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.

GOD - Greatest and Oldest Delusion

This is a piece I wrote sometime back, but wanted to share it here too.

Introduction: - This is perhaps the most controversial piece I have ever written! I am not sure if I am competent enough to write on a topic like this, but I think that I need to express my views. I am not going to publish this anyways, so, who cares if I am competent or not!

The Origin of God: - The scriptures say that, God created the Heaven and the Earth. The truth is that God didn’t create us. We created Him! This is common knowledge to all, whether they believe it or not! There are many theories as to the reason for the creation of God. There is probably no way to know which is the true one, but the most commonly believed one is that, God was created to explain the unexplainable! To explain the change of season, the thunder and the rain. This is widely believed by many to be the most likely cause. But, I think that is not the case! I believe in another theory. It’s partly my own but mostly I read in a Bengali book, “Satyer Sondhaane Maanush”, which means, ‘Man in Search of Truth’. In the beginning, there was no God. Men lived in small groups who were nomadic. They hunted for food and most of the times, there used to be fights among the groups over better hunting grounds. Gradually, these groups grew in size. Then, a problem developed! Man, by nature, is revolting. He doesn’t listen to anyone. It’s practically impossible to control a group without revolts! But revolutions were not acceptable! If internal fights start, the group will become weak and the very survival of the group depends on its strength! No leader can lead a group of men without being questioned at all!

There is one tool to control men unchallenged! It is Fear! The most powerful of all the basic emotions! There are six basic emotions, Love, Hatred, Anger, Happiness, Sadness and Fear. These are the fundamental emotions. All other emotions are derived from one or more of these. For example, respect is a mix of love and fear! I say that fear is the most powerful of all emotions. Some may challenge me, but that is the truth! Fear overcomes all other emotions when the time comes.

Our ancestors were smart enough to realise this. So, they exploited this emotion to exert control! They created the most fearful being comprehensible! A being who is not human, not even mortal! He created the whole Universe and rules it according to His whims! He shows his anger by the thunder and when He is not pleased with us, He makes us suffer by draught and flood! We have to be good to keep Him happy or else, He will punish us, if not on earth, then in Hell, after our death! Can you imagine anything scarier?

Another emotion associated with God is Hope! It gives the hope to man that his hard work and sufferings will be rewarded in Heaven, also the promise that if he behaves well and obeys the ruler, he will be rewarded in heaven. This is once again a very powerful motivator. The hope of better times is what keeps all of us motivated through our hard times. But, this hope has been exploited brilliantly by the creators of God. As the ‘Architect’ of ‘The Matrix’ said to Neo, Hope is simultaneously the source of mankind’s greatest strength and his biggest weakness!

The ruler became the messenger of God. So, his orders must be followed to the last word, else, God will be displeased! To prove their authenticity, leaders like the priests of Egypt, who were expert astronomers, predicted the periodic floods of Nile as wrath of God! This was perfect! Men were terrified and they followed these leaders blindfolded. Thus, the purpose was achieved. A faithful following was developed to ensure the survival of the tribe. So, the creation of God was not only for good but was absolutely necessary at that time! But, gradually, mans’ thirst for power used the power of God. It was and is the easiest way to command a faithful following. So, with time, the concept of God lost its original purpose but found new uses for itself.

The Theory of God: - Then gradually, the concept of God developed into a powerful doctrine. Mankind is inquisitive by nature. He seeks explanations to everything he sees around him. This nature of man is the basis of the great discipline known as SCIENCE! Science is the tool for explaining Nature. But the theory of God also provides an alternative explanation to all phenomena, that all is the work of God. Whatever happens in the Universe happens because God intends it to be so. This explains all phenomena of the Universe much more easily than Science! One doesn’t have to think and meditate, observe and deduce, experiment and seek truth! God does everything as He fancies. So, no point asking why or how something happens! Thus, gradually, the theory of God started replacing Science. This would have marked the end of mankind. Ironic, isn’t it? The concept created to ensure mankind’s survival, became a threat to its existence! But, thankfully, there were some men who dared to question this authority of God and sought the truth by the ways of Science! That was the beginning of this age old battle between darkness and light, ignorance and knowledge, lies and truth! The battle between Religion and Science!

Since the concept of God is used to explain the phenomena of Nature, let us consider it to be like a theory of Science! We shall try to analyse this God Theory on the parameters of Science and see where it stands!

A Very Poor Theory: - There are many criteria for analysing a scientific theory. Different people adopt different set of criteria for this purpose. But, there are certain criteria that are generally considered to be absolutely essential for any good scientific theory. Let us see how the theory of God fairs in them! The first is that any good scientific theory must be precise. It should not be ambiguous. There should be only one possible interpretation of a statement. The theory of God is very vague! It is not even properly defined! There are lots of interpretations. Everyone has his own way of interpreting this theory! So, it fails the first criterion. Then, a good theory must make precise predictions about the future, given certain parameters. These predictions must be of a nature that they can be verified and proved by observations. For example, if I know the mass of a ball, the force with which I throw it and the angle at which I throw it, Newton’s laws of motion will predict exactly where the ball will land, how much time it will be on air and what will be the shape of the path it will follow! The theory of God fails to make any such predictions. The third criterion is that, the statements of a good theory must be valid universally, without any exceptions. Newton’s laws of motion hold true on earth and moon equally. But the theory of God is so ambiguous that its statements change even from person to person! So, the theory of God fails in all the tests! It is definitely not an acceptable theory!

Arguments against the Existence: - There are many arguments against the existence of God, but I will start with what I believe to be the most powerful one. The fact that there is no proof of existence hardly means anything! There are many scientific entities, like the black hole, for which there is no direct proof of existence! The reason I don’t believe in the existence of God is because it is inconsistent with the well established theories of Science. The theory of God has no solid Scientific or Mathematical base and it directly contradicts all established scientific theories. So, either the proved and verified scientific theories are all wrong or the theory of God is baseless. Even the religious leaders know that the theory of God is weak, so, they tried their best to suppress Science! The vanguards of Science like Copernicus and Galileo and innumerable others were punished for doubting the validity of God and questioning the authority of the church! Even today, the religious leaders often lend their expert opinion on matters of Science, like artificial insemination and cloning!

Many say that Science is not complete. It does not have all the answers. That is true. There are many things that Science can’t explain. The origin of life and that of the Universe is still a mystery! But simply because Science can’t answer these yet doesn’t mean that Science is wrong! The Universe is about 13.5 billion years old. If we consider the discovery of Fire as the birth of Science, even then, Science is no more than 10,000 years old! 13,500,000,000 years of mess-up and 10,000 years of clean-up! And they want us to tell them everything! Is that fair? Give us time! We have already done a pretty neat job! Science will prevail; I have no doubt about that!

The God Pitfall: - Usually, when I am engaged in a conversation with a believer and the arguments of the believer start to weaken, he resorts to a favourite. Even great scientists believed in God! Well, it is actually quite a stupid argument, because, simply because some great scientists believe in God doesn’t mean He exists! It simply means that they are mistaken. I call it the ‘God pitfall’! It is a trap which caught many great minds of the world and caused significant loss to the world of Science.

Johannes Kepler believed that the planets should move in circular orbits around the Sun because he thought that circles were divine! He was the one who showed that they actually move in elliptical orbits, but this was a repulsive idea to him. To him, elliptical orbits were just an ad-hoc hypothesis until he found a way to fit a circular orbit in his theory! He spent many years of his life attempting to achieve this. Needless to say, he failed! So, he wasted many years of his life in search of divinity!

The great Albert Einstein was convinced that the quantum theory was wrong. This belief was not based on scientific rationale, but on a preconceived notion that Nature can’t be uncertain. Although it does not mean God directly, but it was something very similar. In fact, his famous quote, “God does not play dice”, says it all! He spent all his life in a fruitless search of a theory to replace the quantum. Just imagine how much more he could have done if he was not caught up in this irrational belief!

The greatest physicist of all times, the Father of Physics, the magnificent Sir Isaac Newton also fell into this trap. When his theory of Gravitation predicted that the Universe must be expanding or contracting, that it can’t be stable, as was believed then, he refused to believe his own theory and when he failed to explain the stability of the Universe, he said that God must be keeping the Universe stable! If only he had believed his own theory and accepted that the Universe must be unstable, we wouldn’t have had to wait for more than 200 years to know this! There are numerous other examples, but these are some of the most brilliant minds who were deceived! So, we can see how dangerous this deception is!

The Last Word: - Now the scenario is improving. People have become educated and hence, more open minded. They don’t follow the preaching of the scriptures blindly. They ask questions and seek truth! The number of atheists worldwide is increasing day by day! A day will come when the concept of God will be dead. Ancient history, people will call it then!

Science has progressed so much that it has now proved almost inarguably that there is no place for a God! The Universe is so beautiful that to think that it is run by the whims and fancies of someone (read as God) is an insult to its grandeur! The Universe is magnificent and it does not need anyone to create it or tell it how it should develop. It has its own set of rules which are followed without exception! The Universe is poetry in motion and to appreciate its beauty, one needs to understand the language of Science, because that is the language of the Universe!

Love Thy Cosmos.

Sagnik Chakraborty.

24/11/2006