Pilgrimage ~ Day 8

Sir Fred Hoyle was an astronomer who died in 2001 and who was noted primarily for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis as well as his often controversial stances on scientific matters and in particular his rejection of the 'Big Bang' theory.

Hoyle had disagreed on interpretations put forward as to why the universe is expanding. He found the idea that the universe had a beginning to be pseudoscience, “for it’s an irrational process and can’t be described in scientific terms”. Instead, in 1948, he began to argue for the universe as being in a ‘steady state’. This theory tried to explain how the universe could be eternal and essentially unchanging whilst still having the galaxies we observe moving away from each other. 

Hoyle’s explanation for the appearance of new matter boiled down to the existence of what he dubbed the “creation field” or just the “C-field”.  Hoyle calculated that the large amount of carbon in the universe, which makes it possible for any kinds of carbon-based life-forms to exist, demonstrates that a particular nuclear reaction, one which generates carbon from helium would require the carbon nucleus to have very specific resonance energy and spin for it to work. One of Hoyle’s nucleosynthesis papers introduced the use of the ‘anthropic principle’.

Hoyle later wrote, “Would you not say to yourself, ‘some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly miniscule. A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question.”

After considering what he thought of as a very remote probability of Earth-based abiogenesis (a theory of the process of life arriving from non-living matter such as simple organic compounds) Hoyle had concluded: “If one proceeds directly and straightforwardly in this matter, without being deflected by a fear of incurring the wrath of scientific opinion, one arrives at the conclusion that biomaterials with their amazing measure of order must be the outcome of intelligent design. No other possibility I have been able to think of…”

The anthropic principle has been defined as the ‘philosophical consideration that observations of the universe must be compatible with the conscious and sapient life that observes it.’ The strong anthropic principle states that the universe’s fundamental constants happen to fall within the narrow range conceived of as being compatible with life, because the universe is compelled to eventually have conscious and sapient life emerge within it. As Carl Sagan said, “The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.”

The weak anthropic principle is that the universe’s fine tuning is the result of selection bias, i.e. only in a universe capable of eventually supporting life will there be living beings capable of observing and reflecting upon it. Such arguments draw upon the principle of a multiverse, for there to be a population of universes to select from and from which selection bias could occur.

The author, inventor and futurist Sir Arthur C Clarke, who died in 2008 said, "The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life - much less intelligence - beyond this Earth does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive; we may well be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms, while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime." 

The fundamental nature of questions such as "is there life beyond death, is there fate or free will, am I whole or embedded in a process of becoming, is there an ultimate purpose or meaning of life, beyond that which I am able to determine?" has such resonance that it has persisted in the minds and heart of humanity for centuries. It suggests that we are borne investigators. We want to know. We may take different paths and not always agree on our findings. The strength of our resolve and our commitment to know may vary. But out of this is borne our unique world view and is the depth of our experience with reality. 

It is a particular legacy of the Scientific Revolution that so much of humanity prides itself today on its capacity to be rational. Rationalism has been defined as ‘a methodology or a theory in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive. Rationalists believe that reality has an intrinsically logical structure. Because of this, rationalists argue that certain truths exist and that the intellect can directly grasp these truths’.

To drop in another quote from Sir Arthur C Clarke, "The Information Age offers much to mankind, and I would like to think that we will rise to the challenges it presents. But it is vital to remember that information - in the sense of raw data - is not knowledge, that knowledge is not wisdom, and that wisdom is not foresight. But information is the first essential step to all of these."

As Sir Arthur C Clarke has pointed towards, it is possible that we can be immersed in a field of information, be a reputable scholar or a guardian of doctrine, and yet despite our having access to such information that we value as knowledge or are referred to as knowledgeable ~ it is not knowledge that we have, but an outer shell or a construct. Something to ponder is that when we have not yet grown into and some might say allowed for or become one with knowledge, but instead allowed it to define us, then wisdom seems to elude. Knowledge can divide us, but wisdom will unite.

Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell is an astrophysicist and whilst as a postgraduate student in the late 1960s, made one of the greatest astronomical discoveries of the 20^th century, by being the first to discover radio pulsars. As a child, Bell had attended a Quaker girls’ boarding school and was impressed by her physics teacher who advised her, “You don’t have to learn lots and lots … of facts; you just learn a few key things, and … then you can apply and build and develop from those …”

What seems to be at stake in this Age of Information is the nature of how we choose to relate to what is being presented to and through us. An ability to discern, an application of critical thinking and a willingness to pause and reflect, will be immensely valuable attributes in our being able to perceive reality. Meaning that if we choose to make assumptions that we know all that there is to be known about something and simply discard what doesn’t seem relevant or to make sense, we are not being rational, but irrational. 

One question which has always intrigued me is, “How is that ancient cultures were able to construct vast monuments from stone and with incredible accuracy of astronomical alignment, given that a popular and scholarly world view today, is that the kind of technology required has evolved and would not have been available to these earlier tribes of people?”

As far as I can tell, we can’t determine with precision when such monuments were built, by whom or indeed for what purpose, other than by making assumptions or offering opinions. There remains a mystery and there is value in diving into mystery, not necessarily to take hold of any data that we might gather, but to allow the mystery to reveal its secrets to us and as any self-respecting alchemist might say, ‘for us to be changed through that process’. Such is a hallmark of 'gnosis', which is a Greek noun for knowledge.