In the beginning, there was nothing.
I don’t mean the kind of nothing that’s in, say, an empty coffee cup.
It may look like there’s nothing in the cup, but there’s plenty in there.
There’s dust that you might be able to see if you shone a light in there just right.
There’s water in there. What’s the humidity right now? Usually around 80 or 90 percent?
I sneezed a little while ago. I bet there’s some of that in there, too.
If you had a microscope, you could probably see the bacteria lurking in there, clinging to the ceramic glaze, waiting for its next victim.
If the microscope were strong enough, you could see the the molecules and the atoms. You could see sub-atomic particles like protons and neutrons and gamma particles and photons. Muons and gluons. Fermions and bosons are the smallest particles, made up of little packets of energy called quarks. There are dozens if not hundreds of different kinds of sub-atomic particles.
Some of them interact with each other, some of them just travel around space with no purpose that we can conceive of.
And by we, I mean men in lab coats who knock these particles together to see how they scatter then create big chalkboards and computers full of formulas to explain why they scattered the way they did.
So even the vast emptiness of space isn’t so empty as to say there’s nothing out there in between the galaxies.
It’s full of photons, if nothing else, moving at 186,000 miles per hour, the fastest of all particles moving in waves in all directions, a giant cloud of beautiful photons coloring our universe.
There are scary things in there, too. There are particles moving through this cup at nearly the speed of light, passing right through this material as if it were made of air or something less. Those particles are passing through you, too, right now. You probably didn’t even know it, or if you did, you probably weren’t thinking about it. Either way, you can’t do a thing about it.
It’s all part of the “quantum foam,” the fabric of the universe.
Quantum foam is the churn of energy at the level of 1,000 million trillion trillionth of centimeter (that’s a fraction with 33 zeros in it), when particle-antiparticle pairs incessantly appear and disappear seemingly at random. This quantum foam occurs everywhere in the universe, in this room and in deep space.
It’s been suggested that this quantum foam is the energy created by the expanding universe, the energy created by the stretching and ripping of the fabric of space and time as the universe grows in all directions.
It is from this energy that the something that is everything emerges.
It’s been said, though I don’t know quite how they come about making such estimates, that over ninety percent of the stuff that makes up the universe is not observable to us mere mortals. Stuff they call dark matter. They call it dark because we can’t see it, but the more we learn, the more the science tells us that there must be dark matter or else the galaxies would not be able to stay intact.
And there’s a lot of stuff out there that we know about. Moons, planets, stars, asteroids, quasars, pulsars, novas, supernovas, black holes. With the big telescopes in space, we’re discovering new bodies every day.
But in the beginning, there was nothing.
None of that. It was a nothing so pure and absolute, let’s call it absolute nothing.
I’ve heard people — people in bars, mostly, where topics like this do pop up from time to time, and at least once from a preacher in the pulpit ‑ express the idea that the Big Bang theory involves a compressed ball of matter, dense beyond imagining, that somehow exploded to form the universe. Like a firecracker. Only bigger. Hence, the Big Bang.
We know this because Edwin Hubble discovered in the 1920s that galaxies are all moving away from each other, meaning that we live in an expanding universe, which implies that if you run the clock backward, it all comes together. Hubble’s calculations verified Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, published 1920.
The idea of the giant ball originated soon after with Georges Lemaitre, who worked through the equations and conceived of the universe starting with what he called the “primeval atom,” in which all the universe was crushed into a sphere only a few dozen times bigger than the Sun. This primeval atom then exploded into an incredible number of smaller pieces, which in turn kept splitting apart into ever smaller pieces until the atoms of the present universe formed.
But some of the current theories suggest otherwise. Stephen Hawking made popular the idea that if you hypothetically reverse time using formulas based on the known observable laws of the universe, the closer you get to the first moment of the universe, some 15 billion years ago, the closer you get to what he called the singularity.
It’s not just matter that is created from the singularity, but the entire fabric of the universe. Space and time and all the other dimensions were created from the singularity.
Here’s a concept relatively easy to get your mind around: An infinite line, one that has no beginning and no end, but stretches on forever, to infinity and beyond.
The three dimensions by which we measure space are curved, which means that a straight line in any direction will eventually meet up with itself 20 billion light years later — whatever the circumference of the universe may be ‑ and make a giant circle. There is no beginning and no end to this theoretical line. That is, if you could see into infinity and looked straight down this line in an unobstructed view for 20 billion light years, you would see the back of your own head. This is true no matter which direction you look. This was also a part of Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity: A finite, but unbounded universe because space is curved. So we can represent this straight line as a circle, even though it appears straight, to represent one of the three spatial dimensions.
And because we have observed that we live in an expanding universe, if we reverse that expansion in our imaginations, we have to imagine that 20 billion light year that imaginary circle getting smaller and smaller and smaller, 10 billion light years, five billion light years, one light year, one million miles, one mile, one half-mile and so on until it collapses upon itself, to zero diameter.
In the beginning, there was nothing.
The Big Bang Theory is actually misnamed. What scientists can surmise about the universe is only what happened after the actual bang.
Theorists have deduced the history of the universe back to one 10 million trillion trillion trillionth of a second — that’s point 43 zeros one — 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 &mdash after the Big Bang.
Therefore, within the framework of the laws of physics as we understand them today, we can say only that the universe came into existence when it already had an age of one Planck second.
The universe at that time was incredibly small about point-34 zeros-one centimeters (0.000000000000000000000000000000000016) known as a Planck length, the smallest possible unit of measure.
The temperature of the universe at this time was about 100 million trillion trillion — that’s 32 zeros — degrees.
That is, it was very hot and very very, almost infinitely, small.
At the singularity, that moment just before the Big Bang, within the first Planck second and within the original Planck length, the laws of physics break down, and so before the first 10 million trillion trillion trillionth of second of the universe, there was apparently nothing. No space, no time, no atoms or molecules or microwaves or Buicks. No matter, no substance. Just that singularity. That infinitely small, undefinable point from which space and time erupted in all directions at once.
Back when everything was set to zero.
In the beginning there was nothing.
Just a single sudden, unexplainable eruption of energy, turning zero dimensions into the four that we observe and creating all the matter and energy of the universe.
There was nothing, then there was something.
Approximately three minutes after the Big Bang the temperature falls to a cool one billion degrees. Protons and neutrons combine to form the nuclei of heavier elements, a billion years later galaxies start to form and 14 more billion years later, here we are, body temperatures at a lukewarm 98.6 with a universal temperature 2.7 degrees above absolute zero (which is 460F below 0).
At least, that’s a simplification of a few theories that explain the mechanics of how the universe came to be, but it’s hard for me to get past that first one-10 million trillion trillion trillionth of second when something came out of nothing.
I can’t get nothing out of my head because I can’t imagine what nothing might be like. Because it’s not like anything.
Pure nothing is only theoretical. It only existed in the first one one-10 million trillion trillion trillionth of second. If we can’t imagine the reality of nothing — which is oxymoronic because if there’s nothing, there’s no reality either &mdash we can at least accept the concept of nothing.
And if we can conceptualize something springing forth out of nothing, then there is an implied will to make the springing forth happen. And if there is will, there is intention.
So imagine what force of imagination it took to be among nothing and conceive of something.
In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the earth.
Except for that first 10 million trillion trillion trillionth of second, which we can’t know about, I don’t buy into the “God works in mysterious ways” stuff.
If it were the will of God to create all this, then we must have a very scientific God to have figured out, first of all, how to put all this in motion. There’s nothing about quantum physics that disputes the existence of a higher power.
Indeed, it seems to demand it.
God’s ways only seem mysterious when we don’t understand his science. I don’t really understand how television works, but I’ve been amazed at the clarity and fidelity of a 56-inch flat-screen digital monitor in Dolby SurroundSound. It’s almost like real life.
Imagine how amazed Moses would be if you could go back and show “The Ten Commandments” — that is, the Charleton Heston Hollywood Spectacular — with the parting of the Red Sea on that 56-inch flat-screen digital monitor in Dolby SurroundSound.
Six thousand year ago, that might’ve seemed as holy as a burning bush.
Indeed, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke came up with three laws of prediction, the third one being “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
A hundred years from now, maybe even 10 years from now, who knows, a 56-inch flat-screen digital monitor in Dolby SurroundSound will seem as archaic and quaint as a victrola or 8-track tape.
Does this mean that a 56-inch flat-screen digital monitor in Dolby SurroundSound is more god-like than the 19-inch Zenith that my family had when I was six years old? But it does show our godliness, that portion of us that we exhibit as creative beings, toying with the substance of the universe.
In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the earth.
In the beginning, God created something.
He created something from absolute nothing. He applied his energy to absolute nothing and came up with something that became me and you with the mind to think about something and try to fathom the divinely scientific order of the universe.
Thinking about this stuff makes me dizzy.
Our logical, mathematical minds would tell us that if we take away a half of something, we still have half of a something left. And if we take away half of that half, then we still have something that we can still take away half of.
But intuition would tell us that there must be some elemental, irreducible particle, the one thing that accounts for everything that exists in the universe, everything known and unknown. Some little grain of something, tiny beyond comprehension but powerful enough to combine with others of its kind to create the universe. That is, something to turn nothing into everything.
Many in the field believe that the discovery of that one elemental particle would solve all the mysteries of the universe because, you see, the commonly-accepted theories about quantum mechanics are at odds with the established theories of general relativity.
General relativity is a theory of the very large: galaxies, quasars, black holes, and even the Big Bang. It is based on bending the beautiful four-dimensional fabric of space and time, about how gravity and electromagnetism and other forces work to make galaxies spin and apples fall from the trees. This is the old-school science of Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein.
Quantum theory, by contrast, is a theory of the very small, the world of sub-atomic particles, based on discrete, tiny packets of energy called quanta. This is the science of Stephen Hawking and Brian Greene.
But the laws of one do not predict the laws of the other. General relativity is all very orderly and predictable. In quantum mechanics, particles tend to behave randomly and contradictory, being in two places at once sometimes, or two particles being in the same place at once.
The holy grail of physicists for the last several decades has been to develop a “theory of everything,” an all-encompassing notion that would combine all of these ideas into one, that would reconcile the seemingly random activities of the sub-atomic world with the wholly predictable dance of the planets and stars. And that, in turn, may provide a clue or maybe even an answer to the ultimate mystery: Where did we come from? Why are we here? There’s one theory of everything — several theories of everything, actually ‑ that breaks it down to a little dancing string.
It’s called the “string theory” or “superstring” theory.“ There’s a difference, but it’s pretty academic and for the most part, string and superstring can be used interchangeably.
According to the string theory, vibrating one-dimensional strings are the fundamental constituents of the universe.
Each string is unimaginably small, about point-34 zeros-one centimeters .00000000000000000000000000000000001 known as a Planck length, 100 billion billion times smaller than a proton. These little dancing strings vibrate in patterns and resonate to create the smallest particles, the things we can observe, from the happy-go-lucky dancing quarks in my fingertips to the swirling galaxies of deep and distant space.
But still, because I live in three dimensions of space and one of time, because I have a matter-centric brain, my mind tells me that they’ve got to be made of something because you can’t get something out of nothing.
Or can you? What does it take to make something out of nothing?
There’s nothing else that the superstring could possibly be made of but pure energy, the vibration of nothing &mdash which then becomes something by the vibrating.
It’s a paradox. Zero times zero is zero, but at the Planck level of the universe if no where else, zero times zero equals something, an intense energy at infintismal levels that combines in vast enough quantities to form coffee cups and supernovas so that it appears to us to have substance.
Even at the level of molecules and atoms, there is so much relative distance between particles that you can visually compare it to the space between planets in our solar system.
That is, there’s enough distance between planets that, in terms of pure space and volume, you could fit many other planets into the same sea of space.
The closer we look at the substance of, say, my hands, the more porous it would seem, that there is enough space between the atoms that the molecules of one hand would simply pass through the molecules of the other.
So when my left hand meets my right hand, it’s not the density of the matter that makes them clap instead of merging into the same space, but the electromagnetic energy that binds the molecules of each hand together.
That is, gravity may make the man fall from a ten story building at a particular and measurable speed, but it’s the electromagnetic energy of the sidewalk that kills him.
Substance, then, is an illusion created by the forces of the universe: gravity and electromagnetic energy, both of which are made from the vibrations of tiny strings of pure energy.
I sometimes wish I had paid more attention in math class. I never got beyond Algebra II in high school, so the kind of formulaic thinking that it takes to pursue these things are far beyond my math skills.
But I see the poetry, the harmony, the balance in these theories and ideas about the origins of matter and how this stuff works in our universe.
So in my imagination, even though I’m having trouble visualizing absolute nothing &mdash because there is, after all, nothing to visualize — I can see that within this idea of string theory and of what happened at the Big Bang, on the level of poetry if not on the level of mathematics, that everything in the universe is created from the vibration of the primordial nothing.
Remember the incomprehensible temperature at the first Planck second of the Big Bang? Simply the result of all this energy — all the stars and galaxies and everything in between &mdash suddenly bursting forth and spreading out. One giant vibration. One masterful pluck of the cosmic guitar string.
Now, 15 billion years later, that energy has spread out and cooled enough to form different kinds of particles at different levels of vibration, creating a quantum foam in ever-more complicated patterns, harmony among the vibrating particles, to form protons and neutrons to form atoms to form molecules to form the moon, the earth, the sea and you and me, particles of pure energy coming together to form an awareness of self through our eyes.
The vibration of these vibrating subatomic strings creates the illusion of substance. So at our most primary level we are made from the pure vibration that is the fabric of the universe, the energy created by the expansion of space, vibration so intense and in such complicated patterns to be beyond our comprehension.
Well, at least behind our conscious comprehension.
These things happened before we were born, before our ancestors began to walk upright, before the earth cooled enough for DNA molecules to form. Before the earth and planets spun off from the ball of gas that is now our sun.
The point is that these things, the Big Bang, the expansion and cooling of the universe, the action of vibrating superstrings creating mass and substance, have occurred without us.
Yet here we are. Thinking about it. Trying to understand the purpose and driving force behind the universe and everything in it.
We are, in effect, the universe’s attempt to express itself.
About 25 years ago, I went to Key West for a long Thanksgiving weekend with a friend who grew up there. We drove all night from Tampa to get there, the last four hours on a bridge that went from tiny island to tiny island until you got to Key West. He was taking me on a tour of the cool places on the island, the places where the locals went to party. We were riding around in a convertible when the electricity went out on the island. We were, basically, out in the middle of the ocean, far from any city on a cool and clear night. I looked up in the sky. It never looked so big and I never felt smaller. There were so many stars in the sky that there seemed to be more points of light than spaces in between.
I realized at that moment what a grandiose notion to believe that all this has been created for our benefit, that this incredible universe was created just so that we could end up here at this moment discussing big issues like the meaning of life.
On the other hand, the fact remains that we do observe the universe. We measure it. We’ve named all the animals that we’ve found so far, and we can manipulate the fabric of space and time — albeit in relatively minute ways when compared to the power and changes in matter when a supernova explodes, for instance, or when a hurricane passes over the Florida peninsula.
Because these vibrations of the superstrings not only form substance and matter, but also create observable and measurable energy.
We have developed the capacity to use our senses, our sight, our hearing, etc., to absorb the vibrations of the universe and then to sort those vibrations out into metaphors, to turn the incredibly complicated series of vibrations into ideas.
If you go to a piano and pluck middle C, you are creating vibrations of 262 cycles per second on that string that we perceive with our ears. You dip a brush into violet paint and put it on a canvas, you are creating vibrations of light that we observe with our eyes.
That’s how we sort out the world. We look at something. We take in all these vibrations from all of our senses and see that it’s red in color, round in shape, firm to touch, smells earthy and tastes sweet. We know this from the particular arrangement of waves and patterns of waves created by vibrations, from the superstrings, particles and molecules that make up the object. We see that it’s red and it’s round and we dive into our memory banks, the record we’ve kept of all our experiences and we determine that this object is an apple.
Somehow we have developed the capacity to not only observe the universe, and manipulate matter and substance, but we also have the power to think abstractly, to use metaphor to explain our observations and manipulations.
To imagine that one thing is like another is the foundation not only of communication, but of intellect itself.
Somewhere along the way, we discovered that some ideas, some ways of seeing and hearing, for instance, are more pleasing than others.
Everyone recognizes this, or nearly everyone. Even the most unschooled ear can usually recognize when the musician hits a bad note, even though they may not understand the physics behind it.
And we can manipulate one object to look like another, to take observation to the next level: Of creation and expression.
I see a round, red object and not only do I determine that it’s an apple, and not only does it remind me that I’ve not had dinner yet, but I remember when I was growing up and the apple tree that was in my grandparent’s yard. And a slice of apple pie I ate last night at Hyde’s Restaurant. So there are levels of thought and emotion associated with that round, red object.
So I feel some desire, a need to express those observations and I scoop up some earth, form it into an orb and use pigments to turn it red.
I have, in effect, replicated the process of creation. I have observed the vibrations of the universe — or at least one small part of it — and I have used the elements to re-create my observation, but in doing so, I have also impressed upon my created object the emotional footnotes that were attached by my own personal experience.
I have, in other words, created a work of art.
In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
In the beginning, God created.
Now, I create.
Not everyone will appreciate the subtleties and nuance of my creation. They won’t understand the emotional subtext, the memories of my childhood that are expressed in my apple sculpture.
If it looks enough like an apple, some people will simply appreciate it for that. Others will look at it and the vibrations emitted by my apple sculpture will remind them of their childhood picking apples in a New England orchard, an experience wholly removed from mine, but has enough of the same pattern of energy to make a similar cognitive connection.
We can apply this relationship between observation and expression all across the spectrum — and I mean that literally — of experience.
Everything we know and experience we know and experience through the vibrations of the universe that are manifested through observable spectra. That is, vibrations that we can see or hear, process and interpret.
That’s why music is such a powerful form of art, because it deals more fundamentally with the elaboration of the elemental particles of the universe, the vibrating strings. Music is all about vibration and patterns of vibration. When I play my guitar, I use my own kind of string theory.
Consider harmony. We consider music harmonious when there are several distinct tones at one time that sound pleasing together, that the set of vibrations is complementary. The harmonies can have different colors and tones, and different people will discern and appreciate harmonies differently. I’m a three-chord rock’n’roll guy, and I’m sure some of you have a more discerning palette when it comes to recognizing and appreciating harmony.
Notice, however, that we use words like harmony, tone, color, shape, and so on to describe visual art as well, the interaction of vibrations that we perceive through our eyes.
We also talk about harmony in the universe, harmony in our relationships. Aren’t the universe and our relationships also dependent upon patterns of vibration?
But there are vibrations that we can’t see or hear.
The vibrations of ultra-violet light. The vibration of dog whistles.
We can observe these vibrations with instruments, with spectrometers and terriers, even though we can’t experience them sensually.
Remember when I said that only 10 percent of the stuff that makes up the universe is observable to us mere mortals? Is it a coincidence that they say we only use 10 percent of our brain capacity?
It probably is a coincidence. But can you imagine how the world would appear to us if we were to use twenty percent of our brain? Fifty percent?
I want you to think about a radio for a minute.
What does a radio do except collect the unobservable vibrations of our universe and turn them into vibrations that we can observe. That is, a radio will transform very high frequency vibrations into relatively low frequency vibrations that our human ears can understand.
Maybe if we could use seventy percent of our brain capacity, we wouldn’t need radios? I can call music up in my head pretty much on demand. I may not remember all the words sometimes, but sometimes I can. I once knew the Beatles’ White Album so well that I could lay awake in bed at night after my parents made me turn the stereo off and listen to it from beginning to end, seemingly recalling every grace not and harmony, from “Back in the U.S.S.R.” to “Good Night,” including the inscrutable “Revolution 9,” even replaying the pops and crackles peculiar to my own vinyl.
Because isn’t that what our brains are like? We use our eyes and ears to collect the vibrations of the universe and our brains turn them into colors, shapes and sounds.
Likewise, our brains act as transmitters, turning electrical energy into ideas that we express through the metaphors of language and art.
I have a friend I call Willie. We met at a bar nine or ten years ago when they were having a regular Tuesday night jam session. We both had been playing with other people at these sessions, but had come that night alone. We were talking at the corner of the bar where the musicians hung out. We knew some of the same songs, it turned out, and played them in the same key, so we asked the hosts if we could go up and play a couple of tunes together.
It was as if we’d grown up playing together. Or played together in another lifetime. For whatever reason, we clicked as I’ve never clicked with any other musician. And it’s still that way. Sometimes, I can see his hand form an E minor chord on the fret board and know that he’s about to play “Down By the River.” Sometimes, I just look at him and know what song he’s going to play. Sometimes, we don’t even have to count it off, but just launch into a song.
There’s no accounting for it. I don’t understand it. He doesn’t understand it. But that doesn’t make it any less real. We both experience it.
Could it be that our brains are somehow working on a different level when we put those guitars in our hands?
That not only can we collect vibrations that stimulate our ears and eyes, but that we also collect vibrations created by and stimulating one another’s brain? That we are transmitting and receiving vibrations without any control over it? Without any awareness of the process.
Just as some people collect the vibrations of my apple sculpture and only see an apple while others collect the vibrations and turn them into personal memories, can our brains function at even higher levels, transmitting and receiving vibrations that we don’t understand simply because we haven’t developed the cognitive capacity to figure out how that works?
But just because it’s beyond our understanding, it doesn’t mean it’s magic or supernatural. It just means we don’t understand the mechanics of it, the science behind it.
What if you could go back and give Christopher Columbus a global positioning system. He’d think it was a gift from God. Or the devil.
That logic works on a lot of levels. Because we live in a universe churning with energy, the patterns can be so complex that it works when we don’t know how. Things often seem to happen in serendipitous ways. Sometimes we call it the will of God because we feel there’s an intention behind it.
Sometimes you don’t need caller ID to know who’s on the phone when it rings. I don’t know how many times that I’ll write an e-mail to someone, click the send button, and when the screen refreshes, there’s an e-mail from that person in my in-box. It happens two or three times a year. It could be coincidence.
I was talking to a guy a couple of weeks ago who said he recently started thinking about a guy he went to high school with, used to go hunting with, decided to look him up. He tracked him down in Florida and talked to him for the first time in 35 years. Two days later, he gets a call from Florida, the guy’s wife telling him that her husband dropped dead from a heart attack.
It could be a coincidence, but it feels otherwise, like there’s a pattern.
If we had enough data, knew what observations to make, we might be able to write a formula to explain it. How big a chalkboard do you think you would need to come up with that algorithm?
People in a spiritual life have observed the power of prayer. Scientists have observed the power of prayer. We don’t know how it works, but we know it does. Sometimes, anyway.
That doesn’t mean there’s not an orderly, predictable scientific way that prayer works. Science is observation, setting up controlled experiments, and we don’t even know what we’re looking for if we want to figure out how prayer works.
If we pray for things to happen and they don’t, we say it’s the will of God. If it does happen, we sometimes say it’s the will of God ‑ if we’re not giving credit to our own sweet intentions. But we accept a notion that prayer sometimes works so we throw them out there, hoping that God will hear and answer.
If you’ve been following my train of thought here, then you may already have fathomed what I think. Prayer is creating vibrations at the level of the divine. We have the idea that the receiver is operating with much more sophistication, so we speak in our own terms, then look for an answer in the patterns and energy cycles that we observe in the world around us.
So maybe we’re still in the early stages of discovering how prayer works.
Some of you may be taking exception to the notion that what we believe to be divine is just super-advanced physics. But history has shown how dangerous it can be to embrace mystical or religious explanations simply for the lack of a scientific one.
I saw Arthur Miller’s play, “The Crucible” last week at the Playhouse in the Park. It takes place in 1692 Salem, when some young girls began to exhibit strange behavior, such as blasphemous screaming, convulsive seizures, trance-like states and mysterious spells. Their skin was cold and hypersensitive. In a wave of community hysteria, thirty-seven people died in the infamous witch trials that followed. Nineteen were hanged, one crushed by stones as he was interrogated for two days; seventeen died in prison. Evidence and studies now suggest that the strange illness that afflicted the young girls may have been caused by a fungus on the local grain, the same fungus that is processed into LSD.
In 1614, Father Tommaso Caccini denounced Galileo’s opinions on the motion of the Earth around the sun, judging them dangerous and close to heresy. Galileo had to go to Rome to defend himself. Four years later, Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino, known as “the hammer of the heretics” ordered Galileo to neither advocate nor teach Copernican astronomy, because it was contrary to the Holy Scriptures. He spent some time in prison and the last nine years of his life under house arrest because the church would not accept that the universe did not move around the earth.
Sir Isaac Newton, born the same year that Galileo died, also suffered charges of mysticism.
Scientific advances have long run ahead of cultural acceptance. Our stubborn and superstitious nature has more than once slowed the march of civilization. And it goes on today. Stem cell research and human cloning are to some people moral issues, not scientific ones.
Still, these days, the advances seem to come much faster and it may not be long before we’ll have a better understanding of how nothing became something.
Or maybe the nature of something is simply beyond the comprehension of our ten-percent brains.
Another thing in common between our spiritual search and our scientific search is that we look for answers to how and why we got here, why we exist. I don’t know of any religion, ancient or otherwise, that doesn’t have some kind of theory of the origin of the universe. Some of them have to do with turtles or giant eggs, but they reflect the thinking of their time.
That’s why we need to keep adding holy texts into our cannon. Preserving tradition is no reason to embrace ignorance of scientific knowledge. It’s all one world, and whether you try to explain it through quantum mechanics, folk music or transcendental meditation, you’re looking at the same thing through different lenses.
Let me leave you with a bit of linguistic trivia.
Historical linguists are able to partially re-create dead languages that had never been written down by tracing back words that sprung from them. For instance, English is a class of language known as Germanic, which also includes German, Swedish, Icelandic, Danish and Yiddish. But because of the Norman Invasion of the 11th and a few other historical twists, much of English’s vocabulary comes from the Romance languages — French, Latin, Italian, Spanish.
All of these languages — plus Celtic, Iranian, Hindi, Sanskrit, Albanian and a host of others — are in the Indo-European family of languages, having evolved from a theoretical language called Proto-Indo-European. Language shifts and changes in fairly predictable ways through time, so by comparing modern languages, historical linguists can reconstruct parts of Proto-Indo-European.
There’s a interesting Proto-Indo-European word “arete.” It refers to “virtue” or “quality.”
It’s a very basic word that evolved through the years and through many different languages to mean very different things. We can hear echos of arete in “right,” for instance.
You can also here it echo in these words: Spirit. Arithmetic. Art.
Three things that don’t seem to have a lot in common at first blush, but this crazy universe of ours is built on relationships like that, it seems. Patterns of energy and vibration.
Through arithmetic, through science, through observation and experimentation, we try to come to a better understanding of the harmony of the physical world, to create better medicines and more efficient cars.
Through art, we try to harness the vibrational powers of the universe to make music and paintings that are not only visually appealing, but give us greater insight into the nature of the universe as we perceive it by our senses.
Through meditation and prayer, we go inward to contemplate the nature of God, self and spirit. We listen for guidance from that small, still voice, to come to an understanding of how harmony works in our creative endeavors, our personal relationships and our place in the grand cosmic pattern of vibration.
We are the eyes and ears of the universe, reporting back to the creator.
In the beginning, there was nothing. Then there was something.
That’s my theory, anyway.