Appendices from Summa Metaphysica II : God & Good
relating to -
Missing Piece
in Current Cosmologies
THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
APPENDIX Z55:
1999: Cosmologist Martin Rees
Noted astrophysicist and cosmologist Martin Rees (b. 1942, England, and President of the Royal Society 2005-2010) noted the following in the finale of his 1999 work “Just Six Numbers”:***
“But it remains a fundamental challenge to understand the very beginning – this must await a ‘final’ theory…. Such a theory would signal the end of an intellectual quest that started with Newton, and continued through Maxwell, Einstein and their successors. It would deepen our understanding of space, time, and the basic forces….
This goal may be unattainable. There could be no ‘final’ theory; or, if there is, it could be beyond our mental powers to grasp it. But even if this goal is reached, that would not be the end of challenging science. As well as being a ‘fundamental’ science, cosmology is also the grandest of the environmental sciences. It aims to understand
how a simple ‘fireball’ evolved into the complex cosmic habitat we find around us – how, here on Earth, and perhaps in many biospheres elsewhere, creatures evolved that are able to reflect on how they emerged.”*
from the author –
Every once-in-a-while, Sir Martin, a sort-of ‘simple concept’ makes-an-appearance on the world stage – a ‘simple concept’ which simultaneously apparently ‘solves’ an array of formidable, inter-related, and hitherto seemingly intractable issues.
*** Martin Rees, Just Six Numbers. Great Britain: Weindenfeld & Nicolson, 1999. pp. 176-177
THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
APPENDIX Z56:
2000: Cosmologist Brian Greene***
“The search for the fundamental laws of the universe is a distinctly human drama, one that has stretched the mind and enriched the spirit… We are all, each in our own way, seekers of the truth and we each long for an answer to why we are here. As we collectively scale the mountain of explanation, each generation stands firmly on the shoulders of the previous, bravely reaching for the peak. Whether any of our descendants will ever take in the view from the summit and gaze out on the vast and elegant universe with a perspective of infinite clarity, we cannot predict. But as each generation climbs a little higher, we realize Jacob Bronowski’s pronouncement that ‘in every age there is a turning point, a new way of seeing and asserting the coherence of the world [(Jacob Bronowski, The Ascent of Man, p. 20]. And as our generation marvels at our new view of the universe—our new way of asserting the world’s coherence—we are fulfilling our part, contributing our rung to the human ladder reaching for the stars.”
*** Brian Greene, The Elegant Universe. New York: First Vintage Books edition, 2000. p. 387
THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
APPENDIX Z57:
2004: Cosmologists Tyson & Goldsmith***
“Every once in a while, however, a significantly new take on an important theory emerges…. The greatest moments in scientific history have arisen, and will always arise, when a new explanation, perhaps coupled with new observational results, produces a seismic shift in our conclusions about the workings of nature….
Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher who created the strongest bridge between the natural and supernatural, rejected any distinction between nature and God, insisting instead that the cosmos is simultaneously nature and God… Let us then proceed with our adventurous quest for cosmic origins, acting much like detectives who deduce the facts of the crime from the evidence left behind.”
*** Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Donald Goldsmith. Origins. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,Inc. 2004. pp 19-21
THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
APPENDIX Z58:
2006: Cosmologist Leonard Susskind***
“For my own tastes, elegance and simplicity can sometimes be found in principles that don’t at all lend themselves to equations. I know of no equations that are more elegant than the two principles that underpin Darwin’s theory: random mutation and competition. This book is about an organizing principle that is also powerful and simple….
And what about the biggest questions of all: who or what made the universe and for what reason? Is there a purpose to it all? I don’t pretend to know the answers…
…The ultimate existential question, ‘Why is there Something rather than Nothing?’ has no more or less of an answer than before anyone had ever heard of String Theory.”…
*** Leonard Susskind, The Cosmic Landscape. New York: Little, Brown and Company. 2006. pp 379-380
THE TRANSCENDENT DYNAMIC
APPENDIX Z60:
2008: Cosmologist Paul Davies***
“…Somehow the universe has engineered, not just its own awareness, but also its own comprehension. Mindless, blundering atoms have conspired to make not just life, not just mind, but understanding…. Could it just be a fluke? Might the fact that the deepest level of reality has connected to a quirky natural phenomenon we call ‘the human mind’ represent nothing but a bizarre and temporary aberration in an absurd and pointless universe? Or is there an even deeper subplot at work?”.... (p. 5)
“In some manner…life, mind, and physical law are part of a common scheme, mutually supporting. Somehow, the universe has engineered its own self-awareness.”… (p. 231)
*** Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma. United Kingdom: Little, First Mariner Books edition. 2008. pp. 5 and 231
from the author –
Paul Davies (b. 1946) is possibly my favorite cosmologist. I have read several of his works since the early 1980s. Australian Davies, currently at the University of Arizona, who has a Templeton Prize under his belt, among other academic trophies, is also a favorite cosmologist of the academic ruling elite in cosmology.
Reading the above quotes, one can sense Davies’s frustration. The holy grail of cosmology – the cosmic common denominator/motivating engine lurks just outside his quite-formidable intellectual grasp. But, as readers of Summa surely grasp, all that Davies needs to do to nail-down ultimate victory after his ~25 books on cosmology and related, is to simply plug-in metaphysical Summa into his sophisticated astrophysicist matrix.
In contemporary times, theologians and physicists both vector towards the Goldilocks Enigma.
To theologians, it is an indicator of a “Guiding Hand”
To physicists, it is a conundrum.
Actually, the Goldilocks Enigma is a key – and almost incontrovertible-support for Q4P∞. It is Q4P∞ which so-to-speak “sets the dial” in each case.
And Q4P∞ of course “sets-the-dial” to optimize potential Extraordinariation – which includes Life.