The end of eternity (updated 19 Jan 2013)

Cosmology has become rational again.

Genesis 1:1

 The cover story of the New Scientist, 1 December 2012, is entitled Before the Big Bang: Three reasons why the universe could not have existed forever. Marcus Chown shows that the three cosmological models which invoke eternity – eternal inflation, eternal cycling and emergence from an eternal  high energy vacuum – are flawed when examined in the light of the Borde-Guth-Vilenkin Theorem (2003) and later work by Vilenkin and Mithani (2012). The article includes these statements, long overdue in a national (UK) popular science magazine:

‘in the context of known physics, however, Vilenkin and Mithani conclude that, whatever way you look at it, the universe cannot have existed forever so must have had a beginning. According to Vilenkin, quantum theory has a solution because it permits something to pop out of nothing. So the next question surely is: where did the laws of quantum theory come from?’

It might be added that the agency which led to the reality we know also led to sentient beings with concepts of meaning, curiosity, love, truth, beauty and justice.

Update added 19 January 2013: Since the New Scientist article it has been announced that the idea of a quantum foam has been more or less abandoned. Space-time is, as Einstein predicted, continuous. This means the concept of quantum particles popping into and out of existence is not valid, according to the latest quantum physics.

Previous posts

Infinity, eternity and cosmology 
and
Eternity and thermodynamics

 have drawn attention to why the concept of an infinite or eternal material universe is untenable and outside the realm of logical thought – something which leading cosmologists have appeared unable or unwilling to accept. I find this mystifying. Is it because they don’t want to have to admit that some agent, i.e. God, must have created what has a beginning? Yet there is no comfort for them in proposing an eternal universe, because they still have to explain why there is anything at all – something rather than nothing. Even a universe without a beginning would have existence rather than non-existence. (NB: the holy concept of Eternal Life is outside the realm of physical materialism - this is a state of being outside the man-made constructs of time and space. In Christianity it starts in this life and survives physical death.)

Georges Lemaitre

Ever since the initial proposal in 1927 by Georges Lemaitre and  subsequent observations, notably by Edwin Hubble, led to the conclusion that the universe began as a single point from outside of space and time (the Big Bang) theoretical cosmologists have gone through the most extraordinary contortions to try to explain it in naturalistic terms. As the fairly recent discovery of cosmic fine tuning became undeniable the attempts to avoid a created universe, and the theological implications of this, grew ever more desperate. To make life even more difficult the concept of biological evolution by random mutations plus natural selection has also been shown to be untenable: intelligence is present throughout the natural world.

 So what do we have?

 1. A universe that was created along with space and time in which to expand.

2. At the instant of creation the point-sized universe was  preternaturally fine tuned for the evolution of sentient beings. Many physical constants were tuned to many decimal places to be just right for life. See A universe built for life; but how much life?

3. Intelligence is present in evolution (e.g. in the extraordinary machine intelligence within the 'junk' DNA  of a cell's nucleus and the cytoplasmic organelles surrounding it, and in the cognitive processes in a wide range of life forms).

On top of this philosophers of monotheistic religion point to a fourth aspect of reality: that the end result of the evolution of the universe and life is a being with concepts of truth, love, justice and beauty together with a relentless desire to seek these out. Collectively this points to a conclusion which many in the modern world seem afraid to admit.

There is even a fifth factor to upset the old fashioned materialist scientist, which is the emerging realisation that there are epistemological limits to what science can deduce or infer even about the natural order. No matter how long we keep searching we will never find all the answers. This is not just a belief. Ironically, it emerges from logical analysis itself. Logic has proved its own limitations by the process of logic. See, e.g., The non-local universe: the new physics and matters of the mind by Nadeau and Kafatos; and my previous posting Are some scientists from the planet Vulcan?  and Chimpanzees and a free lunch.

All five factors need to click in the mind of the average specialist scientist. Once they do science can advance within a framework of clarity and reality and, I maintain, attract more young people into what could again become a noble and exciting profession.

See also Striking the knowledge barrier

John
author, 2077 AD

Consciousness without a brain

In a previous blog (Intelligence without brains) I mentioned the occurrence of intelligence in organisms without brains, in particular amoebae. The power of reason seems to crop up everywhere in the natural world and its relationship to configurations of matter and energy defies reductionist analysis. Recently I came across a cover story in Newsweek (7 Oct 2012) which strongly suggests that consciousness too can occur independently of the brain;  or more specifically, that there can  be consciousness in a human being without the neocortex showing any sign of activity, despite assiduous monitoring by a neurosurgical team.

What is the neocortex? Here is the definition from a medical dictionary: ‘Part of the cerebral cortex; constitutes about 85% of the human brain’s total mass. The neocortex is thought to be responsible for higher level cognitive functions, such as language, learning, memory and complex thought.’

 The feature concerned an experience of an academic neurosurgeon of world renown, Eben Alexander, who has published over 150 peer-reviewed papers. A virulent form of meningitis had attacked his brain, leaving him in a coma for 7 days during which he had been closely monitored for any trace of neural activity in the neocortex. Dr Alexander unexpectedly came back to earthly consciousness  and claimed he had been having a coherent conscious experience during the 7 days.

As a neurosurgeon he had always been sceptical of NDEs (near-death experiences). But this one was different. Previous ones he had encountered in his career and read about had been attributed, rightly or wrongly, to illusions resulting from activity in a malfunctioning neocortex. This time no activity, and hence no malfunctioning, was detected despite the very closest monitoring and scrutiny: the neocortex was totally inert. It was not working imperfectly because it was not working at all.

Dr Alexander wrote down what had happened soon after coming back to ordinary consciousness and used his account as a basis for a book, Proof of heaven: a neurosurgeon’s journey into the afterlife, which I have not yet read.  Apart from the visual events of this journey he experienced infinite love, something encompassing all forms of earthly love and more and the presence of God, who reassured him that he could do nothing wrong. All the beings he met or became aware of  were interconnected in some way, both with each other and with him. He also felt that far from being in a dream this was reality, and that his memory of this world seemed like a dream.

The number of NDEs grows as medical technology advances and is being taken seriously by an increasing number of neurologists and doctors. That consciousness of some kind is able to exist indepedently of the body is now almost certain. Cases have been recorded where the patient knows what is going on around him, in detail, despite being brain dead, having his eyes covered and his ears plugged.

As a Christian I am not sure what to make of this. Many of us find NDEs as difficult to understand as do materialists. The eternal life which we experience here on earth by faith and which continues after physical death takes us beyond space and time until God creates a ‘new heaven and a new earth’, at which point we receive our resurrection bodies.

It is really up to the individual but personally, I am inclined to believe that the NDE is indeed a genuine state of being which God creates for us (the way he has created the reality of life on earth) en route to an afterlife proper, once physical death is final. This could be God's kind way of handling the transition and it would be natural for some of our earthly culture to be reproduced in  this intermediate NDE state, to reassure us in our journey. Or could it be that our society and culture here are pale imitations of a richer and more intense reality? As St Paul says 'For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face; now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.'   1 Cor 13:12

As one who has spent most of his life steeped in the scientific worldview I have to  remind myself of the perplexiing and mysterious nature of our existence here. Is there a soul independent of the body? Karl Popper,  probably the most respected philosopher of science, likened it to  a piano player. Our brain-body system was the piano, played by the soul. If our material self was damaged it was like having the mechanism of the piano damaged; but the piano player carried on. You can shoot the piano, but not the piano player.

It is only because I have had time in the last few years to look into the deeper implications of the diverse divisions of science, albeit subject to my limitations,  that I've become aware of the strangeness of our existence that seems to have escaped the awareness of many competent but highly specialised scientists cocooned in a fragment of the total picture. Listed below are some aspects of reality which are now accepted by people in the various disciplines, though few of them seem to have grasped the whole.

•  Nothing is solid but much appears solid. A lump of lead is totally space and energy put together to give the impression of solidity.

• Time, space and matter are interconnected by Einstein's equations.

•  Matter and mind are different aspects of the same underlying entity (follows from quantum physics experiments; it is analogous to wave-particle duality, whereby one entity has both wave and particle aspects but is itself neither of these).

• All entities are instantanously connected in some way, independently of their separation in time and space. Thus quantum events in our neurons, in fact in all the cells of our body-brain system, are instantanously connected to all quantum events in the universe - past, present and future - including the point of the Big Bang creation. This arises from quantum entanglement.

• Quantum events, including those in our own brains, affect what we call past events as well as future ones. (E.g. the delayed choice experiment in quantum physics).

•  Physical reality is of such a nature that it cannot be fully described by mathematics or physical models on a one-one basis; i.e. science will never be able to describe more than limited aspects of reality. To attempt to do so would be like squaring the circle.

Previous posts touched upon some of these and there is plenty more to say about them and other aspects of the world we live in. Unlike the ancients, we have concepts of other dimensions and our reality gets stranger the more you look into it, so it should not be difficult for modern, post-Enlightenment man to believe in heaven and a Creator.

 John
cosmik.jo@gmail.com

Author, 2077AD

Climate is changing faster than expected

You may have heard that global climate change is happening faster than predicted. A recent feature in the New Scientist (17 November, 2012), ‘Global warning’ by Michael Le Page, describes the current situation, as does this blog on the Scientific American website:

Polar melting is accelerating, as is sea level rise.

Climate models are having to be updated as more data is gathered worldwide and as methodology is refined. In 2007 the IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted a  global temperature rise of 4 deg C by  2100 as a worst case scenario. More powerful models developed since then by the MIT in the USA  and the Met Office in the UK suggest that the 4 deg level will be reached by 2070 or before. By 2100 it could be as high as 7 deg C (10% chance).

Overall, the acceleration arises from both natural and man-made causes. The main points:

 

1. Arctic warming faster than expected

The Arctic is warming at twice the global average. The arctic ice cover is decreasing more rapidly than forecast  by the IPCC in 2007. At the 2012 summer minimum in September only one quarter of the Arctic Ocean was ice-covered, and the ice is getting thinner. This was not supposed to happen for several decades. The next IPCC report is in 2014. See also, Arctic warming: not all bad news

 
 

2. Jet stream weakening and moving

The jet stream is a current of air in the stratosphere (several miles high) driven by the temperature difference between arctic and tropical air masses. When these meet they try to intermix but the action of the Earth’s rotation deflects the south to north current of air to move roughly west to east. This stream of air guides and moves depressions across the North Atlantic. Because of the arctic warming the arctic-tropical temperature difference is less., so that the jet stream is deprived of its energy source.  The result is less predictable and more slowly moving cyclones.

 

3. Global water cycle is much greater than forecast

The water cycle is the circular process by which  water (mainly in the oceans) first evaporates, then condenses in cloud, then falls back to its source as rain or snow. This  is occurring at twice the  predicted rate, which has big effects not only on precipitation (see below) but on humidity.

 

4. Rain and snow increasing by more than expected.

 Rainfall and snow intensity in the N. hemisphere is an order of magnitude greater than climate models predicted as the air becomes more moisture-laden, a direct consequence of the accelerated water cycle. The duration of precipitation at any one place is also increasing. This is because the depressions associated with it are moving more slowly than only a decade go, which in turn is a result of the weakened jet stream.

 

5. More and longer droughts

Ironically, we are getting more droughts as well as more intense precipitation. The climate models always foresaw the increase in extremes, both in frequency and intensity, but the increases are exceeding those forecast. This obviously has implications for food production.

 

6. Worse heatwaves

The seriousness of a heat wave depends not only on temperature but on humidity. Examples: Europe in 2003, when Paris temperatures exceeded 40 deg C for 7 consecutive days; and Russia had a similarly severe heatwave in 2010. The humidity increases the stress on the body, causing vulnerable people to die and many more to work less productively. This arises as cooling evaporation from the skin (sweating) is prevented by the high moisture content of the air.

 

7. Sea level rising faster than predicted

The acceleration of glacier melting is causing the average sea level to rise faster than the rate computed using past climate models. Both the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets are melting faster than forecast.  By 2100 sea level  is likely to have risen by 1 to 2 metres. Many low lying cities will be flooded or vulnerable to storm surges.

 

8. Hurricanes: more, bigger and stronger

These are becoming greater in frequency, size and severity as the ocean warms and the humidity of the air above it increases. Their tracks are complicated by jet stream movements which are difficult to predict.

 

The climate models did not take into account certain factors which subsequently were found to be important. For example, ponds on the surface of glaciers absorb solar heat more rapidly than a dry surface; and the release of strong greenhouse gases like methane from melting permafrost and methane hydrates in the sea bed.  Cloud cover, type and distribution are notoriously difficult to incorporate in models.

More importantly, natural trends (e.g.  changes in the Earth’s orbit) seem to be adding to the rate of climate change calculated by even the updated models and despite green measures the carbon emissions per capita are rising world-wide as the developing world seeks to emulate the extravagant life style of westerners.

 

There are so many variables involved in predicting climate and its effects that it is worth seeing what happened in practice when temperatures changed in previous epochs, given the restricted data we have about those times. The most important feature emerging is that  even small changes can trigger large ones very quickly. Three examples:

 

• Only very small changes 5,500 years ago turned the savannahs and wetlands of N.Africa into the Sahara desert over a relatively short period - centuries, perhaps decades.

 

• 5 to 3 million years ago the world was 2 to 4 deg C warmer than today. According to K Emanuel et al (MIT, USA) the rising number of hurricanes altered the distribution of heat in the oceans and tipped the global climate into a different state, with warmer tropics and hurricanes over a much larger area than today.

• A mass extinction 250 million years ago is thought to have been caused by temperatures being too high for most animals.

 

So it seems we are going to have to live with severe disruptions to the climate whatever measures we take to offset it. The question now is what can be done  to deal with the extensive damage it will cause, both directly by injury and indirectly by its effect on food, water, infrastructure and the spreading of disease. Hopefully, some of the change may have beneficial effects by allowing certain areas of land and sea to yield more food instead of less and by forcing people to be more creative and less arrogant in the business of living.  And even the bad effects may concentrate our minds on the precious gift which God has granted us.

see also http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-the-ipcc-underestimated-climate-change

John
Author, 2077 AD

 
reach me at cosmik.jo@gmail.com