Posted inScience Universe

Embrace uncertainty, shun dogma — be a possibilian!

Dichotomies are limiting. Also, unrealistic. Theist/atheist. Believer/skeptic. Conservative/liberal. Follower/leader. Human/animal. Matter/energy. The world comes in a lot more flavors than just vanilla and chocolate. There's all sorts of shades of gray between black and white. Reality doesn't completely conform to how we Homo sapiens' conceptualize it. This is one reason I like David Eagleman's "possibilian" philosophy so much. (I've blogged about it before here and here.) Eagleman is a scientist. He recognizes that the scientific method is more than passively open-minded; science also actively seeks out new possibilities, creatively wondering "what if... ." Yet this doesn't mean giving credence to…
15
Posted inDeath/Rebirth Reality Universe

If the universe is infinite, we’re immortal (sort of)

Wow, I got some great news after reading only two chapters in physicist Brian Greene's new book, "The Hidden Reality." I'm immortal! Only catch is, the "me" who exists forever isn't really the same me who is typing out these words. Though maybe it is. Just depends on how I look upon myself: (1) as a being with a unique essence peculiar to myself (I don't mean a smell, but a non-physical identity), or (2) as a configuration of atoms which could be almost exactly duplicated in another corner of the cosmos. I've read Greene's previous books, enjoying them, but…
51
Posted inScience Universe

Finding our place in a factual cosmos

There's only one thing wrong with religious cosmologies: they aren't true. And that's a pretty damn serious thing. Which is why we shouldn't take erroneous views of the universe seriously.Yet we humans are meaning-creatures. Bare facts aren't enough for us. Our highly evolved minds love to construct stories about what life is all about, what's most important for us to do, and other value-laden layerings that provide a increased depth to our existence.The choice each of us faces is how realistic our "myths" are. Now, that word, myth, doesn't need to refer to something untrue. There's another way of regarding…
6
Posted inScience Universe

The universe is expanding into nothing

For a long time I've been fascinated by the fact that our universe is expanding because of the Big Bang that brought it into existence. I've visualized an edge to the universe, where a incomprehensibly vast tidal wave of raw existence cascades onward, into...What? This is the question that always stymied me. What is the universe expanding into, if the universe is all that exists? Or at least, all that we know to exist. Even if we say the universe is expanding into nothing, doesn't "nothing" thereby become a something?The marvelous mind-blowing nature of these cogitations is one reason why…
2
Posted inScience Universe

Finding meaning in an accidental universe

Looking around, the universe seems to be flowingly interconnected, a seamless web of smoothly functioning laws of nature. Sure, there are lots of nasty things we humans find distasteful -- earthquakes, diseases, tornadoes, and such -- but even these have causes. They're just often extremely difficult to discern or predict, given our lack of knowledge about the details of how things operate in the world.But there's another way of looking at the cosmos. Here's an excerpt from the jacket on Marcelo Gleiser's "A Tear at the Edge of Creation," a book that I blogged about before. (Subtitle: a radical new…
5
Posted inGod Universe

Best reason why God doesn’t exist

Does God exist? People have been trying to answer this question for thousands of years. As I wrote about in this post, a philosophical novel sets out 36 arguments for the existence of God (listed here; scroll down to read them).Arguments for the non-existence of God aren't as common. It's tough to prove that something doesn't exist, especially when that entity is supposed to be metaphysical, mysterious, and not particularly eager to reveal itself in an obvious fashion.I usually argue that it isn't possible to prove that God is non-existent. Instead, we agnostics and atheists are justified in asking for…
74
Posted inReality Universe

The cosmos doesn’t have a cause

Often it's said that the biggest, grandest, most profound philosophical question of all time is... (drum roll, please) Why is there something rather than nothing?I used to be entranced by this question. Now, I'm not. It doesn't make any sense to me. I've got some pretty impressive philosophical company in this regard: Bertrand Russell.Here's what this agnostic philosopher said in his 1948 debate with Father Frederick C. Copleston (Jesuit Catholic priest).I should say that the universe is just there, and that's all... I can illustrate what seems to me your fallacy. Every man who exists has a mother, and it…
7
Posted inScience Universe

Let’s give thanks to the big bang, plus…

It's Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. Almost everybody is into thankfulness, whether sincere or feigned.Myself, I'm thankful that I was able to get a HP wireless printer working with my wife's new iMac this afternoon. It was touch and go for a while but I finally figured it out.My philosophical problem, though, is who or what I should offer my thanks to. This quandary is common to every exclamation of gratitude, including religious ones such as  "Thank you, Jesus" or "Thank you, God." Where the heck do you stop?I read some reviews of the Photosmart C4780 that pointed…
14
Posted inUniverse

The universe is unity

Look around. Outside of yourself. Inside of yourself. Do you find any sharp divisions between utterly distinct aspects of reality? I can confidently predict, "No, you don't." (If I'm wrong, enlighten me.) There's a reason the word universe starts with "uni." It's a whole.Most religions, maybe all, are founded on a duality of some sort. Heaven and earth. Soul and body. Spirit and matter. God and creation. Salvation and sin. Liberation and karma. Truth and maya. Yet these supposedly separate spheres of existence aren't evident. They're concepts, belief structures that have to be taken on faith. So religious believers necessarily…
21
Posted inUniverse

What?! The universe isn’t all about me?!

Warning: if you're comfortable feeling that the cosmos is designed around you, or humanity in general, what you're about to read runs the risk of putting some leaks in your belief bubble. I'm not only speaking to the religious, even though theology and metaphysics is where you'll find the most egregious examples of Homo sapiens centeredness. The churchless also are prone to self-centered grandiosity. I know, because I am one. For me, faithlessness came down the track of my psyche long before humility. Understand, I'm not claiming any sort of ego-loss now. I'm still as full of myself as ever.…
7
Posted inUniverse

Brains vs. the universe

So who would come out on top in this contest? Might as well put it on pay per view, for more dramatic effect. Brains vs. the Universe – ultimate smackdown! My bet is on the universe. It's a lot bigger. And, when you think about it, smarter than brains. Because brains are part of the universe, and the universe is the whole deal (that's why it's called a universe). I got to pondering this in the course of leafing through a book I'd already read, "Creation Revisited" by Peter Atkins. Atkins is a chemistry professor at Oxford University. So his…
2
Posted inUniverse

No beginning, no end. The universe simply is.

Why would you need religion, mysticism, or spirituality to expand your mind? Or, blow it. Science works just fine. Much better, in fact, because science starts with is rather than what could be. If you're going to expand or blow your mind, you might as well be standing on a solid foundation before you explode into mindlessness. Take the question of the universe's beginning and end. Most of us assume that the universe began at some point. After all, the Bible tells us so in Genesis. And if we're scientifically minded, wasn't the Big Bang the beginning of time and…
24
Posted inUniverse

Hubble photo of deep space is naturally divine

There's no reason, none at all, to look for divinity in a holy book, person, building, or icon. The Hubble space telescope's Ultra Deep Field photograph of the farthest reaches of space contains more authentic mystery and awe than any religious dogma. And readers of the Sunday comics were exposed to it last weekend, thanks to Opus. Berkeley Breathed, Opus' creator, points to the craziness of considering that we humans are the center of the cosmos. Science has revealed, in countless ways, that the Earth and everything on it is just a part of the whole called Universe. A very…
6
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Universe

My review of “The Secret” DVD points to a super-secret

Yesterday I found a free way of watching "The Secret," so immersed myself for 90 minutes in an ocean of New Age platitudes. On a pad of paper I jotted down such pearls of positive thinking wisdom as: Thoughts become thingsThe Law of Attraction will give you what you want every timeWhat you think about, you bring aboutYou are the designer of your destinyLife is meant to be abundant The universe must have wanted me to see "The Secret." (A hugely popular book and DVD, as noted in this TIME article). But not spend $4.95 to watch online. Which raises…
11
Posted inReality Universe

Consider a cosmos that is only consciousness

There’s always another side. To anything. A coin can’t have “heads” without “tails.” Being on this side of the wall implies a that side. So I have no problem flipping the pancake of my “Consider a cosmos with no consciousness” post. Reading the final pages of Suzanne Segal’s Collision With the Infinite this morning got me thinking about what lies behind, beyond, within, and without my consciousness of thinking about those final pages. Early on in the book I read that Segal had a profound experience at a bus stop in Paris. In fact, it’s listed in her Acknowledgments: The…
1
Posted inScience Universe

Consider a cosmos with no consciousness

I’ve always thought that the “we create our own reality” folks didn’t have much of an argument to stand on. It just seems so darn obvious that the universe stands apart from any conception of it. How we perceive the cosmos certainly depends on our sensory and cognitive capabilities. However, that there is a cosmos—however it may appear—prior and separate to any perception struck me as self-evident common sense. In other words, I considered that the universe stands on its own (anthropomorphically envisioned) feet. While we humans are able to create subjective realities within our minds, the grander cosmos outside…
15
Posted inUniverse

Who should I thank on Thanksgiving?

For a churchless guy like myself, figuring out who deserves my thanks tomorrow requires some careful thought. That’s because I’m philosophical in addition to churchless. Sure, I could blurt out simple thanksgivings directed at the usual suspects—wife, dog, makers of the tasty Now & Zen unturkey that we’ll be eating—but that goes against my nature. I want to get down to the core of this giving thanks business. Follow the trail of thankfulness back to the source. Take care of every possible “thank you” recipient at one primal swoop. When I began my mulling this morning, my mother and father…
2
Posted inUniverse

What if this is all there is?

It’s a joke without anyone around to hear the punch line: “Did you hear the one about the people who based their lives on the assumption that God was real and there was life after death? Then they died, and…” What? If there is nothing after death, ha ha! Jokes on them. Except, they won’t be around to be part of the laughter. Neither will I. Neither will any one of us. Which isn’t all that funny. Nor, all that serious. It’s just what it is: a likely reality. What’s disturbing is the prospect of so many true believers giving…
29
Posted inSpiritual practice/meditation Universe

What are the chances you’re right about God?

More and more, for me spirituality comes down to two basics: “What are the chances?” and “The odds are pretty good.” The first question points me toward humble skepticism, the second toward energetic inquiry. Here’s what I mean: What are the chances…? --That my chosen religion or philosophy, out of the thousands of religions in the world, just happens to be the one that is right about God, while the others are wrong. --That any religion or philosophy, mine or another, possesses the complete truth about ultimate reality. --That once I’ve settled on a spiritual direction for my life, there…
No Comments
Posted inScience Universe

Compared to the cosmos, you’re nothing

Like you, my goal every day is to make something of myself. A successful, knowing, active, loving, happy thing. The problem is, on the scale of the universe the value of each of us is vanishingly close to zero. Rounded off to any reasonable number of decimal places, we’re nothing--no thing. We are small. Very, very small. Check it out for yourself. Each of us is one of six billion people on a planet circling one of 200 billion or so stars in the Milky Way galaxy, which is one of 100 billion or so galaxies in the observable universe,…
No Comments