Today’s Post
In the last post, we saw that the addition of complexity into the basic framing forces of the universe rendered the universe both coherent in itself and, through the action of evolution, inclusive of all its products. With this addition the basic scientific intuition that the universe is both intelligible and integrated comes nearer to being realized.
Such coherence of both process and products provides a vantage point for addressing the basic forces at work in the universe. Today’s post will begin to look at the Universe from this perspective.
The Evolutionary Context
In keeping with the basic theories expressed in the Standard Model (June 11 – The Framing of the Universe, Part 1: Science’s Basic Perspective), and in that of Natural Selection, science would agree that for every antecedent there is a precedent. It would also agree that everything that appears assumes a potential for its appearance in its precedent. Examples:
- The unification of quarks results in electrons, so something in the quark had a potential for becoming an electron once it was subjected to the proper force.
- The same is true with atoms, molecules, cells, multicellular animals, consciousness and finally, with the human, awareness of consciousness.
Every rung on the ladder of evolution assumes a ‘parent’ rung influenced by some force to produce an ‘offspring’ rung. While we might not be able to understand how evolution crossed the critical points of cellular organization and reflective consciousness, they are nonetheless continuations of the preceding activity, not discontinuities, or accidents.
That said, the original effluvia from the big bang must have had the potential for everything that followed, otherwise what followed wouldn’t have followed.
‘What followed’ can be generally categorized into two things: entities and energy. Every step of evolution can be seen as the unification of entities at one level of complexity resulting in a new entity of a higher level of complexity under the influence of some field of energy. This can be seen in the evolution of atoms into molecules:
- Gravity pulls simple atoms (Helium and Hydrogen) into clouds which eventually form stars
- In the stars, gravitational force overcomes the atomic forces, stripping the nuclei of their electrons and fusing them into more complex atoms
- These more complex atoms, such as Oxygen and Carbon, are strewn into space as the star explodes
- They are drawn together again by gravity, in which they unite to become components of molecules and so on.
In this process, two types of atoms of lower complexity (He and H) are drawn into stars via the force of gravity and become hundreds of types of atoms of higher complexity (the atomic table) via atomic forces, then into millions of types of molecules via chemical forces, and so on.
As Teilhard put it, looking backwards in time:
“In a coherent perspective of the world: life inevitably assumes a ‘pre-life’ for as far back as the eye can see.”
This process can be followed forward to the level of the human, with the entity of the human person and his potential for unity under the integrating forces of relationship that we refer to as ‘love’.
None of this can be explained without referring to the plethora of forces by which the unfolding of the universe begins and continues. Science believes that although we experience these forces discretely, they are all ultimately facets of a single ‘super-force’ which will one day be described by a ‘Theory of Everything’ (ToE, addressed in the last two posts).
This manifold but highly integrated manifestation of force can be referred to by many terms, but once it is acknowledged that the process of evolution can be seen to rise through the human person, the personal aspect of this integrated force becomes clear. If the universe has the potential of producing such a highly complex entity as the human person, then one of its facets must be recognized as ‘personal’.
The Personal Aspect of the Universe
So, taking a look at the data that science has accumulated on the history of the universe, it is possible to see every major rung of evolution from the first precipitation of energy into the form of matter to the mega molecules which are the raw materials of the cell. During the three-some billion years of ‘pre –life’, the universe rises in complexity. The more science measures the more it ‘intuits’ two things:
- the same thing happens everywhere
- it is evidence of a rise in complexity
More scientific findings are shoring up the first ‘intuition’, and the second one is self-evident.
That gets us to the ‘biosphere’, the venue of biological life. Given that science does not yet have an explanation for how the cell appeared, we do know that it is made up of the stuff which evolved in the previous stage. Even the materialists continue to study how this new product of evolution could have emerged from its molecular precedent, and how it quickly ramified into what we call ‘the tree of life’, in which each branch evidences various manifestations of diversity under the ‘engine’ of Natural Selection.
Where it gets less objective is following the thread of complexity past the era of pre-life: where in the tree does complexity manifest the most increase?
That’s obvious, at least. The increase of complexity is most paramount in the evolution of sensory functions found in the development of neurological systems in the mammalian fork of the animal branch. This becomes most clearly seen in the mammalian brain with its unparalleled high densities of complex components (neurons) in small areas. Continuing along this path, of course, we come to the human with his unequalled density and population of neurons in the neocortex, and the potential for billions of synapses and a self-awareness that gives him the ability to inhabit a limitless population of habitats and continue the process of evolution through non-morphological means.
Yes, but, it did happen, and as such meaning-seeking entities, we try to make sense of it.
Science posits the big bang with the potential to make the universe make itself. For example, it has no problem granting gravity the power to effect stellar systems which produce complex atoms, which then combine with the laws of chemistry to produce molecules. When we assume that the universe had the capability of atom-production through gravity and chemistry, we effectively understand these forces as facets of the integrated force of the universe.
By the same token, the universe must also have the potential for the production of humans (or some entity of high complexity) as well. Taking this a bit further, noting that humans have evolved the characteristic of “person-ness”, the universe must have not only gravity, the strong and weak forces, and the osmotic principles of cellular energy transformation, but also the characterization of ‘person’.
The idea of the six cosmological constants (June 11 – The Framing of the Universe, Part 1: Science’s Basic Perspective) doesn’t really require an understanding of the specific forces which make up the constants, just that they’re what science uses to understand how the universe holds together. Teilhard’s point is that when we add the undeniable phenomenon of complexity to the mix, the whole idea of a personal ‘ground of being’ becomes scientifically tenable. Further, this ‘insertion’ isn’t accomplished supernaturally from the ‘outside’, it emerges naturally as required to round out science’s understanding of the universe. Without it science cannot explain the unfolding of the universe in a manner which includes the human.
Just as inclusion of the law of complexity-consciousness rounds out the scientific concept of the ToE to account for the axis of evolution and the appearance of the human, recognizing this inclusion also incorporates ‘the person’ into the fundamental principles of the universe. Acknowledgement that the ‘energy of love’ produces the ‘entity of the person’ is the next step to understanding how the universal framing forces play themselves out in the present stage of evolution.
To understand the Universe as an integrated, cohesive whole is to recognize it as ultimately, personal.
Summing Up
So now we have come to see that a true understanding of the forces of the universe which effect its evolution from the pure energy of the ‘big bang’ to the manifold expressions of complexity found in the tree of life requires the action of ‘complexity’ to be truly comprehensive and explanative of all the products of evolution. We have come to this conclusion by following the scientific mode of thinking: observation and postulation. It has not been necessary to invoke any more ‘supernatural’ agents to include this characteristic of universal force than were necessary for the inclusion of gravity, the atomic forces, or any of the other forces which science recognizes as framing our universe. With the simple addition of the observable effect of complexity, the scientific perspective on the framing of the universe becomes truly comprehensive. The universe can now be understood as capable of producing ‘persons’ as a natural consequence of its basic workings.
The Next Post
Now that the forces of the universe can be seen to include that of ‘the personal’ we can go to the next step of fitting God into the picture.