Chapter 14 – The Morally Crucial Features of Modern Physics

At last. We are ready to tackle the moral challenge. The question now is: What are the characteristics of the real universe, according to our best scientific understanding of it, that determine how we should design our new moral code? The answer is: The two most morally crucial characteristics of the modern scientific worldview are quantum uncertainty and entropy. Each of these needs a bit more elaboration in order for us to see, first, how it affects human lives materially and, second, what its significance is morally.

   

The first morally relevant feature of reality is quantum uncertainty. It requires that humans, individually and in society, survive by learning to calculate probabilities of future events. These probabilities range from the likelihood that it may rain this afternoon, to the likelihood that I’ll get a stomach ache if I eat these fried onions, to the likelihood that a leopard is hiding in that field of grass ahead, to the likelihood that a war will come if we forbid the tribe that regularly crosses our rope bridge from using it anymore, to the likelihood that Germany will attack Russia given Hitler’s words in Mein Kampf asserting Germany’s need for living space to the east. We shape our actions and live our lives by odds-making.

The second morally relevant feature of reality is stated by the second law of thermodynamics, and it is more familiar to us and far easier to explain than quantum uncertainty. The first law of thermodynamics says that energy, with matter viewed as just a concentrated form of energy, can’t be created or destroyed. It can only be changed in form, as in from chemical energy in gas, to heat energy in a motor, to mechanical energy in the motions of the pistons, the crankshaft and so on. The second law of thermodynamics tells us that, while the amount of energy in the universe remains constant, that energy always flows downward, from areas of greater concentration to areas of lesser concentration. If matter and energy become more concentrated or organized in one area of space, that means only that an even greater amount energy has flowed in from areas nearby. Everything is burning out, including us. Metals corrode, wood and fabric rot, and people and animals die. Even the stars and our sun are burning out.  In ordinary experience, this law means that life is always hard.

An area of matter-energy concentration (e.g., the biosphere of our planet or the mass of my body) must always be maintained at the expense of even greater rates of energy dissipation in nearby spaces. I get energy by eating plants or animals which also ultimately depend on eating plants. Plants get their energy from the sun as it burns. When fossil fuels are burned, they are also simply releasing stored solar energy, as are hydroelectric dams and firewood. The sun is our source; it burns and dissipates energy much more intensely than the creatures in the biosphere of the earth build up and store second-hand solar energy.

   

                                        galaxy calculated to be thirteen billion light years away from earth

Stars are burning out. The universe is heading toward a final state in which more than 10⁷⁹ instances of some kinds of elementary particles will be spread uniformly across it at a temperature of absolute zero. We really don’t understand numbers that big, but that doesn’t matter. The heat death of the universe, as far as our science can tell, is inevitable. (It isn’t due for at least another five billion years.) But the effect of the second law of thermodynamics is seen every day in the way things keep falling apart; rust and decay are built into the fabric of daily life.

To humans, who are complex, energy-concentrated, subtly organized, living entities, this means that like all living things we exist against the natural flow of the physical universe. The level of disorganization or “burnt-outness” of any object or area of space (including the universe) is called its entropy, and the overall entropy of the universe is always increasing.

Thus, our present world view, along with what it is telling us of entropy and quantum mechanics, is much more generally telling us, in terms relevant to human experience, that the universe is governed by what humans recognize as two main principles: adversity and uncertainty. Our deep feeling that adversity is inherent in life is our way of characterizing entropy. Our deep feeling that hazard is inherent in life is our way of characterizing quantum uncertainty.