The only blog about science, religion and the status of metaphysics you'll ever need to read

Okay maybe not, but I'm determined it's the last one I'm going to write. I'm absolutely sick of this subject now and want to get back to more interesting topics but I feel the need to lay down my feelings on this once and for all.

I'm getting increasingly worried by the "new atheists". This movement, for any who aren't aware, is the one spearheaded by Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris: top-ranking scientists, who wherever possible decry the stupidity of religion on all grounds. My major issue is how they misrepresent both religion and science. I will also say here that (despite how I may sometimes appear) I think science is a beautiful thing; I am not anti-science, this would be idiotic in the extreme. I also know that there are as many theistic fools trying to push weak arguments to win some fictitious 'battle' as there are atheistic. There is a middle road, but in order to walk that we need to understand exactly what the roles of science and religion are.

Sam Harris' recent article for the Washington Post carries a rational and appealing argument for the destruction of religion based on (a) the naivety of belief in God, (b) the intolerance of some adherents. I'll address his naive and offensive statements about Islam at the end of this blog, for the main part I want to concentrate on his belief that religion has no place in society.

Harris' claims that atheists should emphasise their "reason and intellectual honesty" as opposed to their absence of faith. He believes that grouping themselves as Atheists marginalises their arguments by placing them within a subset, one of many, belief-systems. This is a very complex and tricky issue, and one which requires strict untangling, but once unravelled may isolate the key problem in this entrenched battle of wills.

Rationalism is not a belief system. Or at least, it should not be one. Rationalism is a means of acquiring information. It is a way of thinking which places facts within a particular order, and allows us to draw conclusions from them. The type of conclusion is not determined by rationalism: in this sense, it is open. The key element of rationalism is its emphasis on empiricism and logic. The method demands no assumptions unless justified by one of these two means (usually empirical evidence takes priority, upon which logic is put to work to extrapolate further information). In this way, any truth is known to be grounded on solid inductive principles and understood to be beyond reasonable doubt.

The method and ideal is great: it has enabled massive advances in understanding the natural world, and these have led on to fantastic tools to improve our standard of life, our health, the passage of information and our ability to act in and upon the world.

But, what the proponents of rationalism have to realise is that not being a belief system is a double-edged sword. Because, humanity does need belief systems. The ordering of facts according to logic suits us when we need to approach the world logically. But there is so much more to life than this...logic cannot answer questions of value or meaning, it cannot offer us moral guidance or hope, and it cannot give us a framework in which to contextualise the importance of events in our own lives. Although many people try to bend scientifically discriminated facts to offer answers to these questions, what this actually does is distort the nature of science and go beyond the very remit of empirical-logical inference upon which science depends. Pulling answers about the meaning of life from Darwinian evolution, from quantum physics or from neuroscience misrepresents not only the facts but also the method by which they are acquired. Karl Popper and Mary Midgley (not to mention Ludwig Wittgenstein) have written extensively on the true nature of science, and the kind of questions that are accessible to the scientific method. They all conclude that much of human thought lies outside the realm of rational investigation, and that any attempt to cross this divide results not only in bad science, but also bad everything else (whether the subject be morality, language, religion, art, etc).

The questions of value, meaning and purpose do not have answers within the material world: these are metaphysical in the truest sense, and whether or not we can associate an area of the brain with the act of thinking about these things, the values and systems which these thoughts generate, the social superstructures arising from our mass contemplation on questions of human-import are not material entities, and do not follow the rules laid down by rationalism.

What religious belief systems offer is an approach to living which interprets the world through a particular system of values. What all religions have in common, is a transparent admission of their context for understanding the world and events within it. This is perhaps the one thing lacking from the peculiar form of western rationalism which has come down to us from Greece, via Anselm and Descartes. This peculiar rationalism claims to strip away all context from thought, placing the individual intellect above and beyond everything else: the implicit claim is that the individual can process logic so smoothly as to analyse the world's facts removed from any context. This idea, that the individual mind can reach outside of its own subjectivity and attain a rational peak from whence to view the world as it really is, in all its objective glory, constitutes such a firm base for western thought as to be entirely buried from sight. There is an interesting corrolary if we examine the concept: This idea of the self as a unitary entity comprehending space and time from outside mirrors very effectively the picture of God which the west has struggled so hard to rid itself of. The very idea of a rational intellect perceiving the world and its nature beyond its own particular subjective context has in fact replaced the naive God of centuries hence, with a naive Self. In believing that we as subjective beings within the world can raise ourselves above and beyond subjectivity, we betray not only our arrogance but also the very intellectual tradition which provides the context for western rationalist thought. Rationalism is not a universal, as the Enlightenment claim goes: it is embedded within the western tradition, and has the western tradition embedded within it: the emphasis on individualism is not a universal value. The value of culture is essential to many, and therefore cultural beliefs and nuances are taken much more seriously than in the west; tradition, which Europe claims to have broken with so effectively during the struggles of the Enlightenment and Renaissance, is regarded as essential to any understanding for the rest of the world: it is both naive and arrogant to believe that we as individuals can see so clearly now as to disregard the wisdom developed over millenia by our people. It is naive and arrogant to believe that we can even remove ourselves from it.

The proliferation of scientific attempts to describe the structure of the world should give us a clue as to the nature of the problem. We now have a whole host of competing hypotheses to choose from: multiverses, superpositioned particles, superstrings, two dimensions of time, Boltzmann brains, the universe within a black hole...for every experimental finding there are at least two theories adequately explaining the data, and in terms of the "big picture" we seem to have no way of knowing how to choose between different interpretations of what it looks like. This is because this big picture is simply beyond science's capabilities. It is beyond the capabilities of humans. We cannot objectively comprehend the world of which we are part. The subjective mind, no matter the elegance of its logic or the detail of its micoscopes, cannot step outside the universe and view it "as it really is". Our science is excellent at making predictions, which we can then test and establish with a degree of certitude whether they're true or false. This can lead us to an understanding of how the physical world works within the specific parameters of this action. What this cannot do is answer questions when we do not even know the context, or when the context is outside the physical universe. As different scientists attempt to give an answer to these "big picture" questions, we get a multitude of different pictures in much the same way as different religions offer different takes on the question.

One of the biggest mistakes of the atheist take on religion is that religions are defined principally by their metaphysical claims. The reduction of Christianity down to the doctrine of the trinity, for example. This approach (a) misses so much of what actually constitutes the religious life and (b) sets religion up as a rival to the realist truth claims of science. We must see that religion is not be understood in terms of truth claims about material reality. This is the fundamental mistake which is made by so many on both sides of the theistic divide. What religion does is offer a structure for interpreting life in terms of value and purpose by appeal to a level beyond rational, subjective thought. The structures of religion describe the metaphysical realm to which realism is not relevant: God must not be thought of as a being which we can ascribe existence in the same way we do to a chair or a table. Such ideas, that we can argue about and establish the existence or otherwise of God, demonstrate a dangerous category error which places metaphysics within matter. Metaphysics, of course, covers an enormous amount of ground: The ideals and categories of thought, the structure of logic and number, and the meaning and value of life are non-physical forms to which we can ascribe no temporal or causative relation with material existence. It is useless even to ask the question of whether these things precede spatio-temporal existence, or are generated from within it. It is a waste of intellectual effort to attempt to establish these metaphysics as underlying and guiding matter, or as being mere epiphenomena of human thought processes. They are both, and neither. If we view things from a rationalist-empiricist standpoint (ie, a reductionist material one), then they appear to emerge from the lifeless, inert interplay of material processes: it is matter which somehow generates minds, which then develop metaphysics. If we view things from a logical or mind-based (ie metaphysical; religious) standpoint, then they precede and through the pre-eminent structure of logic and number or transcendental consciousness, inert matter arises as a means of giving expression to these principles through the eventual emergence of individual consciousness: it is for the expression of these eternal principles that matter comes about. Whether we take matter or metaphysics/mind as the prime element of reality depends entirely on how we phrase the question, and according to what rules we answer.

The crucial thing we must realise is that both elements are equally important, and for we humans, as subjective beings, we are accountable to the metaphysical forms just as much as we are to the material. Human life is lived as much within the social noosphere of cultural thought as it is within the material world. It is the metaphysical structures of logic, archetypes, morality, which inform our understanding of life and the way we live. They place restrictions on us just as powerful as the material world, and they cannot be altered (or removed) from our consciousness any more than the limitations of matter can be removed from our bodies. To have minds is to exist within the metaphysical realm of thought-forms and implicit structures of interpretation. We can understand this clearest through maths: even though numbers are an abstraction from the material world, when we begin to investigate the abstract structure of numbers, we discover eternal principles and relationships such as irrational numbers; the sequence of primes; Fibonnaci numbers; degrees of infinity. These structures are inherent within number itself, independent of human experience of the world. Although numbers do not exist in a material sense (even the most simple integers do not exist; they are merely expressed through matter, or abstracted from matter, depending on how we look at it), they have qualities which are independent of human opinion. Irrational numbers such as the square root of two were not invented by humans: they were discovered within the nature of number itself. So it is with all metaphysics. The step we need to take is to disregard claims about 'realism', for this is a red herring. Realism cannot and does not apply to metaphysics. The nature of metaphysical entities however is independent of the minds which conceptualise them. Through the examination of these entities and structures we can discover new things about their nature, and understand better how they influence and effect our lives. Whether we understand mind as an epiphenomenon emerging from material reality, or as the guiding principle underlying it, the metaphysical structures which are expressed through it need to be investigated in order for us to understand the social-mental-cultural world of meaning in which we live.

One cannot really blame those of the new atheist movement for their attack on religion: in part, it is purely defensive. As rationalism has advanced and consumed everything in its wake, religions have assumed the form of rational belief systems in order to survive. This application of religious and scriptural myths to the material world, reflects the precedence which science has given to matter. The current debate over creationism vs evolution in schools is only one area where religious myth is being pushed far beyond its mandate and encroaching onto territory it has no claim to. The right of science over religion in this area should be obvious. Factual material and historical claims must be based on empirical data and reasoned thought, not myth.

Finally, I'd like to quickly address Harris' claims about religious extremism. It's become traditional to blame religion for the terrible crimes of the past, and also for events such as modern day terrorism. What Harris, along with so many others, fails to comprehend is that it is through the tools of science that these hate-crimes have been achieved: if religion is to blame for men wanting to crash airplanes into buildings, then it is science that has provided the ability for men to express anger so effectively. No one blames science for the atom bomb or the gas chamber. These things presumably were sitting dormant, waiting to be discovered; it is not the lack of moral conviction on the part of scientists (or in fact the lack of ingrained morality in science generally) which is at fault here - the blame is solely on the one who authorises their use. Swords, guns, bombs, tanks...all these are the result of science, of people applying the scientific method to manipulate the materials of nature. Why was morality not applied to stop implements of torture being designed and manufactured?

Secondly, in looking solely at the terrorist acts of some Muslims, Harris fails to engage any kind of debate about why people feel this angry, and why the people who provided some of the world's most just, peaceful and tolerant nations and empires have now reached the stage of such desperation that they have resorted to terrorism in order to make their voice heard. Blaming religion for this anger is stupid, plain and simple. In fact it's fucking stupid, but this is what comes of not having looked enough into the context and history that current events have grown from. It's what comes of the west's ignorance of its own traditions of brutality and manipulation, both explicit and covert, leading right up to the present day.

Okay, that's the end of the serious stuff. I needed to get that off my chest.

And now, a little light relief in the form of satire...

Does the Universe Have A Purpose?

This is a response to The John Templeton Foundation's recent panel interview. Correspondents were asked to answer the question "Does the universe have a purpose?". Those interviewed were selected from a variety of disciplines, including astronomy, theology, astrophysics, biochemistry and computer science among others. The answers cover the entire spectrum from categorically No to certainly Yes, many opting simply for 'unsure' or 'possibly'.

The first thing that struck me about the question, was the fuzziness of what was being asked: It seems like a relatively straight-forward question, but once I begin to break it down, I find myself wondering who or what we are expecting an answer from – to which strata of 'reality' are we speaking?

My central point here is that in asking "Does the universe have a purpose?", we need to understand where we are locating the context of the question. Are we attempting to answer for the material structure that we inhabit, are we asking to the universe itself "Do you have a purpose, forget about our ideas, what do you say?"? Or are we asking within the sphere of human culture, does life have a grand (non-subjective) purpose, one imbued by our nature as conscious beings? Or, are we asking individually, do I experience purpose in my life?

These are all very different questions. The first, which many of the correspondents assume is the only angle, presents enormous difficulties. For there to be any 'objective' purpose to the universe (that is, one above and beyond human thought), we must needs postulate some grand power which defines it. As biochemist Christian de Duve points out, the idea demands some anthropomorphic creator-figure, one who has both the power and the will to determine Meaning for all creation. The question then becomes one of theology: an atheist must simply answer 'no', and a theist will almost certainly answer 'yes'. The problem with this interpretation, the objectification of Purpose, is that it forces us to attempt to see beyond our own minds. This begs the question of meaning: to even ask whether there is purpose outside of subjective consciousness is to attempt ourselves to assume a God's-eye-view on reality. How can we, as subjective, particularised minds attempt to state a truth (either positive or negative) outside of subjectivity?

Polymath Paul Davies' answer is particularly thought-provoking on this issue, reminding us that if 'purpose' is a solely human category (as chemist Peter William Atkins claims), then so is every concept employed in the practice of science: whenever we try to say anything about the world, we are applying human principles and ideas to 'objective' reality. Science (in fact, even perception) would be impossible without doing that. We are on a dangerous slope towards solipsism if we begin questioning the validity of concepts simply because they come from our minds.

There is a similar problem with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson's claim that bacteria would view the purpose of human life very differently from ourselves (ie as a mere food source/habitable environment): bacteria would give no answer to the question. I find it hard to believe bacteria could even ask the question. To do so is entirely a human enterprise: of all the world that we know, it is only humans who are 'meaning-making beings'. It is only us who find any need of the concept of 'purpose'.

So yes, of course 'purpose' presupposes a mind to conceive it, whether that mind is the cause of reality or merely the perceiver of it – but we must also ask, does not the term "universe" presuppose a mind to conceive it? In order for there to be a concept 'universe', there must be a subjective mind which is perceiving it and creating concepts based on it. Reality itself, stripped of consciousness, simply is: it makes no claims and generates no concepts. It is not merely the positive assertion of purpose which is beyond objective material reality, but also the negative denial of purpose: To stamp one's own anti-teleological preferences onto a mechanical system is to go far beyond what empirical evidence could possibly entail. As Lawrence M Krauss succinctly states, "The conclusion is in the mind of the beholder, and it is outside of the realm of scientific theory and prediction". Purpose (or lack of it) is a conclusion, it is not a property which can be investigated by material science.

Removing then the theological option, at the opposite end of the spectrum we have pure subjectivity. This third approach makes no grand claims beyond the subject's own opinion, localising the ability to claim purpose within individual consciousness and having no bearing on the structure of objective reality. But one feels this approach is something of an apology for human thought. It commits the same error as the first, in placing human consciousness as an isolated sphere within objectivity – it is subsumed by the 'grander' material Real World, that which is not merely personal opinion. This relativism places all opinions – whatever they are – on the same footing, effectively saying "make your own mind up – it doesn't actually affect anything anyway"

The universe we live in is one determined by culture and the broader social context. We do not live in a universe of particles, bouncing billiard ball-like, or one of quantum fuzziness. We live and act within a sphere of human value, human endeavour, one where organisms exist and interact as part of a web of meaning. Individuals have values, and experience reality through the conceptual substrata of social conditioning. It is this "noosphere", the realm of intellect (both conscious and unconscious, individual and collective) which we experience reality through: the conceptualisation of material properties happens culturally. We experience a cup, not a collection of atoms adhering to each other. We experience the joy and horror of global social events, not meaningless organisms bouncing off each other. It is this broad social context which confers meaning, and this which confers our sense of purpose. Surely, it is within this context that we must locate any search for the answers to this question?

Lawrence M Krauss opens the possibility of empirical evidence for divinely-ordained purpose through the medium of a cosmic "I am here" blazing across the sky. I contend that it is not an "I am here" we should be searching for, but the knowledge that We Are Here. The vain attempt to escape human teleological thinking and place meaning and purpose outside our own intersubjectivity, outside our own value systems, has left us bemused to find there is none. We find ourselves asking 'so we can find no meaning outside of what we think of as meaning?' What would we expect! Material science in this sense seems to want us to take measurements after throwing away the ruler! If we remove the influence of the subjective human mind from what we are perceiving, what data are we left with? What is there to be seen when we are eyeless?

The Value of the "Merely Human"

The problem with science -and what we must now try to counteract- is its disregard for the human mind, for experience, feeling and human categories. Although the theories of quantum mechanics do replace consciousness (or at least the conscious observer) to an important role in the cosmological scheme, we are still left with a somewhat etiolated appreciation of subjectivity. Value, morality, purpose - these things are still beheld as not existing in relation to the "most important" aspect of reality: the material. These things are given a cursory glance as evolutionarily-developed traits selected for their utility, at best something to be enjoyed during our time here, but ultimately not being intrinsically relevant to the world.

The value of religon in this sphere is that it sacralises precisely these "merely human" elements - these qualities are essential not only to human society, but are what the structure of the cosmos depends on. Most religions teach that value is determined outside of human thought, and therefore is a pre-existing structure which we must do our best to abide by - it, in fact, is why we are here. It is the measure by which we are judged. It cannot simply be abnegated by appeal to objectivity.

This centralising of the "uniquely human" is something we must cultivate. Not in the sense of placing humanity (as was implicit at one time) as the rulers of the cosmos, as the mark by which everything else is judged, but by accepting that the powers we have, which we have acquired (or indeed, which are handed on a plate to self-conscious,socially-organising beings such as humans), come with a responsibility to use them wisely, according to the traditions of morality and value which have been passed down to us.

The Laws of Physics and Flexi-History

This article from New Scientist (also apparently published in the Guardian) puts into much better words the scientific basis behind the flexibility of time that I've previously hinted at. It's also very readable, so if you find my introduction boring don't give up on the article too.

In a nutshell, the author (along with several other leading physicists) believe that we have to stop viewing time as a straight line. The classical notion a timeline as immutable past leading inexorably into present, where the choices we make lead into a yet-to-be-decided future is looking increasingly dubious.

Instead, we have to focus attention on the present, the point which we as conscious beings inhabit. This of course would be no earth shattering news to those of the Indian religious tradition, who have always placed the focal point on the subjective 'now' of consciousness. It is a peculiarity of the west (and specifically of the Judeao-Christian tradition) that we attempt to understand time from 'outside'. Instead of placing our attention 'within', inbetween the fuzzy states of past and future, we attempt to begin from a precise objective point (where time began) and progress rationally along the continuum, admitting no difference in quality between our point of direct experience and those of memory/projective imagination. Of course, the rationalist timeline was first given expression in the Torah, the Jews placing the creation at an apparently definite, finite point in the past, from which time and reality has progressed quite happily until we reach the present moment. This was not always understood as a literal truth, mythology only having been reinterpretted literally in the last few hundred years (largely under the Christian/rationalist mindset which has created much of our current status quo). But I'm going to dismount my hobbyhorse because I want to briefly mention another interesting synchronicity before letting you read the article yourselves.

The numerical system provides some valuable insights into this new view of time: If we conceive the 'zero-point' as being the present moment of consciousness, we see that the negative integers and positive integers expand infinitely on either side of us. Given Georg Cantor's work last century on the number line and irrational numbers, can we project some parallel between the structure of infinitely divisible finite spaces (the interplay between rational numbers giving the number line its structure, and the irrationals giving the line its substance), and the unknowable complexity of the transcendental numbers, onto the quantum structure of time itself..?

The flexi-laws of physics

from New Scientist 30 June 2007

by Paul Davies


SCIENCE WORKS because the universe is ordered in an intelligible way. The most refined manifestation of this order is found in the laws of physics, the fundamental mathematical rules that govern all natural phenomena. One of the biggest questions of existence is the origin of those laws: where do they come from, and why do they have the form that they do?

Until recently this problem was considered off-limits to scientists. Their job was to discover the laws and apply them, not inquire into their form or origin. Now the mood has changed. One reason for this stems from the growing realisation that the laws of physics possess a weird and surprising property: collectively they give the universe the ability to generate life and conscious beings, such as ourselves, who can ponder the big questions.

If the universe came with any old rag-bag of laws, life would almost certainly be ruled out. Indeed, changing the existing laws by even a scintilla could have lethal consequences. For example, if protons were 0.1 per cent heavier than neutrons, rather than the other way about, all the protons coughed out of the big bang would soon have decayed into neutrons. Without protons and their crucial electric charge, atoms could not exist and chemistry would be impossible.

Physicists and cosmologists know many such examples of uncanny bio-friendly "coincidences" and fortuitous fine-tuned properties in the laws of physics. Like Baby Bear's porridge in the story of Goldilocks, our universe seems "just right" for life. It looks, to use astronomer Fred Hoyle's dramatic description, as if "a super-intellect has been monkeying with physics". So what is going on?

A popular way to explain the Goldilocks factor is the multiverse theory. This says that a god's-eye-view of the cosmos would reveal a patchwork quilt of universes, of which ours is but an infinitesimal fragment. Crucially, each patch, or "universe", comes with its own distinctive set of local by-laws. Maybe the by-laws are assigned randomly, as in a vast cosmic lottery. It is then no surprise that we find ourselves living in a patch so well suited to life, for we could hardly inhabit a bio-hostile patch. Our universe has simply hit the cosmic jackpot. Those universes that can't support life - the vast majority in fact - go unobserved.

Goldilocks enigma

The multiverse theory is a step forward, but it still leaves a lot unexplained. For a start, there has to be a universe-generating mechanism to make all those cosmic patches. There also has to be a process whereby each patch acquires a set of by-laws, perhaps at random, perhaps not. These requirements demand their own laws - which maybe we should refer to as federal laws or meta-laws - to govern the creation of law-driven universes.

In itself that is not an overriding objection. Cosmologists have concocted a way for an endless stream of big bangs to occur spontaneously throughout space and time, each triggering the birth of a "bubble" universe somewhere and somewhen in the boundless multiverse, with each bubble governed internally by its very own by-laws. However, their calculations appeal to quantum mechanics, relativity and a host of other conventional oddments from the standard tool kit of theoretical physics. Accepting such meta-laws as given - true without reason or explanation - merely shifts the mystery of the laws of physics in our universe up a level, to that of the meta-laws in the multiverse.

The basic difficulty can be traced back to the traditional concept of a physical law. Since at least the time of Isaac Newton, the laws of physics have been treated as immutable, universal, eternal relationships - infinitely precise mathematical rules that transcend the physical universe and inhabit an abstract other-worldly realm.

These perfect rules were supposedly imprinted on the universe - somehow - from outside, at the moment of cosmic creation, and haven't changed an iota since. In particular, the laws care nothing for what is actually happening in the universe, however violent the physical processes may be. So the universe depends on the laws, but the laws are strangely independent of the universe.

Four hundred years on, physicists still cling to this model of physical law, even though they have no idea what the external source of the laws might be. So long as science appeals to something outside the universe, we must abandon any hope of ultimately understanding why the universe is as it is. A large element of mystery will lie forever beyond our reach.

There is, however, another possibility: relinquish the notion of immutable, transcendent laws and try to explain the observed behaviour entirely in terms of processes occurring within the universe. As it happens, there is a growing minority of scientists whose concept of physical law departs radically from the orthodox view and whose ideas offer an ideal model for developing this picture. The burgeoning field of computer science has shifted our view of the physical world from that of a collection of interacting material particles to one of a seething network of information. In this way of looking at nature, the laws of physics are a form of software, or algorithm, while the material world - the hardware - plays the role of a gigantic computer.

Perfect past

The mathematics of the laws may be the same, but the change in perspective leads to profoundly different conclusions, as we discover when we ask just how powerful the cosmic computer may be. Every computer's performance is limited by the finite speed of its processors and the finite storage capacity of its memory. The universe is no exception.

Bits of information, even in the subatomic domain, cannot be flipped faster than a maximum rate permitted by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. Meanwhile the storage capacity depends on the physical size of the observable universe, which is limited to the maximum distance light can have travelled since the big bang 13.7 billion years ago. From this, Seth Lloyd of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge has calculated that the observable universe can have processed no more than 10¹²⁰ bits of information since its birth.

Does it matter that the universe commands only finite computational resources? Maybe not to the traditional view of the laws of physics, according to which Mother Nature computes the action of her laws in a transcendent heaven of infinitely precise mathematical relationships. But if we replace this highly idealised view with one in which nature computes in the real universe, then Lloyd's bound has serious implications. In effect, we have no reason to suppose any physical law can be more accurate than 1 part in 10¹²⁰. Beyond that we can expect the law to break down and become fuzzy.

For most practical purposes Lloyd's number is so big it might as well be infinite. For example, the law of conservation of electric charge has been tested to only about one part in a trillion, still 108 powers of 10 too crude to reveal any possible breakdown arising from the finite information bound.

However, Lloyd's bound isn't fixed: it grows with time, and at the instant of the big bang it was 0. At the time the large-scale structure of the universe was being laid down during the first split second, the bound was still only about 10²⁰ - possibly small enough to have cosmological consequences. So we are led to a picture in which the laws of physics are inherent in the physical universe, and emerge with it. They start out unfocused, but rapidly sharpen and zero in on the form we observe today as the universe grows.

Flexi-laws of this sort are not a new idea. They were proposed 30 years ago by the physicist John Wheeler. The way he expressed it is that the laws of physics were not "cast in tablets of stone, from everlasting to everlasting". Rather, they emerged over time, congealing from the ferment of the big bang.

Can the flexibility in the laws explain the Goldilocks enigma? Is there enough wiggle room for the universe to somehow engineer its bio-friendliness? Freeman Dyson, one of the pioneers in the study of the biological fine-tuning mystery, wrote that the more he learned about the various accidents of physics and cosmology that permit life to arise, "the more it seems that in some sense the universe knew we were coming". Dyson's dramatic assertion raises the obvious question: how? In the first split second, when the laws were in the process of settling down, how could the universe "know about" life and consciousness coming along billions of years later? How can life today be relevant to the physics of the very early universe?

Surprisingly it can, thanks to the weirdness of quantum mechanics. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle says that even if you know the state of an atom at one moment, there is an irreducible uncertainty about what its properties will be when you observe them at a later moment. One way of expressing this is to say that the atom has many possible futures encompassed within the overall fuzziness of quantum uncertainty. What's more, the principle works just as well for the past as for the future, so an atom has many possible histories leading up to its present state. By the rules of quantum physics, all these parallel realities must meld together to yield the present state of the atom.

The same general conclusion holds if we apply quantum mechanics to the entire universe - a subject known as quantum cosmology, made famous by the work of Stephen Hawking. Since we cannot know the quantum state at the start of the universe, we must work backwards in time from our present observations and infer the past.

As Hawking has emphasised, it is a mistake to think there is a single, well-defined cosmic history connecting the big bang to the present state of the universe (New Scientist, 22 April 2006, p 28). Rather, there will be a multiplicity of possible histories, and which histories are included in the amalgam will depend on what we choose to measure today. "The histories of the universe depend on the precise question asked," Hawking said in a paper last year with Thomas Hertog (www.arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0602091). In other words, the existence of life and observers today has an effect on the past. "It leads to a profoundly different view of cosmology, and the relation between cause and effect," claims Hawking.

We can illustrate these abstract ideas from quantum physics with the help of a concrete demonstration suggested 25 years ago by Wheeler. His experiment is a variant of Thomas Young's famous 200-year-old double-slit experiment, designed to reveal the wave nature of light. A pinpoint source of light illuminates a screen punctured by a pair of parallel slits, projecting onto a second screen beyond. Light spreading out from each slit overlaps with that from the other. Where the light from both slits arrives at the image screen in phase, the waves reinforce to produce a bright band. Where they arrive out of phase, they interfere destructively, producing a dark band. The series of bright and dark bands are called interference fringes.

Mystery sets in when you turn the brightness right down. According to quantum theory, light may also be considered to consist of photons, which behave like a stream of particles. So what happens if you allow only one photon at a time to traverse the apparatus? Experiments show that although it takes a lot longer, an interference pattern does build up on the photographic screen, one photon at a time. Presumably each photon passes through only one slit, yet somehow it appears to "interfere with itself" and contribute to the pattern.

A wily experimenter might decide to place detectors at the slits to see which one each photon goes through. Nature, however, outmanoeuvres us. Whenever you determine the path of the photons, no interference pattern results. So you have a choice: look to see where the photon is heading and destroy its wavelike behaviour, or choose not to look, and allow the photon to manifest the wave aspect of its character. It essentially boils down to a choice of particle or wave. The photon can be both, but not at the same time. The experimenter gets to decide which.

So far so good. The novel twist that Wheeler added is that you can delay your decision to look at the wave or particle aspect until long after the light has passed through the slits. Using a pair of telescopes placed at the image screen, you can look back at the slits and infer which one any given photon emerged from. Do this and you destroy the interference pattern. In effect, the observation you make affects the nature of the past - specifically, whether the photon behaved as a wave or a particle. Physicists call this strange phenomenon "quantum post-selection".

There is a temptation to assume that the light "really was" either a wave or a particle in the past, but quantum physics denies this. It is simply not possible to ascribe a well-defined past to this system. Rather, your decision to make a particular observation - what Hawking meant by "the precise question asked" - determines the nature of the past. Crucially, however, the delayed-choice experiment cannot be used to change the past, or to send information back in time.

This aspect of quantum weirdness may appear startling, but it has been tested by experiments and found to be correct. In such experiments the quantum reach into the past is only a few nanoseconds, but in principle it could be extended to billions of years. And when it comes to quantum cosmology, it can penetrate right back to the big bang itself.

So how can this backward-in-time feature of quantum mechanics explain the bio-friendliness of the universe? Well, obviously we can rule out from the multiplicity of quantum histories any that don't lead to life, because that would conflict with the basic fact of our own existence. However, in the standard quantum cosmology advocated by Hawking, all of the alternative histories, without exception, conform to exactly the same laws of physics. So while a photon travelling from a source to a screen can take many different paths, the actual laws of motion that govern its path remain the same whichever route it takes.

Wheeler's idea was more radical. He claimed that the existence of life and observers in the universe today can help bring about the very circumstances needed for life to emerge by reaching back to the past through acts of quantum observation. It is an attempt to explain the Goldilocks factor by appealing to cosmic self-consistency: the bio-friendly universe explains life even as life explains the bio-friendly universe.

Flexi-laws

As long as the laws of physics are fixed, as they are in Hawking's cosmology, their enigmatic bio-friendliness is left out of this explanatory loop. But with flexi-laws of the sort advocated by Wheeler, the way lies open for a self-consistent explanation. The fuzzy primordial laws focus in on precisely the form needed to give rise to the living organisms that eventually observe them. Cosmic bio-friendliness is therefore the result of a sort of quantum post-selection effect extended to the very laws of physics themselves.

"As long as the laws of physics are fixed, their enigmatic biofriendliness is left out. Bring in flexi-laws and it's a different story"

Wheeler's ideas are far from properly worked out. They remain, as he quaintly referred to them, "an idea for an idea". However several theorists, including Yakir Aharonov, Jeff Tollaksen and others at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, and myself are attempting to place the concept of flexi-laws and quantum post-selection on a sound mathematical footing.

How can we test these outlandish ideas? If the fidelity of the laws of physics really is subject to a cosmological bound, then the structure of the universe might betray some remnant of the substantial primordial fuzziness. A more direct test could come from the phenomenon of quantum entanglement, in which the quantum states of a collection of particles are linked in such a manner that an observation performed on one affects all the others simultaneously.

The key point about an entangled state is that it requires many more parameters to define it. For example, 10 atoms may have their spins aligned with or against a magnetic field. In a non-entangled state, you only need 10 bits of information to define the state for each atom. But if the atoms are entangled, you must specify the values of 2¹⁰, or 1024, parameters.

As the number of particles goes up, so the number of defining parameters escalates. A state with 400 entangled particles blows the Lloyd limit - it requires more bits of information to specify it than exist in the entire observable universe. If one takes seriously the inherent uncertainty in the laws implied by Lloyd's limit, then a noticeable breakdown in fidelity should manifest itself at the level of 400 entangled particles. Such a state is by no means far-fetched. Entangled states of about a dozen particles have already been created, and experimenters have set their sights on 10,000 as part of the effort to build a quantum computer

In the orthodox view, the laws of physics are floating in an explanatory void. Ironically, the essence of the scientific method is rationality and logic: we suppose that things are the way they are for a reason. Yet when it comes to the laws of physics themselves, well, we are asked to accept that they exist "reasonlessly". If that were correct, then the entire edifice of science would ultimately be founded on absurdity. By bringing the laws of physics within the compass of science, and fusing nature and its laws into a mutually self-consistent explanation, we have some hope of understanding why the laws are what they are. In addition, we can begin to glimpse how we, the observers of this remarkable universe, fit into the great cosmic scheme.

Programmable Matter

So, scientists are always complaining that their funding keeps getting cut, but when they do get money what do they spend it on?

Well apparently, new ways of manipulating elementary particles to create previously 'impossible' forms of matter...and then, they find ways to change the kind (and therefore properties) of matter, at the flick of a switch.

Okay, so it only works so far in two dimensions but i still think the ability to create 'artificial atoms' and change their structure at will is pretty impressive.

The practice (this isn't a theory. this is actually happening) draws on quantum theory, and also has significant applications for quantum computing as if we can control the structure and flow of electrons between these 'artificial atoms' then the size of silicon chips no longer limits processing power.

Computer scientists have placed the date 2020 as both the point when we will be unable to further enhance computer power by reducing the size of the components....and the point at which computers will begin, if their trajectory continues, to outstrip humans in both intelligence and humanness.

I should make clear at this point that the possibility of computers actually taking over from humans; ie, becoming self-aware and beginning to manipulate their own nature and therefore destiny, while being science fiction to most of us, is treated as a virtual certainty (no pun intended) by professional computer scientists at institutions actually conducting the research and defining the future of computers.

My own thoughts? Let's take a look around. Humanity faces some very serious decisions over the next decade. But it seems to me like we've already given up on progressing beyond our naive, childish phase, our bullying, judgmentalism and irreperably selfish ways will be the end of us. What makes me most sad, is that some people have been trying to show us our potential for centuries.

"A great miracle, O Asklepios, is man" said Hermes Trismegistus two centuries ago. Along with every other mystic, he (or whoever wrote the Gnostic treatise Asklepios) understood that divinity is not outside of man..it is within. It is our own adulthood, waiting for us to mature sufficiently and take on the responsibility that this demands.

This is not an abstract, it is a fundamental to do with our own nature, and it relates to every individual on earth. We all have the responsibility of this decision - to grow up and become who we really are, or stay asleep, daydreaming and lost in transitory distractions...and let the mantle of evolution pass onto another, more willing entity.


You can read the article on programmable matter from Wired here.

You can read the Gnostic gospels found at Nag Hammadi here.

You can keep up to date with new developments in physics here (and you really should).

Occam's Razor

is not a law, I don't care how many people say it. It's a theory, and one that is demonstrably false as often as it is true. Rationalists tend to jump on Occam's Razor in every argument in order to underpin a reductionist-materialism, but the simple facts are: 1.The universe does not care how many parts or entities are used in any given system. Needless complexity is often present in reality. 2.The 'mental monism' of Bishop Berkeley et al (the idea that only Mind exists, that the appearance of matter is just a function of the true, incorporeal, reality) passes Occam's Razor better than any kind of materialism could hope to. This does not affect the truth or otherwise of a non-materialist viewpoint, and neither does it challenge the principle of the Razor. It merely establishes the theory's neutrality. Now stop it, I don't want to have to say this again. The discussion went as follows:

		Nasaka: Your last blog was pro-materialism.

	Ayin:	This one isn't anti-materialist; I was simply trying to establish that Occam's Razor does not always tow the rationalist-scientific line. When taken to its logical conclusion the theory would best support a completely non-materialist world view as the existence of mind (or spirit; or "geist"; or God) alone simplifies the universe far more than the multi-parted nature of matter can. But like I say, this doesn't mean that anti-materialism is correct; because Occam's Razor, despite the way many people seem to use it, is only an Idea That Someone Once Thought Up. It has no grander significance than that, and is by no means either part of the structure of reality or a self-evident truth.

	Nasaka:	which do you personally hold to be true?

	Ayin:	What I was trying to express with the previous blog ('Matter') was that neither materialism nor its opposite are wholly satisfactory. They are based on human perception and ideas, and the truth lies beyond the duality - the two are united on a higher plane of understanding, so to speak, where both matter and spirit are exposed as being different ways of understanding the same one thing, which is Being...or, Becoming.

	Nasaka:	nut butters, or jellies?

	Ayin	Jelly is made from gelatine. Nut butter all the way for me. But my personal morality doesn't affect the innate structure of reality, if that's what you're trying to get at.

	Nasaka	oh you british! by jellies I mean wobbly fruit spreads.

	Ayin	OK. I couldn't see the relevance of the original comment but now it's much clearer.

	Khuno	Just a small point: Berkeley's idealism endorsed the existence of minds and ideas. External objects exist (which is why it is an empirical doctrine), but they are maintained within a mind. This mind was explicitly cited as God's mind by Berkeley. Occam's razor is quite useful in determining whether a scientific theory has practical applications by making type/token distinctions in the theory's ontology, i.e., by classing or grouping the entities of the theory. The more sophisticated a theory prohibits general application and testability.

	Ayin	A valid point about Occam's Razor. I would not question its usefulness, my point was merely that it is not something that can be thrown against any statement. Its usefulness is not absolute and is limited to the empirical sciences. My understanding of Berkeley is that he sought to remove all non-empirically verifiable statements from philosophy (such as Newton's force of gravity, an internal property of objects which we have no access to) and replace all these causal mechanisms with the action of God in maintaining an apparently mechanical, 'cause-effect' universe.

Khuno

And what Berkeley meant by "external object" is not "that which can exist unperceived". He meant collections of sense data or a single sense datum--which by definition cannot exist independent from a mind.