Origin Myths (Introduction)

by dhw, Thursday, December 10, 2009, 15:19 (5461 days ago) @ David Turell

George and I agree! Marcelo Gleiser's article is superb, and I'd like to thank David for drawing our attention to it. For me this not only sums up the myth and the science, but it also captures the sheer poetry of the universe and human attempts to understand it. -Gleiser has covered a number of the topics we've been discussing in recent weeks, and he has done so with admirable even-handedness. -On the subject of nothing, he talks of a "perpetual effervescence of being. This means that even empty space has fluctuations of energy, that the vacuum is never empty, that there is no such thing as absolute nothingness." It's the word "absolute" that gives me a toehold here.-In relation to the quantum world, he comments: "There is no sharp boundary between being and becoming." George approves of this, and I suspect that Frank, our process theologian, and BBella would also agree in a wider context. In fact, the more you think about that formula, the more it applies to almost everything in our world, including our own identity. -As regards the origin of the universe and validation of the Big Bang model, he asks: "Does this mean [...] that we can explain with confidence how the universe came to be? No. Cosmic infancy is not cosmic conception." Perhaps one well-known evolutionist might learn to apply this expression to the origin of life as well: evolution = infancy and onwards, but not conception. -We've also been discussing the possibility of life elsewhere, but I've struggled a bit with the paragraph in which Gleiser states that "our universe must be unique" and goes on to say: "we are unique because we belong to the tiny subset of cosmoids that can harbor life." If there is a tiny subset, we are not unique, but in any case he admits earlier "we cannot step outside our expanding cosmoid to visit neighbouring ones" ... so we clearly have no way of knowing whether we are or are not unique or even rare. If I've misunderstood this section, perhaps someone can put me right.-Matt in his last post mentioned scepticism, and I have responded to that, but Gleiser puts the positive side much better than I do: "Our eyes, however telescopic and otherwise, are wide open. Not having all the answers is actually a very healthy thing. It is a precondition for learning more." We could almost use that as our motto.