Chapter 15          A Summing Up Of The Case So Far

At this stage of my argument, then, let me sum up for a while before I attempt to move on. In order to finish the argument, I am going to have to go backward and look at some of the assumptions that are implicit in any case that is based on Science before I can go on and bring all of the threads together.

What are we committing to if we agree with the points argued so far and especially with what the whole argument assumes and builds on? There are three ideas that are essential.

In the first place, a basic assumption – for many modern thinkers, an implicit basic assumption that they are not consciously aware of and do not examine -  is that the universe is a single, integrated system. All of its parts connect to all of its other parts: one set of laws that are all consistent with each other rules the universe. We don’t understand the whole system of natural laws yet, but we implicitly believe that the laws of Science apply on Mars and Gliese 581g as precisely as those laws apply here on Earth. (Dennis Overbye sums up the debate in a 2007 New York Times article.) (1.)

To some readers this assumption may seem so self-evident as to make any stating of it silly. But such a reaction is a hasty, careless one. Accepting this basic assumption of Science – in conjunction with a few of the other conclusions argued so far in this book – has implications for all that we think and do.

To be even plainer, let's consider this idea that our universe is all one system in comparison to the idea’s alternatives. In short, let's ask: “As opposed to what?”

  artist's conception of the Gliese 581 system 

The alternative view of our universe sees it as being made up of areas or dimensions or epochs in which different sets of rules apply or once did apply. This was the view of many of our forbears. They saw the universe as being run by many varied, and mutually hostile, gods, each with his or her own realm. For example, for the ancient Greeks, Poseidon ruled the sea. He could make storms at will and bring them down on almost any group of luckless mariners. Hades ruled the underworld, Zeus the skies, and so on. Hades took Persephone down to his realm, and even Zeus could only negotiate to get her back for half of the year. From this quarrel came the seasons, because two bratty brothers, who happened to be supernatural beings, could not get along. 

The classical Greeks also accepted, implicitly, that their ancestors had been much stronger physically than they were. Over and over in "The Iliad", heroes hoist rocks that "no man today could lift", and they do it with ease. (2.) In such a universe, what was right or even workable in one area or era of the real world that humans experience physically might be quite different from what was right in a distant land or era.

In the modern view, under Science, we assume that the strong force, the weak force, and the laws of electromagnetism, and gravity apply everywhere and always have done so. It is true that we have not yet found a way to translate our model of gravity into the system that contains the other three, but we are confident that a unified field theory does exist. Ours is a single coherent universe, we assume.

Let’s keep this first implicit assumption of Science in mind. All is connected to all else in a coherent, systematic way. (Nicholas Maxwell discusses this view and its problems at length in his book "From Knowledge To Wisdom", pp. 107 to 109.) (3.)

 artist's impression of entangled particles

However, and in the second place, we also know today that this universe is a kind of aware in the sense that small changes in one part of the universe can sometimes cause subtle changes in another, distant part - instantly. Particles in all corners of the universe are, as the physicists call it, "entangled". Quantum theory and experiments testing it have proved that such is the case, as surely as Newton’s laws of motion and of gravity have been proven to be good, human-scaled summaries of relativistic mechanics by generations of engineers.  

Particles found in matched pairs in the sub-atomic world can be separated and steered apart by electromagnetic fields applied to the particles as they fly. But if we then do something to deflect the path through space of one of the two particles from the formerly matched set, its former partner – unacted upon by us in any way – will undergo a complementary, mirror-image change of its own. And the signal by which the first tells the second to change its path travels from one to the other in no time, which is a violation of Einstein’s Relativity Theory, and thus of all of our pre-quantum-theory models. 

The universe is a single, coherent system the vast majority of the time, but it also, once in a while, contains some spooky forces, however much Einstein may have disliked them. It feels itself – all over, all at once. (4.)(5.) This is a second model of modern Science to keep in mind as we analyze our most basic beliefs to see what conclusions emerge when we combine them.

          Einstein and Bohr (1930) 

“As opposed to what?” we might again ask. The idea that the universe feels itself, all over, all at once, is opposed diametrically to the idea that the universe is numb and unaware. That was the way in which scientists of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century saw reality. This is why quantum theory was a far bigger shock to the physicists than to anyone else in society. Niels Bohr said it well: “If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet.”(6.) He himself was stunned by what he and his colleagues had found.

After the Copenhagen Conference of 1927 at which quantum theory was introduced to the physicists of the world, Einstein spent the rest of his life trying to disprove it. He died not having made any real progress toward that goal. In fact, in his life, which lasted till 1955, he saw more and more experimental evidence brought forward that confirmed quantum theory, even though he resisted it to the very end. Today, the basic tenets of quantum theory are considered to be as true as it is possible for a theory in Science to be. And in its model of reality, the universe is highly regular, but still a kind of “aware”.

The third important idea in this analysis of our background assumptions is the one that this book has labored long to establish. It is the one which says that there is a kind of moral order in this universe, a moral order that is real. “Real” in the sense that scientists mean when they use the term “real” in all their various fields of study. 

The universe runs by laws that produce patterns in the flows of events, and our moral values guide us to recognize, and respond to, those patterns. These values were learned by the trials of millions of people over thousands of years. In millions of people, over thousands of years, big ideas called “values” – ideas like courage, wisdom, freedom, and love – work, and they work in the hard, final, empirical sense. They get results. The people who live by them survive. Those who don’t, don’t. That physically observable effect of values, through humans, in the physical realm, qualifies values for the term "real". 

Again we can ask about our third idea in this line of thinking: “As opposed to what?” The usual opposing idea to moral realism is the one labeled “moral relativism”. By it, moral values are mere tastes, and right and wrong depend on where you are. What is right in Rome in the first century of the modern era is not morally right now; what is right in sub-Saharan Africa is not right in Western Europe and vice-versa. Under the moral relativists’ thinking, there is no pacific way by which disputes between opposing cultures can be resolved because there is no common ground on which to even begin the negotiations. 

There are various forms of moral relativism being espoused in the twenty-first century, some even claiming to retain the power to resolve disputes peacefully, but for the purposes of this book, moral relativism as just described will suffice. It is a philosophical position that says moral values are not founded in any scientifically specifiable, physical world phenomena. (7.)  

    The view of moral realism offered in this book says that nothing could be further from the truth. Material reality is the common ground, and if we understand what our species’ history is telling us about values, we infer that values are real and all of our disputes, at least in theory, are resolvable. The things stopping us from creating and maintaining world peace are the anti-morals: cowardice, laziness, ignorance, and obstinacy.

The infuriating thing about the moral relativists, for me, is that they simply don’t live their own lives by such mushy principles. They follow a set of moral guidelines even in how they do their work, a set that is rational and coherent. Academia proceeds, in its cumulative, coherent way, because the people in it live by principles of freedom and honesty (to explore, test, publish, and discuss) as axioms. They seek to read and express cogent, logical arguments, supported by evidence, and they don't steal each others' ideas. Plagiarizers are despised. 

So let us now close in on our long anticipated main point. 

If, as a modern human being, in touch with at least the basics of what Science in all of its forms is telling me, I believe that the universe is one coherent thing – even if we don’t understand all of its laws yet – and I further believe that it is conscious – even if its consciousness is of a type so vast and so simultaneous that it can’t be cognized by a human mind – and I further believe that it is morally compassionate – even if its moral quality is only discernible in the flows of millions of people over thousands of years - if I believe these three views are true, then, I guess, yes, I do believe in a kind of a God.

What?

That’s it?

Yes, my patient reader. But now, in a personal response to the logic presented so far, let me try to show you that this case is more than enough. And “personal” is the most honest way to describe my argument from here on. I make no apologies for the personalness of my final chapter. It has to be so. Or, to be exact, it has to make the personal, universal and the universal, personal, as we shall see. 

Notes 

1.http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/science/18law.html? pagewanted=all&_r=0

     2. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/iliad

3. Maxwell, Nicholas;"From Knowledge To Wisdom: A Revolution For Science and the Humanities" (pp. 107-109); Pentire Press; 1984.  

4.http://seedmagazine.com/content/article/the_reality_tests/P1/

5. http://discovermagazine.com/2011/jul-aug/14-anton-zeilinger-teleports-photons-taught-the-dalai-lama

6. http://physics.about.com/od/nielsbohr/tp/Niels-Bohr-Quotes.htm

      7. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-relativism/