I have been an analytical person my entire life. I enjoyed math at
all levels in school. I was trained as an engineer in college. I was a huge fan of science fiction in my youth
and continue to enjoy it today. For a short time many years ago some of my friends used to call me Spock - after the
Star Trek character. A good part of my success during my business career was due to my ability to solve complex problems
using my analytical skills. Many years
ago it bothered me that some people just accepted statements made by others without any form of proof or analysis. I
regarded religions based on pure faith as not worthy of my consideration. If you can't prove your beliefs to be true
by an analytical or scientific method, what good are they?
I
have understood for a long time that some people need to have faith in something in order to live day to day. Their
lives are so difficult, so harsh, that they can't go forward without something larger than life itself to believe in. Fortunately,
as a post World War II born baby boomer, I have never lived in a society where life has been extremely difficult for the majority
of its people, including me. Life is never easy for anyone, but if your basic material needs are met it is not necessary
for you to have a blind faith in something or somebody to get by every day.
As I have grown older and had more time to investigate a broader set of topics through (what I have called)
a re-education process, I have come to realize that the world is not so black and white as I believed when I was younger.
How much belief and acceptance is deserved by science? I recently read A Brief History of Time by Stephen
Hawking, the noted British theoretical physicist. Hawking's book was a New York Times bestseller when it was originally
published in 1988, about 27 years ago. My life in 1988 didn't accommodate reading books of this type, or many books
of any type. I picked up Hawking's book from the discount table at my local bookstore a few weeks ago. I thought
it would be interesting to read what one of the great minds of the past 50 years had to say.
Hawking's explains the history of mankind's attempt to understand the development of our universe
from a scientific perspective. He begins with Aristotle and Ptolemy and their view of the universe with the earth at
the center. He then moves to Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo and the development of our understanding that the earth
and near-by planets moves around the sun. I must add that the story of Galileo's persecution by the Roman Catholic Church
for his scientific beliefs and efforts to educate people on his discovery convinced me at an early age that organized religions
were unworthy of my consideration. If the Church was so wrong on this basic fact of science and persecuted one of the
greatest individuals in the history of mankind for speaking the truth, why should they earn my trust on anything? Hawking
proceeds to explain the work of Newton, Einstein and many of the other giants of physics and mathematics of the past 300 years.
Collectively, they built the foundation for the all of the technology and understanding of the universe that exists
today. As I progressed further into the book I began to say to myself, "this doesn't make any sense to me"
about some of the concepts being debated by the theoretical physicist community.
Hawking states that the purpose of scientific theory, laws, and formulas is for the purpose of modelling
how everything in our universe behaves and has come to be. Einstein's General Theory of Relatively is the foundation
upon which most of recent science has been built. Einstein's theory has been proven to be correct, except when it isn't.
Because at its limits Einstein's theory breaks down because a singularity (an event that requires dealing with infinity
within a mathematical formula) occurs. It is also the case when dealing with atomic and subatomic level particles that
Einstein's theory doesn't work and scientists must apply the Uncertainty Principle, formulated by Heisenberg. Scientists
are now trying to combine the General Theory of Relativity and the Uncertainty Principle to create better models for understanding
our universe. There is no complete theory or combination of theories that can describe all of what we are and have been.
There is no mathematical model that can tell us how the Big Bang occurred and what the ultimate destiny of our universe
might be. Much of the work that has been done gives us possible answers about how we evolved that may or may not be
accurate.
Hawking seems to believe that we already
understand most of the basic laws of the universe that are to be found. I disagree. I don't believe humanity has
any idea of the totality of what is to be known about our universe and ourselves. Why are human beings on the planet
Earth? Are we random combinations of atomic particles assembled by happenstance in a vast universe over billions of
years or is our story far more complex than anything that science has attempted to model with mathematical equations? I
don't believe the first approach is correct. I know I don't understand the complexity of the human conscious within
the total context of our universe. After all the re-education I have done in recent years what I am sure of is that
science has answered many questions. Science has provided the foundation for our technological society and an improved
quality of life for billions of people. However, science has not answered and may never answer many of our core philosophical
questions. Hawking states in the Conclusion of his book, "We find ourselves in a bewildering world. We want
to make sense of what we see around us and to ask: What is the nature of the universe? What is our pace in it
and where did it and we come from? Why is it the way it is?" All we can do is evaluate everything we learn
within our own belief system. It is up to each to us to decide what is true. Each of us is a Singularity.
Copyright 2015 by TPM
