What Is Truth - Part 3

When it comes to the development of humans, modern humanity, things are even weirder. We know, again, as much as we can know, that we had ancestors, various hominids, ranging from little, not-too-bright Australopithecus up to homo erectus (upright man) and homo habilus (the tool maker). Then, we have some odd kin folk. Seemingly, as we became what we are, there existed Neanderthal man. Long thought to be a dumb brute, we have since figured out that he was a very smart and, for a long time, a very successful creature. Now, we have found a new cousin, Denisovian man. All we know about him, from the scant fossil record he left, is that he was big. Then, we showed up, and they departed. Why they died out, even our smart-ass scientists have to admit they have no clue.          

 

But, we were told, they were distinct lines, separate from us, and, that, despite the human propensity for breeding with anything that looks remotely like us, there was no interbreeding. Well, not surprisingly, geneticists have extracted usable DNA from the bones of our cousins, and, yes, a small, but not insignificant percentage of our genes come from them (except among the people of Africa; what that means, I have no idea). Traditional scientists are aghast at that discovery and last I saw they were trying ways to fault the genetic workups, but they are beginning to admit that, yes, we were quite close to our cousins.                                

 

Of course there are other ideas. If you have ever seen one of the countless repeats of Ancient Aliens on the History Channel, you no doubt have heard it proposed that Sky Gods came down, mucked about with our DNA and made us their somewhat intelligent slaves, until, for some reason, they flew the coop. Likely? Of course not. Impossible? Certainly not. The Universe is old and far stranger than we are capable of imagining.   

 

Again, we are shooting in the dark, guessing. Fine, that is what detectives do, and all of this is a great mystery, but even the great Sherlock Holmes never hesitated to admit a mistake. We do not know; we were not there. 

 

Let us try another question. How did the Universe form? We are told, at least for the last several decades, that all of the energy of the Universe was packed into a tiny point that exploded, the Big Bang. Is that true? Maybe, a little. All of the energy was not packed into a tiny point because things like points and energy are present in space-time. Before the beginning there was no space-time. What was there? Nothing in the literal sense of the word, no-thing. Things only exist in space and time. Scientists know this because the laws of physics break down a short time, called Plank's Time, before they find the beginning. The whole Big Band thing is logical. We knew a goodly number of Nature's Law, we thought, and assumed that if we worked them backward, we would see the beginning. We don't.                          

 

That aside, if there was a Big Bang, when we run things forward, we do not get the Universe in its present state unless we fudge the math with what are called constants. Einstein used them but loathed the idea. The sane thing to do would be to say, "we have something wrong, give us a few years to sort this out." Instead they keep teaching the same nonsense.      

 

There are other ideas. A few daring physicists have dared to suggest that maybe the whole thing burst into existence all at once everywhere and has existed ever since in a sort of steady state where things are constantly changing but always within a constant framework. Other have suggested that creation is constant, that at every moment, the matter and the energy we are aware of is popping in and out of existence from a level of energy that we, with our limited perception, can never know. This, by the way, is an old idea present in some Eastern thought and in Paul Tillich's idea of God as the Ground of Being and it is an appealing idea. It is wonderful to think of our world as constantly fresh and new.                                            

 

Going back to that idea of fudging the math with constants, it seems that those did not really work. Now we are told that for the Universe to be the way it is, there must be dark matter and dark energy. They must be there we are told to balance the cosmic books. Great. What is dark matter? Well, no one knows and we cannot even see it because it does not interact with anything we are aware of except gravity but there is a whole heap of it. Worry not, we will figure out what it is, someday. Okay, fair enough, what about dark energy? Oh well, same thing. We do not know, but it must be there and we will get to it. At what point do we say, "enough. This is idiotic. rethink your basic physics and start over. Until then, not a damn penny for your thoughts."       

 

Everyone, please join me in practicing this phrase until it come easily from your mouth. “We do not know.” Say it over and over, because, when you get right down to it, we really do not know much. We think a lot of things are true and work from there. That’s fine, you have to start somewhere and work with something, but when new information becomes available that you are reasonably sure requires you to change your approach, don’t cling stupidly to the past.       

 

And, more importantly, don’t stop trying to solve the mystery. You never will solve it, but the fun and the gain is in the trying. As humans, we are unmercifully curious and are doomed to trying to solve the unsolvable, but that is how we grow. Also, it’s a hell of a lot of fun and one of the things that makes us so lovable. I sometimes think that curiosity, that sense of wonder, is one of the main reasons our Creator finds us so fascinating, that and the fact that we share that Divine love of good stories and good music.