. We humans were special. Both in terms of our relation to the rest of the universe, and of our relation…
5
Posted inFree will Science Universe

Free will is a wonderful thing to lose

Most of us are afraid of losing our freedom. We like being able to say what we want, go where we want, do what we want. Within limits, of course. Absolute freedom is impossible. Constraints are part of the human condition. This helps explain the almost universal belief in free will, and the desire to exercise free will to the fullest. Even if we're constrained by outer circumstances, such as not being able to drive 200 miles an hour because our car won't go that fast, most people have the feeling that what they are capable of choosing to do…
2