You get the picture; scientific cosmology has more or less nailed it:
Astronomers have discovered six galaxies ensnared in the cosmic “spider’s web” of a supermassive black hole soon after the big bang, according to research that could help explain the development of these enigmatic monsters. (The Australian, page 5 October 3-4, 2020, Giant black hole found in a cosmic spider’s web)
It’s a given: whatever truth there is to be found about the universe, look to theoretical physics first. No other account of origins, or where things are going to, or what the universe is, counts any more. Despite the fact that cosmology has been an important focus of religious, artistic and philosophical thinking right throughout the ages, now only scientific cosmology has an authentic voice.
We say there is no conflict between science and religion, that it’s just a myth. But the universe of scientific cosmology is no universe we want to live in. Martin Amis put it pretty succinctly when his narrator in God’s Dice, mulling over the contradictions of his London neighbour, the enigmatic Bujak, mused:
Staring up at our little disc of stars (and perhaps there are better residential galaxies than our own: cleaner, safer, more gentrified), I sensed only the false stillness of the black nightmap, its beauty concealing great and routine violence, the fleeing universe with matter racing apart, exploding to the limits of space and time, all tugs and curves, all hubble and doppler, infinitely and eternally hostile ….
It’s pretty clear to me that, looking at it objectively, the material universe of science has no meaning, no purpose, no hope. It gets off to a great start: as profound an event as a “big bang”, no less! Bang, bang, bang! No intention in the act of creation, no great artistry, no design, no great God-moment, no “Yes, I think I’ll create a universe”. No motivation, no end in sight, no nothing. Just a big bang – bang, bang, bang!
Well, there is an end in sight, come to think of it, an inevitable, default end: the heat death of the universe. The ultimate climate change: things might get hotter for a while, locally, but eventually they’ll cool down, terminally, forever. Something to look forward to, surely?!
Let me cheer you up, then, by blowing the whistle on scientific cosmology, and explain, among other things, why Martin Amis’s narrator in God’s Dice has, thankfully, got it essentially wrong.
Have you ever heard of the lovely expression “the map is not the territory”? Usually it refers to mental maps we make of reality, and our tendency, from time to time, to confuse these maps with reality itself. Our beautiful maps are oh-so functional – they help us navigate the day to day realities and challenges of life – yet because we always bring them to bear when we experience the world, we are constantly in danger of falling into the trap of thinking they are descriptive. Woe unto you who confuses the map with the territory – it would be better if a millstone were tied around your neck and you were thrown into the river!
Science is a whole big set of maps. The most useful, functional maps you could get, ever invented. Scientific cosmology is one of these maps. Woe unto you, then, who confuse the marvellous maps of science with the territory. This is the reality of the conflict between science and religion – no myth intended.
The ancients looked up at the night sky, and, yes, they saw the heartlessness and hopelessness that Martin Amis’s narrator saw, but they also saw something else. Maybe it was just because they wanted to, because like you and me they were inveterate yearners, but they saw a connection with something bigger than themselves, a connection which they had a strong sense could be the key to a better life. Thus they didn’t just see glistening pin-pricks of light (even though that’s all there really was to see), they saw the gods, or God, a miraculous design, and a riddle they might be able to, perchance, one day, decode, to bring hope and meaning to their lives, maybe; or at least to get them out of the particular navigational pickle they happened to be in at that moment – up some creek or other without a paddle, usually. They were clutching at straws, of course, but their straw-clutching led, on one hand, to lots of beautiful religion, and, on the other, eventually, to scientific cosmology.
Scientific cosmology is our latest attempt to solve the riddle of the night sky, no more, no less. The problem is that it has long gone beyond the practicality of terrestrial navigation, or, for that matter, navigation within this little solar system of ours. Science is unparalleled in its ability to find effective ways of doing things to the world – its usefulness is the stuff of legends – but the problem with scientific cosmology is that it is purely theoretical and speculative – you can’t actually do anything with it.
Which makes it, handily, virtually impossible to refute, to falsify. You can derive, mathematically, the existence of something like a “black hole”, for example, and you know it’s just a matter of time before you find one. The theory tells you exactly the sort of evidence to look for, exactly what sort of evidence would be there if a black hole actually existed, then you go looking for that evidence. Seek and ye shall find. The problem is that you have gone right round in a circle – you’ve interpreted the evidence before you’ve even got it! Forget about any other interpretation of the evidence; we’ve got the one we want. Chalk up another victory for our lovely theory:
The newly discovered black hole – which dates from when the universe was not even a billion years old – weighs in at one billion times the mass of our sun and was spotted by the European Southern Observatory.
Good spotting!
The Wikipedia article on cosmology tells us:
Theoretical astrophysicist David N. Spergel has described cosmology as an “historical science” because “when we look out in space, we look back in time” due to the finite nature of the speed of light.
As if “historical science” was not actually an oxymoron! As if Spergel was not admitting that cosmology is not actually science at all. In fact cosmology is a mishmash of scientific ideas which are more or less experimentally verifiable, and ideas about history which are certainly not.
Scientific cosmology is really an historical theory, not scientific; of the same order as, for example, dialectical materialism (Marx also claimed his approach was scientific), or Creationism. Let us lay bare its ideological assumptions. Front and centre is the big one: the entire universe is purely and solely material, always has been, always will be. This is the same pragmatic assumption all science makes, except that in the case of scientific cosmology it is extrapolated beyond the confines of our science laboratories here and now on planet earth, to the whole historical cosmos. If you don’t think that’s a long bow, I don’t know what is. Think about it: the assumption of exclusive materiality is not just for the entire extent of the universe now, it is for all time as well, past and future. It is effectively for an infinity of infinities.
Let’s be really clear about the precise nature of scientific cosmology’s over-reach. A nice brew of elementary particle physics, celestial mechanics, general relativity and observational astronomy is brought together and extrapolated into a general theory of the universe for all time, which is now reported in newspapers as if it was the only authentic voice on what’s going on out there (and in here). But what is missing from this brew? Well, probably the most important element of all: soul.
Yes, I’m sorry to say, soul. On one hand I’m referring to the entire history of religious, artistic and philosophical conceptions of the cosmos, which science nonchalantly throws out the window. At its most minimal level, this is the atheist scientist – take Brian Close, for example, he of the “how to live an entirely meaningful life in an entirely meaningless universe” fame – who looks up at the night sky and still feels a sense of wonder and awe, in spite of the obvious fact that, as Martin Amis’s narrator frankly expresses, the scientific cosmos is much more awful than awesome.
On the other hand, I am referring to the human soul, and maybe, eventually, to God. I’m sure you’re horrified. But if humans are merely material, biological machines, rather than living, immaterial souls (in a material body of course), then it is the agnostic writer Martin Amis, speaking through his narrator, rather than the atheist scientist, who is actually being scientific about things. As soon as you admit the reality of the soul, however, all cosmological bets are off, and even God becomes possible again (the “soul of the world”, as Roger Scruton so nicely puts it). You imaginatively project into the unknown emptiness of the night sky a sense of wonder and hope that is really nothing more nor less than your own inner yearning for there to be a meaning to it all.
When, in this way, you add soul back into the ontological mix, you move from a one-eyed materialism – the scientific vision of things – to a two-eyed, clear-eyed dualism. Seeing the world through dualist eyes entails an imaginative transformation of both your perception and your thinking. We religious believers are well used to pulling off this party trick. Forever we have been imagining a wonderful God, operating behind the scenes, so to speak, as the source and fundamental reality of everything. God appeared briefly in material form in the person of Jesus, but otherwise he has always been a being whom we encounter imaginatively. So that when the atheist scientist experiences a sense of beauty and wonder in contemplating the cosmos, he or she is actually having such an encounter, unintentionally of course, and in spite of the materialist blinkers she or he is wearing!
What really is out there; where did it all come from in the beginning; where is it all going to in the future? You tell me. Scientific cosmology is a limited map of the territory, one which will probably never ever be put to use and tested, so don’t set too much store by it. My guess is that in the future, as we embrace the reality of the soul, we’ll be able to draw both on scientific cosmology and on all those lovely religious, artistic and philosophical traditions we’ve more or less abandoned, to develop a much richer and more meaningful cosmological vision. At the very least we’ll know that the secrets of life, the universe and everything are not to be found merely by peering up a telescope, but by plumbing the depths of something that is much closer to home, closer to the bone – our own soul.
November 2020