God Particle, Conscious Universe & Leaps of Reason

Another non-film article.


A leading daily publishes a weekly spiritual section. Needless to say I rarely read it. But today there was an article on the famous "God Particle". It was written by 3 people. 2 of them are scientists at prominent US universities and the other is a spiritual-inspirational speaker.

The name, God Particle, originally intended as an illustration of its illusive nature, soon became a media darling. I simply call it by its true name, Higgs Boson. Once the name stuck, there were inevitable religious and spiritual connections being drawn to the poor particle. Not surprising really. Religion detests science and scientific methods. Ask a religious person to provide evidence or scientific rationale for his/her god and they would say it's a matter of faith. But, if there is ever the slightest hint of any supernatural phenomenon in the natural world, the religious are the first to become scientists and parade that as evidence for god. Case in point being the infinite images of Virgin Mary and Jesus in a tree trunk, the holy word of Kuran in  cloud formation and the idols of Ganesha drinking milk! Religion picks stuff from science they are comfortable with and denounce the other things which question their faith. So, once the world knew that physicists are looking for something called the "God Particle" and that it is somehow essential to the theories of physics (Most of them had no clue what the theory was and what was the role of Higgs Boson in it), the media started taking interest in it. May be too much interest. The media frenzy we have seen recently over the discovery of Higgs like particle is inspiring, but too many of them were focusing on the God part and not the Particle part.

The article in question did not dwell too much on the science behind the Higgs Boson. Rather, it went on to make some interesting conjectures about the implications of the discovery on science and spirituality. There is no doubt that the discovery is one of the monumental achievements of physics in the last few decades. This gives us a solid ground to build upon. Being more or less sure of the Standard Model, we can now build upon it without the nagging fear of it all crumbling down. Yes, there is always the chance that there would be some flaw in the model and not all the work based upon it would be fruitful. Infact, it is almost inevitable that there would be parts of the theory which would not be universally true. Most of the theories of physics hold true only under specific conditions.

The article, however, went on to point out that the quantum model of the universe has destroyed the solid, classical model and then it made a leap of reason I didn't quite follow. From the quantum model, it went on to talk about the 'obvious' indication for the existence of a universal intelligence. To quote the article, "The Universe evolves, regulates itself, takes creative leaps and exhibits exquisite mathematical rigour and beauty. The hallmarks of intelligence are there, waiting for the next paradigm shift." The article then goes on to say that the word 'intelligence' is tricky in this day because it implies intelligent design. So, to avoid it they called it Consciousness. They are suggesting a Conscious Universe instead of an intelligent one. Bravo!

I agree with most of the sentence, except for 2 parts. One, I don't see any evidence for the universe taking 'Creative Leaps' and second, I don't see the hallmarks of any intelligence. If anything, the statement indicates strongly that there is no intelligence or consciousness dictating the universe. Let us evaluate the points mentioned in the sentence.

It first talks about an evolving universe. That is the surest sign of the absence of a creator/moderator. Evolution is a gradual, slow and uneconomical process. If I was to create a watch (theists love the watch), I will make the watch as perfect as I can. And if I am the omnipotent God, then I would surely make a perfect watch. I will not spend millions of years, making millions of models, each model only a little different (different, not always better) from the previous and 99% of the models so bad that they broke down. That is how evolution works. Why would an intelligent or conscious designer make something with so many trials and errors! His success ratio is worse than the dumbest kid in the school!

The next point in the article is a self regulatory universe. Well, that practically says that there is no need of a God. Self regulation of the universe comes from the laws of nature. The laws themselves are intrinsic parts of the mater and energy that form the universe. If the laws were any different, the universe wouldn't exist in the form it does now. So, there is no need for a God to regulate or create the universe. The natural order of things take care of itself. Once Laplace was explaining the celestial model to Napoleon. When he had finished explaining the things, the great emperor asked Laplace, where was God in his theory. Laplace replied, "I have no need for that hypothesis in the model".

As for taking creative leaps, I see no evidence for that. The universe takes no leaps at all. Things happen gradually and according to the laws of nature. A creative leap would be if one fine morning we wake up to find a new planet in the solar system or a new, totally unique species of animal roaming the earth. That would be a creative leap. Instead, what we see around us is the result of slow and gradual evolution of things, whether celestial or life form. The Universe does not take any creative leaps at all.

Finally, it talks again of the rigorous mathematical laws followed by the universe, which only proves that the universe follows mathematical patterns. It does not imply any divine, intelligent or conscious presence in any way.

The leaps of reason taken in that article were quite huge. They are all prominent scientists, so it's quite possible that I was not able to follow their leaps of reason. But it was written for the general public. Shouldn't they have explained the things more clearly, if they did have any rational link? How do you arrive from the quantum theory to a conscious universe? To me, there is no link.