Einstein's
Enlightenment
Grappling with the big questions is a distinctly human
preoccupation. Questions such as ‘where did we came
from’ and ‘what is the nature of our true situation’ are
daunting; they are so big as to seem unapproachable. No
approach to answering them seems plausible. This is a
new predicament for us humans. About the only thing
constant amongst the plethora of human cultures which
have existed is that each and every one has contained a
religion of sorts. Each human culture that has ever
existed has provided religious answers to the big
questions. To many moderns religious answers seem
somehow shallow and unconvincing. Our culture is so
complex it contains scores of religions each with
contradictory, unsupported claims of true answers. In
the midst of this uncertainty many have sought shelter
in religious fundamentalism where certainty is offered
in return for closing one’s mind to any alternatives.
In 1882 the philosopher Fredrick Nietzsche shocked the
world by announcing what was already for many a ‘dirty
secret’: ‘God is dead’. He meant that modern man’s
belief in religious answers had died and feared the
collapse of this surety would lead to nihilism and
despair. Nietzsche, in this famous pronouncement, issued
in the year of Charles Darwin’s death, was paying
witness to the repercussions of challenges that science
had recently issued to religion’s monopoly on the big
questions. Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural
selection, published in 1859, provided a simple and
naturalistic explanation for the question ‘where did we
come from’, an answer that clearly contradicted all
answers provided by religions. The theory of Evolution
is supported by an abundance of evidence that any
intelligent person can understand while religion, which
can muster no evidence, must rely on the faith of its
adherents.
Unfortunately finding answers to the big questions has
more than just philosophical implications. We embody
levels of complexity revolving around psychology and
culture unrivalled by anything else in the known
universe. This trajectory of complexity manifested in
human culture is clearly threatened. Human evolution has
reached a critical juncture and a huge step backwards in
the complexity of life on earth is a distinct possible
outcome. Only a major change in our trajectory can save
the planet from unprecedented disaster and it seems
clear that such a change must entail coming to grips
with our true situation in this world and responding to
this reality.
Our best knowledge indicates that the human species
spread beyond Africa for the first time as recently as
60,000 years ago. First we filled central Asia, then
30,000 years ago Europe, then 17,000 years ago the
Americas and in the past 1,000 years even the most
isolated islands such as Easter Island. During this
entire period, as we fill the world, our numbers grow
exponentially. As unpopulated lands became scarcer we
found ways to increase our density via agriculture and
industrialization. This exponential increase in
population over such an extended period is a mark of
unprecedented biological success. No other species has
managed to thrive in as many distinct eco-zones or
habitats. In rough terms what we call culture has been a
main ingredient to our success. Religion and the stories
and teachings provided by it, probably due to their
cohesive nature, are undoubtedly instrumental in our
success.
Now that the whole earth is peopled and human numbers
continue to sky rocket our success is problematic.
Already as a result of our activities the planet has
entered a period of ‘mass extinction’; one of those rare
periods in the earth’s history when the diversity of
life is rapidly being reduced. This mass extinction,
unlike any before, is not due to a purely physical cause
such as an asteroid collision or massive volcanic
eruptions but rather it is due to the unleashing of
powers by our species upon the ecological infrastructure
of the planet. Now, with the power of science in our
arsenal, we are poised to precipitate the mother of all
mass extinctions. How we will use our power depends very
much on how we see our situation in the world; the
answers we find to the big questions.
Coming to grips with understanding our true situation
is formidable especially if we are of independent mind
and reluctant to accept easy answers. The hard part is
that no one has been here before. There are no
infallible guides. We are on this crazy ride; no one
knows what is going to happen, no one has been here
before. It might be pleasant to turn away from this
situation, to believe in some calming fairy tale at
least for a while, but it might not be wise.
Society’s main interest in science has been as an aid
to increase our resources and propel our numbers. The
mass extinction was unplanned. It is just an unintended
consequence. There is a neglected side to science.
Science does offer answers to the big questions. Could
it be that science contains not only the roots of our
predicament but also the means of our salvation?
Science is the set of rational explanations that best
fit the available evidence. It has reduced its
preconceptions to two guiding principals: rationality
and the validity of sensory evidence. Today science is
vastly more detailed than any other system of knowledge,
it is true in a sense unrivalled by any other system and
it has given us powers vastly more potent than any other
system of knowledge.
For the past twenty-five years I have relied on science
as the best guide to meaning in my life. My good friend,
Ry Glover, once observed that although the scientific
world view has become much more encompassing and
powerful during the last century it has only marginally
informed the views of our culture. The majority of
people continue to see their existence and their meaning
in religious or superstitious terms. Science is steadily
amassing the details of how we came to exist and our
context in the universe. Why haven’t we adopted this
knowledge as our own?
As a young man I flirted with religious beliefs and
spiritualism. While these were tantalizing and answered
my needs for finding answers and belonging to a group of
believers they were also some serious drawbacks that in
the end made commitment impossible. For me, their root
failure was their common requirement for faith, the
requirement to believe a particular dogma regardless of
the evidence. Wherever one turns within the sphere of
religions there are multiple sects each with clearly
contradictory beliefs requiring that upon joining you
must forgo any independent questioning.
Clearly, at best, some religious beliefs are false. The
beliefs of some sects contradict those of others, they
cannot all be true. With no evidence to distinguish
between them how can one choose? Usually there is little
choice. Often one’s religious beliefs are those we were
born into. Even when there is choice it must be
subjective; what feels best to me. This is a major
attraction of religion; it gives us beliefs that make
clear our place and duties in a confusing world and
allows us to feel at home. People often adopt the
beliefs that make them feel best, those that connect
them to feelings of awe and spiritual wholeness.
What about truth? Is it expendable in return for
feeling good? Is this not the definition of ‘a fool’s
paradise’? Many claim that the religious experience is a
reliable indication of truth. They claim the experience
of God speaking to them is something other than a
psychological peculiarity. There is no evidence for this
claim. Charles Manson had ‘religious’ experiences. The
truth or falsity of these experiences is not self
evident and must be decided by other criteria.
The possibility of knowing truth is often doubted and
we feel we might as well find the most appealing
religious belief and accept it. Still this is a shoddy
substitute and we can’t help feeling drawn to
discovering truth, to feeling it is nobler to strive
after truth than to suspend our quest and accept some
appealing piece of fiction that provides shelter from
the storm.
There is good news for modern man. Science delivers
both a subjective ‘religious’ experience and a rock
solid connection to truth. Science provides a superior
framework for living and believing. We will explore the
basis for this claim from a number of perspectives:
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The ‘religious’ experience is
fundamental to science. Opponents often criticize
science as ‘cold’ and ‘soulless’. This view is only
voiced by those who do not know it. Einstein bore
witness to the cosmic religious experience at the
basis of all science. He declared that the purpose
of science is to awaken this enlightened state in
those ‘who are receptive to
it’[i].
More recently, Richard Dawkins, in his wonderful
book Unweaving the Rainbow[ii],
makes clear the wonder and awe inherent in Science.
Science’s ‘religious’ experience is even better than
religion’s because there are deep reasons for
believing it to be true and the experience of truth
resonates well with us.
-
The great spiritual sages of all
cultures agree that there exists a spiritual reality
beyond our day to day existence. Einstein identified
this reality as the very one which science explores
and describes. He claimed that science opens a door
to a higher state of spiritual enlightenment than
that offered by religion. Science also explains why
we are tied to a non-spiritual day to day existence
and the elusive nature of the spiritual realm.
-
Our place in the universe and how we
came to be here are known to science in great
detail. Although we have been produced by natural
processes we enjoy the special distinction of being
products of advanced evolutionary process acting
only on humans. Science has revealed the details of
processes that designed and produced us from the
random soup of elementary particles at the beginning
of the universe. Discovering the ‘truth’ has been
the central strategy of earthly evolution for the
past three and one half billion years. Science and
Religion are amongst its latest manifestations and
are products of this ancient quest for knowledge.
Accumulation of knowledge is evolution’s central
strategy as only the truth will make you strong and
only the strong survive. Evolution has bestowed on
us the distinction of embodying more knowledge than
any other entity in the known universe.
-
Scientific evidence provides a rock
solid connection amongst scientific explanations,
evidence, truth and power. The solidity of this
connection is due to the fact that sensory or
empirical knowledge is based on ancient ways of
knowing developed by evolution over billions of
years. This extremely accurate and trustworthy way
of knowing decides the fate of scientific
explanations. Theories that cannot bear the scrutiny
of sensory knowledge are discarded, only those
supported by sensory knowledge become part of
science.
-
Scientific knowledge is vast an
rapidly growing. Science is a body of knowledge that
is cumulatively progressing towards the ‘truth’.
Einstein’s theories do not contradict Newton’s, they
expand upon Newton’s. The discovery of DNA, the
major biological breakthrough of the 20th
century, informs and expands Darwin’s theory of
evolution, the major biological breakthrough of the
19th century. Scientific knowledge is
vast compared to religious knowledge. Choose at
random anything able to be detected by the senses.
(This rules out things such as souls and spirits
that may well be fictitious). Take for instance a
blade of grass. One could spend one’s life examining
the scientific literature detailing that particular
species of grass, the biological mechanisms shared
by that species with other green plants, the ecology
in which it lives and hundreds of other avenues of
knowledge that illuminate every aspect it. It is
probable that no system of religious knowledge even
identifies that species of grass let alone supplies
any verifiable knowledge concerning it. Every bit
of the immense body of scientific knowledge is
supported by experimental evidence that anyone is
free to independently question and verify.
-
Ethics and morality, often held to be
the province of religion, are shown by science to be
required features of human culture and fundamental
to leading a ‘successful’ life. Scientific models of
evolution reveal that ethics and morality are
winning strategies in many situations. ‘Do unto
others as you would have them do unto you’ has been
shown to prevail over all other strategies in
ruthless Darwinian competition.
-
The use we have made of the powers of
Science have unanticipated consequences that
threaten our survival as a species. Science has
allowed us to exponentially increase both our
numbers and our per capita resource usage resulting
in a strain on natural systems reflected in the
current mass extinction of species; the worst
natural disaster in over 60 million years. This
crisis and our attempts to deal with it will
constitute the theme of human history for at least
the next hundred years. The great religions promote
ideals of unfettered reproduction and resource usage
and are singularly unequipped to guide us through
this crisis. The scientific community has been
leaders in raising the alarm and outlining
solutions. In which of these camps we place our
trust, concentrate our efforts and look for guidance
will determine the outcome of this crisis. To
weather this crisis while imposing a minimum of
damage to the planet will require spiritual strength
of a kind not available through religion. As
Einstein proclaimed, Science is our most promising
source for this spiritual strength.
With all these advantages, why has science been so slow
to penetrate our world view? Why do we harness it for
material prosperity but ignore it as a source of meaning
in our lives? I believe there at least two reasons for
this:
-
We think science is difficult to
understand. We fear it to be alien and
incomprehensible and do not embrace it as a pillar
from which we can gain meaning and comfort. Given
the vast expanse of scientific knowledge and its
depth of detail, it is impossible for anyone to know
it all. Fortunately science is in some ways becoming
simpler even as it explains more.
-
We are impatient with our ignorance
even though ignorance is an honest and noble state.
We are all hugely ignorant. Many subjects are not
understood, at least in detail, by anyone. The
truth of the matter is that the areas of our
ignorance are immeasurable. What matters is our
response to this state. We can adopt some easy
pseudo knowledge and convince ourselves that it is
real knowledge, that it in fact reduces our
ignorance. But this is the start of a slippery
slope. To maintain such a belief system we must
either adopt unquestioning faith or construct ever
more encompassing details of pseudo knowledge to
answer inevitable curiosity. How much more noble to
squarely face our ignorance, acknowledge that there
are many things beyond our knowledge, and resolve to
reduce our ignorance as much as possible by learning
real knowledge supported by real evidence.
Fabric
of Reality by David Deutsche[iii]
provides a step forward in our ability to see science as
a means of comprehending our situation. A central tenet
of this work is that the entirety of human knowledge is
becoming easier to understand because fundamental
scientific theories are becoming fewer even as they
encompass a wider range of subject matter. He argues we
are on the verge of a single scientific theory that will
provide the framework for explaining everything. To this
end he discusses four schools of knowledge he sees as
central and that will be integrated into the one theory
of everything. These four strands are: Evolution,
Computation, Epistemology and Quantum Physics. He
believes that each of these theories is a window to the
‘theory of everything’. This work focuses on the window
provided by the theory of Evolution as I believe it is
the one closest to us and is most applicable in
explaining the meaning of human beings.
Knowledge is at the heart of the theory of evolution.
Evolution is the only known source of knowledge in the
universe. In other words no known form of knowledge has
been produced by any other process. Each human being is
created using the knowledge developed and stored by
evolutionary processes. All cultural progress represents
advancements in knowledge achieved through an
evolutionary process. In the following discussion I will
enlarge the scope usually included in the subject of
evolution to include this broader subject matter of
Universal Darwinism.
This
work is an invitation to evaluate Universal Darwinism as
a doorway to state of enlightenment most clearly
described by Albert Einstein. Einstein; widely acclaimed
as ‘the person’ of the 19th century, claims
there exists a state of enlightenment composed of the
scientific worldview and that the purpose of science is
to ‘awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who
are receptive to it.’[iv]
For those receptive
to it he promises a deep spiritual reward:
The individual feels
the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity
and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in
nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence
impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to
experience the universe as a single significant whole.[v]
[i]
Einstein Albert, (November 9, 1930),
Science and Religion, New York Times
Magazine
[ii]
Dawkins R. (1998). Unweaving the Rainbow.
Houghton Mifflin
[iii]
Deutsch D. (1997). The Fabric of Reality.
Penguin Books, London
[iv]
Einstein Albert, (November 9, 1930),
Science and Religion, New York Times
Magazine
[v]
Einstein Albert, (November 9, 1930),
Science and Religion, New York Times
Magazine
