Speaking of alternate universes....
Oct. 29th, 2003 01:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
capri0mniWatched a special Nova double episode tonight, about the rise and fall of string theory, and phyisicists' attempts to find a Unified Theory of Everything-ing-ing-ing-ing (sorry about that... it just seemed to call for reverb).
And I couldn't help wondering, yet again, if this search for the "One Rule to rule us all" would have become the obsession it is if Christianity had not become the official religion of Europe, and if monotheism in general never evolved to be the default religious assumption of Western culture (i.e., the cultures where most of the technology and study devoted to this question developed).
Even if we take it as given that all the quantum physicists and all the astronomers are staunch atheists, and try, with all their might and main, to strip all religious thinking from their observations today, that doesn't mean they were atheists at six years old, when they were forming their first concrete views of the world as the society taught it to them, or that they are immune to all cultural assumption. I mean they (the American ones, at least) read "In God we trust" on our money just like the rest of us (and British scientists still sing "God Save the Queen"). That's got to have some effect on their concept of what reality is, and their biases regarding how "reality" works.
Imagine that our default cultural assumption was closer to Shintoism, with myriad spirit beings and Otherworlds paralell to our own that we can glimpse now and then, but not see directly. Would a single Unified Theory of Everything be so important in such a world? Would it even make sense?
A few weeks ago, on NPR's "Science Friday," they were discussing some of the new astronomical findings and theories, including the idea of multiple big bangs, with multiple universes, each with its own set of physical laws. And one of the panalists said something to the effect of: Well, of course, if there are other universes, ours must be the only one to support life. And I couldn't help thinking: "How do you reach that conclusion -- and why do you feel the need to?"
Isn't that just an extension of the old Abrahamic idea that God has placed us in the center of the universe, and that we're the only ones with souls who worship Him, while the rest of the inert universe revolves around us? We may not be at the center of the universe in the physical sense, anymore, but that idea sure does put us at the perceptional center. If Earth is the only planet to support life in the universe, or if our universe is the only universe among many to support life, then we can be the only ones to look outward, and wonder, and find meaning. We are still the pinnacle of Creation, and the center of it all.
Just some midnight rambles...
And I couldn't help wondering, yet again, if this search for the "One Rule to rule us all" would have become the obsession it is if Christianity had not become the official religion of Europe, and if monotheism in general never evolved to be the default religious assumption of Western culture (i.e., the cultures where most of the technology and study devoted to this question developed).
Even if we take it as given that all the quantum physicists and all the astronomers are staunch atheists, and try, with all their might and main, to strip all religious thinking from their observations today, that doesn't mean they were atheists at six years old, when they were forming their first concrete views of the world as the society taught it to them, or that they are immune to all cultural assumption. I mean they (the American ones, at least) read "In God we trust" on our money just like the rest of us (and British scientists still sing "God Save the Queen"). That's got to have some effect on their concept of what reality is, and their biases regarding how "reality" works.
Imagine that our default cultural assumption was closer to Shintoism, with myriad spirit beings and Otherworlds paralell to our own that we can glimpse now and then, but not see directly. Would a single Unified Theory of Everything be so important in such a world? Would it even make sense?
A few weeks ago, on NPR's "Science Friday," they were discussing some of the new astronomical findings and theories, including the idea of multiple big bangs, with multiple universes, each with its own set of physical laws. And one of the panalists said something to the effect of: Well, of course, if there are other universes, ours must be the only one to support life. And I couldn't help thinking: "How do you reach that conclusion -- and why do you feel the need to?"
Isn't that just an extension of the old Abrahamic idea that God has placed us in the center of the universe, and that we're the only ones with souls who worship Him, while the rest of the inert universe revolves around us? We may not be at the center of the universe in the physical sense, anymore, but that idea sure does put us at the perceptional center. If Earth is the only planet to support life in the universe, or if our universe is the only universe among many to support life, then we can be the only ones to look outward, and wonder, and find meaning. We are still the pinnacle of Creation, and the center of it all.
Just some midnight rambles...
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no subject
Date: 2003-10-28 10:52 pm (UTC)*nods*
Date: 2003-10-28 11:16 pm (UTC)Mmm...Skience...
Date: 2003-10-29 12:11 am (UTC)I'm a historian. Err...
Date: 2003-10-29 12:18 am (UTC)And I couldn't help wondering, yet again, if this search for the "One Rule to rule us all" would have become the obsession it is if Christianity had not become the official religion of Europe, and if monotheism in general never evolved to be the default religious assumption of Western culture (i.e., the cultures where most of the technology and study devoted to this question developed).
Physics is reductive, in that in theory the more you know the fewer rules you should need to understand it all. Goal of the GUT being that if nothing else you'd have a running start on new fields you hadn't actually thought of yet, when you get round to thinking of them. Even in a polythestic system, you'd notice the way things tie in together - the unified superforce, for example, and work from there. *shrug* And some monotheists aren't keen on the GUTs anyway, getting pissed off at the idea that there's a God Equation out there somewhere, waiting to be discovered.
It takes GUTs....
Date: 2003-10-29 09:54 am (UTC)I'm not saying there isn't a working, accurate GUT to be found, or figured out, someday. I'm just wondering how our religious and cultural biases are influencing how we approach and frame the whole question, and which puzzling bits we get hung up on.
For example, when listening to some program or other of popular astronomy, I've often heard the sentence:
The universe was created in the Big Bang.
"Create" is a transitive verb, and its very presence makes the universe a passive Object acted upon by an implied Subject. Compare that to:
The universe came out of the Big Bang.
"Come" is intransitive, which makes the universe the active Subject all by itself, without any implied Creator.
Both sentences express the same theory, but each implies a very different nature to the reality behind it.
The second hour of "The Elegant Universe" ended with the string theory falling out of current favor because there are five versions that all work, and the assumption is that if it's true, there would be only one working version. Would we be working under the same assumption if our hegemonic culture were polytheistic instead of monotheistic? Or would we assume that, because they all work, they must fit together, somehow, into a whole that we are not yet seeing?
I don't know. I'm just wondering...
no subject
Date: 2003-10-29 05:52 am (UTC)One thing that he pointed out was that some of the earliest 'unified theories' that did not have basis in religion came from the Greeks, who were decidedly polytheistic.
And I know plenty of physicists who are religious, and not only of the one-God type either.
no subject
Date: 2003-10-29 08:44 am (UTC)Well, many ancient Greeks were polytheistic (particularly the peasant classes), but in the later stages of Greek civilization, many philosophers were developing a philosophic monotheism, even if their religious practices still reflected polytheism.
And I know plenty of physicists who are religious, and not only of the one-God type either.
Oh, I know. That's why I wrote "Even if" all the scientists were atheists.