I’ve just finished Paul Davies’ book Cosmic Jackpot. What a mind stretcher. Aside from a few quibbles here and there- his evolutionary stuff could benefit from updating with Kellor’s The Century of the Gene or Not by Chance- but overall excellent. At heart, as Davies shows, its so much about ideology or belief. This shapes or drives or influences so much of this entire scientific movement and all the theorizing and discovery and explaining. Why it may even influence the nature of reality itself- the observer shaping photons into waves or particles and maybe even influencing back in time to create reality. In the end, the main positions- God (not a traditional God) or gods, multi-verses, or a unique universe- they all are similar in what they try to explain or assume. All require faith in some unexplainable givens (laws and what not).

Of course, there is also the hope, as Davies says, “(that) the whole paraphernalia of gods and laws, of space, time and matter, of purpose and design, rationality and absurdity, meaning and mystery, may yet be swept away and replaced by revelations as yet undreamt of”.

I think Davies basic thrust to know everything is most admirable and to be encouraged though he continually bumps up against the unknowable which he is hesitant to acknowledge or give way to. He expects science or rationality to somehow find a way and who knows a trillion years from now. Maybe, as he suggests in one scenario, mind will merge fully with the universe and be one and understand all. He finds some help from Chalmers on consciousness (a fundamental reality of its own) and grants some form of teleology or purpose and some form of anthropomorphism (universe exists for life and mind).

It reminds me of God/gods as defined by Schopenhauer in Campbell- God is simply a penultimate attempt to describe something so infinitely beyond as to be unknowable, inexpressible and incomprehensible. But with Davies, let us never stop exploring.

This is a great little book that summarizes the basic positions on the big question- why existence? Davies brings so much information on so many positions and leaves you feeling that you have really had your thinking stretched. Atheists, religionists, and all the rest of us will benefit from this kind of discussion.

Some areas of discussion:

He is interesting on teleology and that it can not be ignored. It is the elephant in the room of science and is generally ignored for ideological reasons. The anti-teleology position is related to the general meaningless position- the absurdist position- that the universe is meaningless and life and humanity are accidents. This is apparently the most common scientific position and it is a reaction to traditional religious beliefs.

He takes Chalmer’s position on consciousness or mind and that it is a fundamental reality on its own.

Every human position in science, philosophy or religion is based on some unexplainable foundation- the super turtle that holds up the world, says Davies. All three main positions in human thought “denounce the other’s super-turtles in equally derisory measure. But there can be no reasoned resolution to this debate because at the end of the day one super-turtle or another has to be taken on faith”. And behind this are the cultural prejudices of the devotees. Everyone has to accept some given/givens and here faith comes in along with one’s basic ideological orientation. Is it for life and humanity or to deny life and humanity as having any meaning.

Great read.
ON page 173 Davies notes that the multi-verse theory was concocted to counter apparent design with a chance explanation (and as design is argued to be apparent so one could argue for the illusion of chance- Einstein suggested this). Anyway, by introducing infinite universes the ideologue introduces unlimited resources to back his theory. But there is no explanation as to how chance could do what is claimed for it. What mechanism generates the unlimited universes. So these people fall back on a super-turtle just as the religious person does.

Davies’ own ideological leanings come to the fore again and again with some very strong affirmation of various things. The leaps of assumption are evident and later he admits the ideological element in all this. His preference is to explanations that reinforce the self-organization, self-complexification, and self-assembly of reality. He argues this is more clever than design but I fail to see the fundamental difference. Its all up to the eye of the beholder.

As he says, “all three attempts to explain the world completely- two scientific, one religious- eventually hit a wall, and demand that something truly huge be accepted on faith alone”.

In a later summary of the universe progression he notes, “the history of the universe is one in which fundamentally new phenomena emerge at successive thresholds of temperature, energy or complexity. For example, at about one microsecond, quarks and gluons congealed into protons and neutrons. At 380,000 years electrons and nuclear particles combined into atoms. After a few hundred million years galaxies and stars formed. Some time later, life emerged, then mind, then culture”. Who knows what the next emergence will be.

In a box on this page he also notes (p.228) that consciousness plays a direct role in the physical world at the quantum level. The splitting off into parallel universes and parallel existence of people. Hmmm.

He also deals with the fundamental nature of information in all this.

In the end he says, “I concede that the universe at least appears to be designed and with a high level of ingenuity. I cannot accept these features as a package of marvels that just happen to be, that exist reasonlessly. It seems to me that there is a genuine scheme of things- the universe is ‘about’ something. But I am equally uneasy about dumping the whole set of problems in the lap of an arbitrary god or abandoning all further thought and declaring existence ultimately to be a mystery”. Go Paul, go.

Wendell Krossa
Reply - Bob, read Davies Cosmic Jackpot. Its along the lines of Singh’s Big Bang. Comprehensive and thorough and mind stirring. It is about the human thing. A great overarching idea can really enable one to understand reality and life
Bloom's book called Global Brain has some very powerful stuff on how microbes, like a beehive, adapt and reconstruct and reconfigure as if they have some collective brain. Very good on the limitations of Darwinism and how the notion of progress through mutations and natural selection is not satisfactory or a complete explanation.
I have just read Svensmark and Calder's The Chilling Stars. A great read indeed!
Wendell reply
I’ve got The Chilling Stars on order and will look into Global Brain. Davies gets into this a bit- that mind is behind much or evolving to fill it all. His scientism keeps him to more restricted naturalist explanations where Chalmers, the atheist, is not hesitant to see consciousness everywhere. Davies also notes Chalmer’s material and agrees while dismissing Dennet’s counter arguments. This mind behind all is more Campbell’s position also.

After reading Cosmic Jackpot you have to remind yourself this is science. And as Davies notes, despite all this speculation, most scientists just go about their work whatever the larger reality is about. They leave such questions up to the philosophers and priests.

In the end it looks like most people at a grass roots level have gotten it basically right over the millennia. Sure, that basic sense of reality was expressed in terms of distorting mythology but the sense of or faith in a Creator, Sustainor, Father/Mother was right on.