Physics, God, and Rumination

There is a Newsweek Interview with theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg on the MSNBC.com which discusses the Large Hadron Collider, Physics, and God. And while you really ought to read the whole thing for yourself there are a few select quotes on which I would like to ruminate.

"As science explains more and more, there is less and less need for religious explanations. Originally, in the history of human beings, everything was mysterious. Fire, rain, birth, death, all seemed to require the action of some kind of divine being. As time has passed, we have explained more and more in a purely naturalistic way. This doesn't contradict religion, but it does takes away one of the original motivations for religion."

This weekend peoples watched 300. In the film King Leonidas must consult the Oracle before he may go to war with Xerxes and so defend Sparta. The Oracle says that Sparta must not go to war so that the Carneian Festival can be observed and not interrupted. When we watch the film we think "He had to consult an Oracle? That's fucking stupid." Yet we watched the film on Easter Weekend as a result of my having Good Friday off.

That situation intrigues me. We acknowledge the history of religion and know damn well that its utility decreases as naturalistic explanations of the world in which we live are discovered, tested, and found to be useful and empirically grounded; we can read Greek mythology and think "Wow. That is silly". But some people still do it; still religion. It is bizarre that we can watch 300 and recognize the idiocy of Leonidas having to consult the Oracle at Delphi before defending Sparta from Xerxes yet after watching the film we can go to church and sign praises to invisible sky daddy and listen to sermons from our own little Oracles. And that duality, that lack of self-awareness, is completely absurd. It's a miniature example of the quote, "When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

The problem, though, is the requirement of understanding which to this day still eludes some people.

"We don't see any purpose dictated to human beings in nature. Human life does have a purpose, but it is a purpose that we invent for ourselves. It takes a certain act of courage to look at nature, not see any plan for human beings in there and yet go on and live good lives, love each other, create beautiful things, explore the universe. All these take more courage without having some divine plan that we discover, but one that we rather create for ourselves."

This is something upon which I have dwelt for a few years now. Purpose is the result of beings who purpose and purpose only ever happens when purposing beings purpose; We invent purpose. And while we can dismiss the notion of whether or not courage is involved, since that complicates the conversation considerably, we are left with the truth that purpose is something we create and maintain; purpose does not exist apart from our saying purpose exists.

And I am not entirely sure how it is that people can miss this and belabor the notion that purpose comes from something other than ourselves.

"I don't think that we can ever prove that God does not exist. But if he does exit it might be possible to prove it."

If I had a craw this would be the thing forever stuck within said craw. It is impossible to prove a universal negative; this is simply how proof works. But the inability to prove a universal negative does not somehow indicate that the universal negative claim is false.

If we claim that there are no ducks we can look at the world in which we live and seek out ducks (a potentially hazardous venture as ducks are omnivores). If we find ducks then the claim "there are no ducks" is incorrect. This is simple enough. If we claim, however, that there are no fuchsia ducks and after seeking said fuchsia ducks we find no fuchsia ducks this does not mean that there are no fuchsia ducks. Since "there are no fuchsia ducks" is a universal claim our inability to find fuchsia ducks within the particular area in which we searched does not indicate some flaw with the universal claim.

Given that there are a nigh-infinite number of universal negative claims it is nonsense to suggest that our inability to prove "There is no God" is somehow uniquely indicative of the existence of a God. God's existence, based upon the inability to prove a universal negative, is just as substantial as the existence of fuchsia ducks and, really, anything else one desires to pull from one's ass.

When we combine these ideas and ruminate on the concepts at large and the manner in which they interact we are left with the notion from yesterday's rant about perinatal hospisces: observe the world in which we live and live in accord with the world in which we live.

And that is really not a difficult task provided that you shut the fuck up and pay attention.