Friday, October 8, 2010

Rambling for the truth

“Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one's own understanding without the guidance of another. This immaturity is self-incurred if its cause is not lack of understanding, but lack of resolution and courage to use it without the guidance of another.”
                                                                                                    — Immanuel Kant
                                                                    
     Sometimes I wonder as most people might have at some point or the other that why the universe is the way it is. It amazes me how my mind can ramble over the same question on several occasions, pondering to different depths and directions, not figuring out the true answer but always returning satisfied. I am firm believer in science and strongly opine to the fact that most of the anomalies and ramifications in the universe can be justified by pure reason. I conform to the idea that most observable facts can be explained lucidly with science, but the questions that pops in my mind is  why are the facts the way they are?  Now, this might seem preposterous so here is an example, we know for a fact that the gravitational force between two bodies follows the inverse square law, Newton derived this on the basis of brilliant observations that he had made. I don’t disagree with any of this ; I only ask why does it have to be the inverse square law? It could have been the inverse cube law or something else maybe. The implication being that the dependent quantities and observations would have been different and by different I mean a lot different, but that anyway is not the case in point.

     So why are the laws of physics so damn perfect.( For instance, if the electrostatic force, which is inversely proportional to distance squared, instead were inversely proportional to distance to the power 2.00001, electrons would fly off into space and atoms would never form ).  It seems as though the laws of physics were tailor-made for life to exist. You may argue that it is just a coincidence and it was all chance, but leaving something as big as this to chance is just being ignorant. To delve in deeper we will have to go right to the fundamentals, right to where it all began right to the formation of the universe.

     From the evidence that astronomers and scientists have observed it is quite safe to say that the universe had a beginning and that the universe did not exist infinitely, contrary to the views of “Materialism”. The most popular theory that explains the formation of the universe and which gained wide acceptance in the scientific world due to the clear-cut evidence for it is the “Big Bang theory”. The “Big Bang Theory” is one of the many models that can explain the observations.

     Even though the “Big Bang Theory” is most accepted theory it is highly flawed and contradicts many well established scientific laws. It also does not solve the central problems of the origin of time and the need for infinite energy to cause the Big Bang. The definition of science as quoted from dictionary.com is as follows “The systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation”. Explaining systematically how the universe formed using the facts that are observable and the scientific laws that have been well justified just seems impossible, which begs the question of the existence of the supernatural being.

     Okay lets leave “Big Bang” aside for a moment and assume that life sprung up “somehow”,  so to reach what we are today, from tiny single-celled water dwelling organisms what naturalists after careful observation filled in between was the theory of “Evolution”. Evolution explains how the earth got to the state it is in; the fossil evidences support this theory. But here is where it gets even messier; the theory of Evolution like the “Big Bang” seems to be stained. Evolutionary theory claims that there once existed a whole series of successive forms of the various organisms alive today. These supposedly changed by infinitesimal amounts with each generation as they evolved into the present varieties. The fossil record shows the sudden emergence of new species out of nowhere, fully complete with all their characteristics and not changing over time. It is almost entirely devoid of forms that can plausibly be identified as intermediates between older and newer ones. This is popularly known as the "missing link" problem, and it is massively systematic across different species and time periods.

     So what of all this, well from all this I certainly have come a conclusion, I personally believe in the existence of a supernatural being or in other words “god”, (at least at present unless I am convinced otherwise) as the formation of the universe and the formation of planets, creation of life, evolution, and everything else in between that got us to what we are now just seems too far fetched to just happen probabilistically. It seems to me as though there is someone up there who is rolling the dice, someone out there pulling the strings, of which we are just oblivious. This is what I finally answered myself after the numerous times I have asked myself how we ended up here from absolute nothingness. I may be wrong but for now I believe, I believe in “god”.

     Science is continually metamorphosing, and perhaps one day the “Big Bang Theory” will join the flat Earth and the geocentric universe in the dustbin of history and and may be replaced by a more robust theory. But until it is, belief in god should not be dismissed as mere superstition.

"I want to know how God created the universe. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details."
                                                                                                    — Albert Einstein

     Guys I really hope to see your comments here, so please feel free to leave your comments.  

17 comments:

  1. Loved your ramblings! Way to go bro, write more!
    And I think you know my stand ;)
    1.The indomitable urge we possess to "know" the answers to everything is baffling. So what if we have a few questions unanswered?

    2.Okay,even if we assume to know the answer "God",doesn't induction lead us to further questions about God himself? You know,who? how? why?

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  2. 'It seems as though the laws of physics were tailor-made for life to exist.You may argue that it is just a coincidence ...'.Life existed and these laws are made accordingly for it to happen.I don't see any question of coincidence in this.
    But after all,there are many unanswered situations in science(for instance, 'dark matter')and I like the way you think.
    And the way you pen down your thoughts is even more nice...:)Keep writing more..:)

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  3. @rohit thanx man... after the lengthy (sometimes pointless...:) ) discussions we have.... your stand is as clear as a crystal....:)
    1.Yes i agree to what you say, but when the question is about the fundamentals of life and how we ended up here, i think the mind deserves an answer or atleast an attempt at an explanation.
    2.I feel that "god" is as understood as we understand "dark matter", we know it exists to explain the observations but we dont have evidences to answer any further questions.

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  4. @chaitanya thanks dude....
    I think it's the other way round the laws of physics being "favourable" led to life, here the laws of physics being "favourable" cannot be just brushed off as coincidence.
    Yes, there are many more unanswered questions which basically just adds to my belief in the supernatural being.

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  5. @Mukul's last comment:

    Not really. Evolution can explain it just as well. Instead of saying that the laws of physics are perfect of life, think of it as life being perfect for the laws of physics we have... If it weren't, life would have died out, until by random variations, a new form of life that is perfectly adapted to the environment is born, and thrives. What has survived on earth is the kind of life that is perfect for the physics we have.

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  6. About the 'sudden evolution' part: sudden in fossil record terms is like a 100,000 years, instead of the normal two million. Considering the number of organisms that existed throughout the millions of years of life on earth, and the very minute fraction of them that remain and have been found as fossils, it stands to reason that something from a 0.1 million year period might be hard to come by. Only if a species remained unchanged for a significant duration is there a good chance of a fossil remaining. The transition between two species will be fast, because these will not be very good designs for the kind of environment they live in, and will thus be quickly penalized for any non-useful features.

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  7. @mishel The universe could have ended up being anything. For example it, is very easy, through slight manipulations of the physical laws, to construct universes which have only neutrons, which have only hydrogen, or which are otherwise unsuited for life. So in such a case no form of life could exist.

    "For instance, if the electrostatic force, which is inversely proportional to distance squared, instead were inversely proportional to distance to the power 2.00001, electrons would fly off into space and atoms would never form". So without atoms being formed the very fabric of life would not exist.

    So the laws of physics being "favourable" as they are now led to life.

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  8. @mishel The "sudden evolution" i am talking about here is not with respect to time but with respect to the form of the organism. Yes, i agree that the transition will be fast but it should be continuous. Instead of a continuous change in the organism, something the evolution theory postulates what we observe are clearly defined gaps or missing translational forms.
    Also check this out for more info http://mall.turnpike.net/C/cs/fossils.htm

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  9. Hey mukul!!!Awesome I think our iews match to some extent!!!See my posts on GOD and some other theories u have mentioned!!!here are my posts!!!

    http://sabkuchdilse.blogspot.com/2010/03/reason-for-god.html

    http://sabkuchdilse.blogspot.com/2010/03/reason-for-god2.html

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  10. About the neutrons only world idea, I am not quite sure yet, but there's a theory that all possible outcomes are actually happening, with some probability distribution... like quantum mechanics on a universal scale. So we see a favourable universe because we wouldn't exist in the unfavourable universe.

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  11. @mishel By "all possible outcomes are actually happening" i think what you are referring to is the "many world interpretation" (the multiverse idea). This theory also is flawed with one of the main reasons being that it lacks "empirical testability". Check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse#Criticisms for more info.

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  12. @vamsee thanks dude.
    looked at your posts they seem nice.

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  13. awesome bayya...it started with physics and ended in god...i really like the way u put it...keep writing...n i agree wid u becoz i also believe in "GOD"..

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  14. @Mukhul

    thanx dude for remembering that it is my blog :)

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  15. loved your arguments....a simple argument could be God is perfect so his creation should be perfect...Then why do we see one organism dominating other...doesnt it contradict God!!!!anyways loved the post completely...never tht this way

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  16. @EF From this post i have only stated the existence of "god". "God" being perfect is something derived from religion on which i have my own apprehensions. Religion and "god" are completely different entities.

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