Chapter 15          A Summing Up Of The Case So Far                            Part A

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 more carefully at some of the assumptions that are implicit in any argument 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.

                                 Martian sunset (as photographed by NASA probe, Spirit Rover) 

In the first place, a basic assumption – for many modern thinkers, an implicit 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 in doing Science, we implicitly believe that the laws of Science apply on Mars and Gliese 581g just 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 any group of luckless mariners. Hades ruled the underworld, Zeus, the skies. Hades took Persephone down to his realm, and even Zeus could only negotiate to get her back for half the year. From this quarrel came the seasons. Two bellicose brats, who happened to be supernatural beings, and who could not get along. A universe run by caprice, lust, cruelty, and revenge.  

          

The classical Greeks also accepted, implicitly, that their ancestors had been much stronger 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, which systems of ideas are right in one area or era might be quite different from what was right (in both senses of "right") in some other distant land or era.