Speculation, Musings, & Insanity

I have, for years now, explored the age-old philosophical conflicts between God and science. I discovered that, like Sir Isaac Newton, I personally don't believe there is any conflict at all between science and the stories from religion. I think the perceived differences are actually fabricated in the minds of each side while looking myopically at the other. In fact, I personally feel that science supports the existence of God in many ways. In this blog, I often outline my reasons for this belief. Today I'm going to talk about one of the biggest reasons I believe God created our universe. I'm going to talk about probabilities.

What is the likelihood that God created us and the universe?

While reading and researching, I've looked into religions all over the world to see what is common. Basically, all of them say we're spiritual beings. In fact, they mostly say we are all parts of one Great Spirit. We are children of, or components of, or derived from that one spirit which encompasses everything and everyone. In a word; God.

What are the chances that every culture spread all over the globe would all decide to adopt the same basic belief about our nature? Some of the more ancient cultures who believed this never had contact with the outside world. Some were isolated by vast oceans without the technology to cross them. Yet, they all arrive at nearly identical conclusions about our spirituality, our interconnection to one another and our connection with the divine. Most have a very similar creation story, as well. Again, what are the chances of this?

In fact, I started thinking about statistical probabilities a lot while thinking about the biology, chemistry, and physics involved in getting us to this moment we're living in now. Exactly what had to happen to get us here? In fact, to get a better feel for these probabilities, let's start multiplying out just a few of them. I don't mean literally doing the statistical math. I mean simply trying to grasp the likelihood of an incredibly long sequence of many trillions of tiny events all leading to where we are now.

What are the chances that a small glob of primordial ooze would suddenly come to life as a single-celled organism? In fact, what are the chances that the DNA molecule in the nucleus of that cell would have formed naturally, to begin with? You really don't see anything else like it in nature. The symmetry and beauty of it plus the functionality it performs is virtually divine in nature. Most molecules are ragged-looking, oddly-formed conglomerations of atoms. In contrast, DNA looks like perfectly-designed, mathematical code. Even aside from these obvious differences, there are almost infinitely more statistical improbabilities which support believing in creation. Let's keep thinking.

What are the chances that the single living cell which came to life from the ooze would just happen to be able to replicate itself? What are the odds that it could replicate itself faster than it dies? Why haven't we seen a single living cell spontaneously come to life out of dirt and ooze in any recent time period? What are the chances that any two of these suddenly appearing single cells would start magically working together toward a common goal? How would they even decide to work together, considering they start as single individual cells? What causes it? What is the motive force acting upon them?

What are the chances that a few more cells more would join those two? What are the chances that billions more would eventually join those? What about trillions? What are the chances that millions of those trillions of cells would gather together into sub-groups to change their functionality, chemical makeup, and even their shape in order to specialize into organs that would contribute to the survival of cells billions of cells away on the other side of this vast clump?

What are the chances that dozens of these sub-groups would happen to each do exactly what is needed for all the other dozens of sub-groups and many extra billions of other cells in the clump to survive? Why would some cells carry nutrients to other cells instead of keeping the nutrients for themselves? Why would some cells decide to turn into a pump to help those nutrient carrying cells move more quickly?

Now, what are the chances that a portion of those cells would decide to  turn into legs? Or arms, fingers, toes, and the extremely specialized organs of our 5 senses? How could a random occurrence create connected networks of radically different types of cells all for the purposes of moving the entire clump of 10 trillion cells around to different locations in the environment or to manipulate objects?

What are the chances that two slightly different clumps of 10 trillion cells would need to combine in order create a third one which could turn out to be similar to either or different from both? (male, female, and babies) Wouldn't it make more sense for an incredibly complex organism to evolve a way to reproduce itself without dependence on other organisms? Surely that type of organism would reproduce more easily. Why didn't it survive natural selection? In fact, why does the whole organism need to reproduce the entire 10 trillion cells? Why don't those cells just individually divide to make another organism? Yeah, a lot of strange choices were made among the many trillions of trillions of selections which would have happened in order for us to randomly evolve to where we are now. In fact, let's look at the sheer number of selections.

The Earth has been dated as being 4.5 billion years old. The simplest of single-celled life didn't appear for about 1.5 billion years after that. That means 3 billion years, or about 1 trillion days total of evolution time. Natural selection happens when one out of many randomly-mutated versions of an organism survives while the others die off. Even if the sequence of evolutionary events for all life on Earth started exactly 1 trillion days ago, the trillions of trillions of tiny natural selection events which would have led to us being here through random mutation and evolutionary selection would have needed to happen at the rate of hundreds, thousands, or perhaps even millions of events per day.

We're talking major evolutionary adjustments happening at a blazing-fast, near-constant rate for a trillion days straight. Then it eventually arrives at our current 10 trillion highly-specialized clumps of cells, organs, skeletal parts, etc, by sheer trial-and-error? How likely is that? How likely is it that this process would happen insanely fast for a trillion days and then suddenly stop? Why do I ask that? Because we don't see anything close to that rate of evolutionary change happening in today's world. Mutation and natural selection is a relatively uncommon and slow process. So how could we have possibly arrived at our current biological complexity level in only 1 trillion days if our progress were solely based on truly random mutation and natural selection?

Think about this one little thing. After trillions upon trillions of supposedly random mutations and natural selection, nearly every animal on the entire planet has a nearly identical facial structure. We all have a head, 2 ears, 2 eyes, a nose, two nostrils, a mouth, teeth. Seriously? After trillions upon trillions of random mutations, there is no variety at the end? Natural selection seems a little specific, if you ask me. How can such a vast amount of purportedly random activity over a trillion days, across such a huge area of landmass, separated by vast oceans, end at virtually the same design?

Where are the three headed or even headless creatures? Where are the ones with eyes on all four sides of their heads? Where are the creatures who have wooden skeletons and bark for skin? We were supposedly plants at one point, why aren't there still animals which retain those qualities and structures? It's not like there was one cell, which gave rise to one plant, which gave rise to one fish, which gave rise to one animal, which gave rise to one human, who then replicated. If mutation and selection is true, then there is no single direct lineage which resulted in all of us. If the mutations were truly random, and not pre-programmed with similarity by DNA, why would nearly all animals even have a face, much less a highly similar face after 3 billion years of evolution?

All life is just masses of cells. Random mutation and selection should apply to all cells equally. The extreme levels of similarity, don't support random mutation and selection. If it did, we wouldn't see such well-defined boundaries between cells, organisms, plants, fish, birds, and animals. There should be creatures like plant/fish, plant/animals, and plant/birds. With every single member of every single species having the potential to create a new species through mutation, there should be FAR more noticeable variety than there is after a trillion days. And it should still be happening far more frequently than it currently is.

On top of that, this particular massive clump of highly-evolved, cooperating cells called a "human" would have to become conscious, self-aware, able to think, make decisions, imagine, and dream. We're not talking about one cell being able to think. We're talking about a bunch of individual cells working together to think or dream about an abstract concept like "the future." Again, we end up staring straight into the nagging question, "How likely is ANY of that to have randomly occurred?"

What are the chances that I would be sitting here as a clump of 10 trillion individual, and sometimes vastly different, cells all somehow working together for one purpose - so that I could type a blog post about how preposterously unlikely it is that all of this was simply a random occurrence? Why should these trillions of cells cooperate to do all of that? Even narrowing it down, why should the brain cells of this organism work to create all of the highly improbable electrochemical interactions involved in me thinking about this sequence of historical events? Creating those chemical reactions has zero to do with their survival. In fact, it benefits them in no way whatsoever. Yet they do it.

Natural selection may make tiny adjustments over time based on environmental influences, but how could all of this sequence of events happen so quickly that it could finish in only 1 trillion days? It's all based on the DNA in the cell nucleus. DNA is what tells the specific cells to develop the way they do, but where did this magical DNA molecule come from? How did that DNA, an unbelievably intricate thing in itself, happen to be "accidentally" structured in a way to cause all of these incredibly statistically unlikely events to occur? In fact, why does DNA change slightly over time in response to changes in the physical world? Water molecules don't change over time. Why does DNA change?

Frankly, all of this evolutionary speculation quickly begins to sound far beyond EXTREMELY far-fetched to me. Too much had to happen in too short of a time period for it all to be random mutations and natural selection. We're not talking "struck by lightning" or "winning the lottery" levels of unlikely here. We're talking far more unlikely than the number of stars in the universe. I'd even say unlikely to the point of virtually impossible. This realization leaves me looking for another explanation for all of it.

In my mind, our DNA is the cornerstone supporting intelligent design by an outside force. Life on this planet follows a design. Even our ability to adapt to changes in our environment is by design. Our DNA is designed to change slightly as needed.

To me, the sequence of trillions upon trillions upon trillions of tiny random events required for me to eventually be sitting here thinking and typing seems far less likely than for an intelligent Creator to have put the perfectly pre-constructed DNA blueprints for the evolution of Earth's creatures into the ooze from the start. The concept of "seeding Earth with DNA" causes all of that unlikely sequence of events to happen automatically by design rather than occurring based on some miniscule beyond belief, incredibly random, and highly unlikely, evolutionary probability. Yes, there is evolution. Yes, it makes adjustments. But in my mind, the sequence for life to progress had to have been preprogrammed into those first living cells by a designer. DNA behaves the way it does, by design.

In fact, even when I try to grasp the probabilities for every facet of our universe turning out the way it is, I feel compelled to believe this reality we live in was all created intelligently by an outside influence. Science really supports the idea of the creation of the universe, when you look at what we know. Matter and energy were literally brought into existence from nothing by the sequence of the Big Bang. Even our physical laws based in 4 dimensions came into existence with that initial energy burst of the Big Bang. Before that instant, there was something less than void. No physical laws. No dimensions. No anything. What made that happen? That's the real question, isn't it?

If you imagine something that exists without time, space, or the laws of physics, from our viewpoint, it must be ethereal in nature - a spirit. It would have to be something difficult for us to mentally grasp because it isn't based in what we know as reality. In my mind, the Big Bang was the act of an incredibly powerful spiritual being (God) "thinking" or "willing" our universe into existence from a less than nothing void.

Granted, the entire process which led to where we are now happened over a time frame which is beyond vast by our limited standards. But, to a spiritual being, not bound by time or space, it would be less than the blink of an eye. The insane probability that the entire sequence of tiny events leading to this precise moment happened by accident is just too far fetched for me to believe.

Further, the act of divine creation also explains why (or how) the Big Bang happened, which science has never been able to do. I'm really big on knowing the "why" behind things I choose to believe. Science is based on the natural laws we know. The moments before the Big Bang happened simply don't include those natural laws. The laws didn't exist yet, so they are beyond the grasp of our science. Fortunately, our imaginations can travel to places science can't take us.

So, why do I think our universe was created with thought? First of all, my reasoning says in order for all of this to be created, as I believe it was, there must obviously be a Creator. Further, the Creator can't exist as a part of the universe being created. Not being part of this universe implies no space or time restrictions apply, which means it isn't "physical." It is formless, because form only exists in our 4 dimensional universe. For me, this means the Creator must be ethereal consciousness.

With his logic exercises, Descartes implies that the one remaining ability of consciousness which we don't lose if we remove everything physical, is the ability to think. We exist because we think. If the Creator existed but had no physical presence before creating the physical universe, then our limited understanding says the Creator must have used thought to create it. In other words, the Will of God created us. The creation of our universe was a conscious choice (via thought) made by an immensely powerful, self-aware, conscious being. Perhaps this universe IS the thought and the act of thinking it was the act of creation.

From our point of view, trapped here in our 4 dimensional universe, there would have been a point where the Creator's thought made the vast energy of the universe suddenly come into existence. This matches up with nearly every creation story worldwide. Think of Genesis - "Let there be light." Light is energy. Conveniently, this idea lines up perfectly with what we know about the Big Bang. Energy was created first and it was all that existed during the earliest moments of the Big Bang. It took a tiny bit of time for some of that energy to make the transition into the subatomic building blocks of matter and later to combine into atoms, molecules, etc.

Even more conveniently, we've already seen that consciousness affects reality directly in the collapse of superpositions during the act of quantum measurement. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics shows subatomic particles, which are the building blocks that make up all matter, can pop into and out of existence.

For me, the incredibly unlikely mathematical probabilities, combined with our knowledge that consciousness affects reality at the subatomic level, serve to emphasize one conclusion.  An immensely powerful consciousness should be able to both create and bend our perceived reality at will. That consciousness would have all the power of God, including the ability to create our universe.

To sum it up simply, I believe God created both us and our universe because after giving it a lot of thought, there is no alternative explanation which is statistically believable to me.

Labels: Consciousness, God, Physics