Brian Greene shows why science surpasses religion

Physicist Brian Greene has ably taken on Carl Sagan's role as TV's best popularizer of science. My wife and I thoroughly enjoyed his recent "Fabric of the Cosmos" series on PBS. I've read his book by the same name, as well as his recent "The Hidden Reality." 

This afternoon, while exercising at an athletic club, I listened to an interview with Greene on a Point of Inquiry podcast. (I've discovered a bunch of interesting new podcasts to supplement my Philosophy Talk listening after spending $1.99 on the terrific Instacast iPhone app; highly recommended.)

Listening to Greene talk with Chris Mooney, the interviewer, I wished that every religious true believer could be exposed to the reality of science. 

Not the cartoon version that fundamentalists and science-deniers see, because that's a caricature of the scientific method. You know, the notion that scientists are dedicated to eliminating love, mystery, intuitions, and faith from life; that science is all about cold, hard calculations of a mechanical universe's clockwork nature; that scientists are arrogant, claiming that what can't be captured by their equations isn't worth knowing.

Here's some of what I recall from the interview that belies these ridiculous assertions. 

Greene talked about how science has found that reality in the atomic micro-world, as in the cosmic macro-world, is far different from how we experience the everyday world. So if you believe there's more to reality than meets the eye, embrace modern science.

Reality, though, may not appear as you'd like it to be. This is where many there must be more believers get off the science train. Scientists are dedicated to exploring the farther reaches of reality. However, the scientific method aims to discover what is actually there, not what we human beings wish was there.

For example, Greene described how the search for the Higgs boson is going. He doesn't like the media terming it the "God particle." In fact, it was pretty clear he detests that nickname. Yes, he said, the Higgs field is theorized to permeate all of space. It's omnipresent. So, supposedly, is God.

But the HIggs field, or particle, bears no resemblance to the entity people call "God." The Higgs field, if it exists, is how objects acquire mass. Thus it would be responsible for the thing-ness of the universe, which otherwise would be massless.

Greene explained that the HIggs field is sort of like an invisible vat of molasses that is all around us. When particles are pushed through the resistance of this field, they acquire mass. (If anything, then, I see the Higgs field as an "anti-God particle," because it converts the ethereality of reality into something much more material and substantial.)

The Large Hadron Collider is trying to knock a chunk of nothingness out of the Higgs field, thereby revealing the Higgs boson, a particle, through inspection of what the boson decays into. 

This is complicated stuff, but there's a lot of beauty in it. Mooney and Greene talked about how evolution caused humans to be adapted for survival and reproduction, not for understanding the secrets of the cosmos. It was important for our ancestors to be able to throw a spear so it hit a running antelope; coming up with the mathematics of relativity theory wasn't a priority back then.

In many ways, modern science goes against the grain of traditional human nature. Religiosity doesn't. This helps explain why it is easy for people to believe in God, soul, spirit, heaven, life after death, and such, while descriptions of the quantum realm and the big bang are tough for our brains to grasp.

Greene, a string theory researcher, was asked about the value of considering other competitors for a Theory of Everything such as quantum gravity. I liked his answer:

In terms of whether alterative approaches should be tried, absolutely. The health of a science, to my mind, is partly reflected in the independent lines of investigation that are trying to solve the same problem. If everybody is marching in lockstep, that's deadly.

You want to have a range of approaches that may be complementary, that may be contradictory; one may help another, one may knock off another. You know, this is great for science. I think string theory is our best approach for putting gravity and quantum mechanics together, but others think other approaches may be better. And I'm thrilled they're pursuing those approaches.

Science is open, creative, experimental. Unlike religion, science doesn't say "this is the Absolute Truth; you must not consider other truths." If someone can come up with persuasive evidence that theory Y is a better reflection of reality than theory X, then X takes a back seat to Y.

"Back seat," though, almost always doesn't mean being tossed out of the car.

This is another misconception that religious fundamentalists and other anti-science types are prone to. They wrongly believe that fundamental understandings of science are regularly overthrown, so why accept what scientists currently are claiming to be true?

Greene demolished this point of view, using Newtonian and Einsteinian physics as an example. Newton's laws of motion weren't shown to be wrong by Einstein. He just showed how they don't apply in realms far distant from what we experience in everyday life, such as at near light-speed.

Science progresses. It learns. It changes. It builds upon current knowledge. 

By contrast, almost universally religions are stuck. They talk about ageless revelations that were as true several thousand years ago as they are now. They claim that a holy book or holy person has revealed all that can be known about the ultimate reality of the cosmos, so take it or leave it.

Thanks for the choice, religion. I'll leave it. Science is much more appealing.

Comments

[Brian from Colorado]

Hello again Churchless,

If you'd be so kind as to allow me to pursue the thread I dropped in my comment to your previous post a bit further, I'd like to offer a simple question for your consideration.

Do you actually believe that there could be such a thing as a "chunk of nothingness"?

[Blogger Brian]

Brian from Colorado, a "chunk of nothingness" is a fairly good description of what scientists are trying to accomplish with the Large Hadron Collider. I'm pretty sure Greene used those words, or words to that effect, in his TV series.

Here's a few pages from his book which describe the search for the HIggs boson:
http://bit.ly/xsJBA8

Empty space isn't really empty, according to the theorists. It is filled with the invisible Higgs field. To detect the Higgs particle, a manifestation of the field, other particles are collided at a very high energy. This, hopefully, will create a Higgs particle, which can be recognized not directly, but through its decay products.

As Greene says in the book excerpt linked to above, empty space may be filled with the Higgs field. So by knocking a chunk out of what seems to be nothingness, that mysterious something may be revealed.

This shows that "nothing" isn't really nothing, as I blogged about a few months ago:
http://hinessight.blogs.com/church_of_the_churchless/2011/11/empty-space-really-isnt-but-dont-jump-to-spiritual-conclusions.html

[Blogger Brian]

Ah, I just remembered where I saw the "chunk of nothing" mention by Brian Greene. It was in a New Scientist piece that I wrote about recently. Here's a link:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228391.300-nothingness-why-nothing-matters.html

And the Greene quote. I love the idea of chipping off a tiny piece of nothing. It'd be so cool to have that framed on a wall of our house. Assuming we could see it.
-----------------------

"The Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, the world's most powerful particle accelerator, is also in the business of probing nothing. A prime goal is to find evidence for the Higgs field, which, much like dark energy, is believed to permeate empty space. Instead of driving the expansion of space, the Higgs would exert a drag on particles, giving them the masses they have. According to theory, slamming protons together at enormous speed should produce a piece of the Higgs field - a Higgs particle, in fact. In effect, through the violent collisions, researchers are trying to chip off a tiny piece of nothing."

[Brian from Colorado]

So, it's not really nothing then, is it? More and more, it seems like the deeper that scientists peer into the nature of things, the harder it is to locate genuine "nothingness". What was once thought to be void is now conceived to be some mysterious manner of ineffable fabric, of which chunks and pieces can be cleverly manipulated (albeit not without heroic expense and effort).

Is not all this talk of "chunks" and "pieces" of "nothing" illogical, paradoxical and even irrational? Could it be that this is the point where the dualistic system of scientific positivism finally hits the wall? At the least, it would seems to leave quite a bit of open space (ha, I pun!) for metaphysical speculation. Indeed, a thoughtful person might even be tempted to question the reliability of a worldview that insists that something that very much "is" (conscious being) can spontaneously convert to some nebulous state of "nothingness" of which there is utterly no empirical evidence.

Perhaps we should capitalize all references to this mysterious Nothing. Certainly, it seems to fit the profile for some kind of invisible religious entity, the reality of which can only be apprehended by an act of faith.

[Willie R]

Aaahhh....another chapter in the Brian vs Brian saga. It's very enjoyable.
The people at the Large Hadron Collider are just playing with very expensive toys. They are not looking for "nothing". They are actually looking for something: something that is demonstrable, undeniable, unequivocal, inescapable, and, in a manner of speaking, responsible for everything that occurs - even the presumption that this "something" is actually there to look for in the first place.

So have at it, gentlemen. I will be cheering you both on from the sidelines.

[Brian from Colorado]

I commend you for your lofty impartiality Willie! And thanks for clarifying that scientist are, as always, looking for something, particularly since nothing is nowhere to be found. I suppose we can all agree that - at one level at least - this something/nothing line of inquiry has a bit of a Alice and the Red Queen-kind of feel to it.

On the other hand, I'd prefer not to introduce competetive sporting analogies into the discussion. Besides Our Kind Host has declined to comment further (as is certainly his perogative). I can only speculate, but suspect that he would say the whole line of thought that I've proffered herein is nonsensical and devoid of "common sense." We ought to note, however, that when it comes to quantum physics, common sense has long since been left far, far behind....

[Blogger Brian]

Brian from Colorado, I enjoy your comments. As with other comments, sometimes I feel inclined to respond with my own thoughts; sometimes I don't. Comment conversations are just like face to face conversations.

Sometimes I'm simply interested in what another person has to say, in learning how they see the world or how their life is going. Other times I feel like adding my own thoughts to what they've said.

You seem to find some sort of mystery in the fact that conscious beings die and end up being unconscious. I don't. You seem to find the fact that science has never discovered a true "nothing" to be meaningful. I don't. Only religion (Christianity, particularly) believes that creation occurred ex nihilo, out of nothing.

The atoms of our bodies don't become nothing. When we die, we get recycled into the universe. But entropy ensures that stuff breaks down, runs out, becomes less orderly. Consciousness, so far as we understand it with current knowledge, requires order to exist. If a brain gets seriously mangled, it loses much of its conscious abilities. Or maybe all of them.

Hey... I'm responding to your comment!

Also, yes, with quantum physics we leave common sense behind. We humans didn't evolve with a need to grasp the workings of either the extreme micro-world or the extreme macro-world. So its tough for us to grasp things that aren't like the things we encounter in everyday life.

[George]

'Nothing' is not well defined. It could mean no-thing (i.e. no physical matter) OR it could mean an absolute void. An energy field has no-thing in it, but it does have energy so it is not void-like.

Science and positivism have always had limits. Science is synonomous with evidence, which is limited - this is its strength and its weakness. You can speculate all you want, but its not scientific until there's evidence.

What is the alternative? what other mode of enquiry even comes close to separating fact from fiction? Provide an alternative. Describe another mode of enqiry including metaphysical traditions, that can tell us anything about reality that science cannot.

[Brian from Colorado]

Hi again, Churchless. As has sometimes been the case, you've managed to confer beliefs upon me which I don't actually hold. Not sure why that happens, although I'm not offended. In a nutshell, I find no "mystery in the fact that conscious beings die and end up being unconscious" because I don't believe that. Like the Buddha (although, sadly, I'm certainly no buddha) I have an intuitive sense that there is ONLY consciousness.

Moreover, even as you accurately cite orthodox Christian belief in ex nihilo creation, it inadvertently serves to highlight the point that Christians and atheists share a common believe in the fundamental concept of nothingness.

In terms of personal conscious being, the difference is primarily one of inversion, I think. Christians believe that first we were no-thing but then became some-thing which forever after will be (eventually entailing unending occupation in heaven or hell as time continues to proceed in linear fashion, of course).

Meanwhile, atheists believe that first we are some-thing, but eventually become no-thing, at which point, time ceases altogether.

Wouldn't you agree that that's a pretty concise summary?

BTW, I'd also like to respond to George's thoughtful post as well, but must do so separately, as I must now tear myself away for a while.

[Blogger Brian]

Brian from Colorado, at first I viewed your comment as a quasi-poetic observation that I appreciated, yet couldn't grasp a clear meaning within. So I held off replying. Then you noted that I hadn't responded, so I didn't want you to feel ignored.

Suggestion: if you want to make a clear point, make your point clearly. If you believe there is ONLY consciousness, say it. Then people can better understand what your point is.

Sometimes I have difficulty grasping what you're trying to say because you tend toward the elliptical, then, if you don't feel understood, you respond with a "you haven't understood me."

The alternative, which some commenters take, is just to say whatever you want to say and not be concerned how the comment is taken. That's a great way to go also. The inbetween state is what's problematic: being quasi-poetic and then expecting clarity of understanding.

[Jon]

Hi BFC

The Buddha did not assert that there is ONLY consciousness. That idealistic view is closer aligned with the advaita vedanta of Shankara. There was a later short lived school of Mahayana Buddhism that asserted consciousness only, this was the Yogacara school which influenced Gaudapada (Shankara's teacher's teacher.) Most schools of Buddhism and certainly the early writings of the Pali canon hold the view that consciousness is empty of inherent existence and is dependent on conditions.

[Blogger Brian]

Jon, interesting comment. I've never understood very well the Buddhist conception of consciousness. You've helped a bit. I'd never thought of the "empty of inherent existence" idea, though it is eminently scientific, and the Dalai Lama tells us that Buddhism should adapt to emerging scientific facts.

Give anesthesia to a Buddhist meditator, and he/she will fall unconscious. They seems like pretty good evidence of the "dependent on conditions" argument.

[George]

BFC,

Not sure how atheism and christianity share a belief in creation from nothing.

As you know 'theism' means god (creator), whereas 'atheism' means no god.

Christianity is monotheism whose god is eternal. There always was god, never nothing, hence a dodgy ex nihilo belief in creation from nothing.

Atheism is not about creation, ex nihilo or otherwise, rather the non-belief in a creator. Atheists might have different views on creation. Some might believe in creation (something from nothing by natural means), while others that there was no creation (always something never nothing).

Atheism is defined by no creater, the question of creation is seperate. In contrast, christianity is defined by a conscious creator. If christianity is ex nihilo as you suggest, in that creation is from nothing by a creative consciousnnes, this seems closer to buddhism than atheism.

[Jon]

"Give anesthesia to a Buddhist meditator, and he/she will fall unconscious. They seems like pretty good evidence of the "dependent on conditions" argument."

Yes, if an unwavering consciousness were to be the case then it follows that anesthesia would be coherently witnessed. We know that this is not the case - same with unconsciousness caused in accidents, mental trauma, drug abuse, deep sleep etc.

If the claims of an eternal witness were true, these experiences would be witnessed in the same way as one might witness a film. The content of the film might be dramatic and include SCENES of disorientation and incoherence etc. Instead it's the case that the QUALITY of witnessing itself becomes disoriented and incoherent and eventual ceases to function in any way that could be adequately called conscious.

[Blogger Brian]

Jon, yes, I've never understood this notion of a witness (Awareness) who stands apart from conscious experience. Like you said, if this was the case, Awareness would remain aware of what's happening while anesthesia or deep sleep is experienced.

[Alex]

//Science progresses. It learns. It changes. It builds upon current knowledge.

By contrast, almost universally religions are stuck. They talk about ageless revelations that were as true several thousand years ago as they are now. They claim that a holy book or holy person has revealed all that can be known about the ultimate reality of the cosmos, so take it or leave it.//

Exactly. Some believers criticize science that it always changes its mind. That is precisely the virtue of science. Honesty. Willingness to change its mind in face of new evidence. Traditional religions, in contrast, refuse to change their minds and stick to ageless "revelations." That is the VICE OF FAITH. Dishonesty. Refusal to face evidence.