volume II: Synopsis
section I: Motivations and posibilities
page 6: Creation
Where did we come from? The traditional Christian answer is to be found in Genesis: 'In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. . . .' . Why did God create the world? A Catholic answer is to be found in the dogmatic constitution Dei Filius of the first Vatican Council, repeated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church: "The world was made for the glory of God". This means in effect that God made the world to show off to us, a rather anthropocentric view. Genesis 1:1-2, Holy See, Pope John Paul II
This Catholic account of our origins implies that the world pre-existed in God, and is therefore nothing new. It provides no real explanation for the world, since the Church holds that God and its ways are held to be mysterious, beyond human ken. The Church believe that God created the world 'out of nothing'. Here we would prefer to think that the Universe is created 'out of God' and is in fact identical to God. Aquinas, Summa, I 44, 3: Is God the exemplary cause of things, or there be other exemplars beside him
God made the Universe. But who (or what) made God? The traditional answer is that God is eternal. There never was a time when God did not exist and so the question is meaningless. Whatever we think about God, our existence is an indisputable fact, and insofar as God is the source of our existence, we accept the existence of God.
The modern story is a little more satisfying. Einstein's general theory of relativity models the large scale structure of spacetime. This theory and observation show us that spacetime is a growing structure whose roots may be traced to an initial point known as the initial singularity. Cosmology - Wikipedia, Hawking and Ellis, Misner, Thorne and Wheeler
This story no more tells us where the initial singularity came from than the traditional story tells us where God came from. We begin here with the hypothesis that the initial singularity corresponds to the classical picture of God developed by Aquinas. Following Aristotle, Aquinas first establishes that God is 'pure act' actus purus and then proceeds to deduce from this the classical properties of God, absolute simplicity, omnipotence, omniscience, eternity and so on. Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3: Does God exist?
The Christian God is also a living God, where life is taken to mean 'self motion'. Mathematically, we model motion by mapping, and we can understand a self moving entity as one that maps onto itself. Mathematical fixed point theorems tell us that under certain circumstances, sets mapping onto themselves have fixed points, that it points which are not moved by the mapping even though they are part of the motion. Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia
With this point of view we can imagine creation (and its inverse, annihilation) as the appearance and disappearance of fixed points with the divine dynamics. We ourselves are such fixed points, enjoying a lifetime between our birth (creation) and death (annihilation) and the same is true for all other particles in the Universe.
The structure of spacetime is such that much of the past remains present to us. We can observe the 'cosmic background radiation' which gives us a picture of the Universe when it was only about 100 thousand years old. Astronomical telescopes enable us to look back billions of years into the past, so that we have been able to construct quite a detailed history of the Universe. Astronomy - Wikipedia, European Space Agency
This evolutionary process we can understand as the emergence of an increasing number of fixed point in the universal dynamics. Astrophysics is able to give a largely consistent account of the origins of matter in the Universe, and the formation of galaxies, stars and planets. Although the origins of life are quite obscured by time, physics, chemistry, molecular biology and the theory of evolution by natural selection provide us with a consistent and satisfying picture of the possible origins of life on earth and the evolution of ever more complex creatures.
Modern physics depends heavily on the notion of symmetry. Symmetry is closely related to indifference and equiprobability, a mathematical representation of 'nothing' or absence of structure. Since a perfect coin is symmetrical with respect to its two faces, we expect equal almost numbers of 'heads' and 'tails' when we toss a coin a large number of times. Similarly, the faces of a fair die all have the same probability of turning up on a throw, 1/6. If we observe that this is not the case, we suspect that the die of being 'loaded', giving one face a higher probability of appearance than the others.
The symmetries of the Universe are studied in quantum physics. Because of symmetry, that is a lack of determination, while quantum mechanics can predict quite precisely the possible outcomes of an event, it can only predict the probability of which of these is going to actually happen. Einstein and others who believe in a deterministic Universe have found this feature of quantum mechanics very perplexing, but a century of experience suggests that there is no way to avoid it. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, Albert Einstein
Symmetry and unpredictability are inherent features of our Universe, but we also find that symmetries can be broken. When a coin comes to rest on the surface of a table, we can say that the system is no longer symmetrical: one face is up and the other face is down. Now we have a definite outcome. The consequences of this outcome depend on the environment in which the coin is tossed. If someone has bet the farm on heads and the coin comes up tails, the farm is lost.
Evolution involves both symmetry and symmetry breaking. Symmetry allows for the random assortment of genes, and for the random variation of the circumstances of birth and life encountered by each organism. Broken symmetries determine the actual events of an individual life which determine whether an organisms will survive, grow and reproduce, or not.
As we know for our own experience, life and reproduction are enormously complex and often difficult processes, subject to all sorts of random events, like meeting the right mate, finding suitable food and shelter and so on. For the moment we overlook all these details and say only that fit organisms are those which are able to interact profitably with their environment.
The general process of evolution is indifferent to complexity, so that there is no limit to the complexity of structures which may evolve. We incorporate molecular mechanisms that evolved billions of years ago in single celled organisms. These single celled organisms were subjected to the same evolutionary forces that have shaped all our ancestors and still work upon us. Although the concept of evolution originally arose in the context of biology, it also applies in the psychological and social realms, so that our ideas, technologies and societies are also subject to the same interplay of random and determinate events.
Since the environment of any organism is largely comprised of other organisms, also subject to evolution, we can see that the evolutionary process is recursive, it feeds on itself. This, in turn, accounts for the enormous variety of life, the diversity of organisms that have existed in the past, which exist now, and are to come.
Our species, in its current form, is only a few hundred thousand years old, the blink of an eye relative to the age of the Universe. As far as we can see, conditions on Earth will be suitable for life as we know it for billions of years to come. Evolution at all levels has a long way to go. Klein
Symmetry lays the foundation for unpredictability and creativity but why do structures become more complex? Why didn't the structureless initial singularity simply stay as it was. Why doesn't annihilation keep pace with creation? To answer, we change our perspective. Instead of thinking of the Universe as body, let us look at it as mind or soul. This is not to say that body and soul are distinct entities, only that they are different ways of looking at the same reality.
(revised 3 April 2020)
Back to Synopsis toc
|
Copyright:
You may copy this material freely provided only that you quote fairly and provide a link (or reference) to your source.
Further readingBooks
Bergson, Henri, and Arthur Mitchell (translator), Creative Evolution, Rowman & Littlefield 1983 Amazon Book Description: 'Creative Evolution, originally published in 1911 by Henry Holt and Company, is the work which catapulted Bergson from obscurity into world-wide fame. A study of the philosophical implications of biological evolutionary theory, the impact of this book reached far beyond biology and seemed to many to herald a new age in philosophy and the sciences.'
Amazon
back |
Darwin, Charles, and Greg Suriano (editor), The Origin of Species, Gramercy 1998 Introduction: 'In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such facts, might come to the conclusion that each species has not been independently created, but has descended, like varieties, from other species.'
Amazon
back |
Dawkins, Richard, The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe without Design, Penguin/Pelican 1996 Preface: '[Darwinism] is, indeed a remarkably simple theory; . . . In essence it amounts simply to the idea that non-random reproduction where there is hereditary variation, has consequences that are far reaching if there is time for them to be cumulative . . . '
Amazon
back |
Hawking, Steven W, and G F R Ellis, The Large Scale Structure of Space-Time, Cambridge UP 1975 Preface: Einstein's General Theory of Relativity . . . leads to two remarkable predictions about the universe: first that the final fate of massive stars is to collapse behind an event horizon to form a 'black hole' which will contain a singularity; and secondly that there is a singularity in our past which constitutes, in some sense, a beginning to our universe. Our discussion is principally aimed at developing these two results.'
Amazon
back |
Klein, Richard G, The Human Career: Human Biological and Cultural Origins, University of Chicago Press 2009 ' Since its publication in 1989, The Human Career has proved to be an indispensable tool in teaching human origins. This substantially revised third edition retains Richard G. Klein’s innovative approach while showing how cumulative discoveries and analyses over the past ten years have significantly refined our knowledge of human evolution. . . .
In addition to outlining the broad pattern of human evolution, The Human Career details the kinds of data that support it. For the third edition, Klein has added numerous tables and a fresh citation system designed to enhance readability, especially for students. He has also included more than fifty new illustrations to help lay readers grasp the fossils, artifacts, and other discoveries on which specialists rely. With abundant references and hundreds of images, charts, and diagrams, this new edition is unparalleled in its usefulness for teaching human evolution.'
Amazon
back |
Misner, Charles W, and Kip S Thorne, John Archibald Wheeler, Gravitation, Freeman 1973 Jacket: 'Einstein's description of gravitation as curvature of spacetime led directly to that greatest of all predictions of his theory, that the universe itself is dynamic. Physics still has far to go to come to terms with this amazing fact and what it means for man and his relation to the universe. John Archibald Wheeler. . . . this is a book on Einstein's theory of gravity. . . . '
Amazon
back |
Silk, Joseph, The Big Bang: The Creation and Evolution of the Universe, Freeman 1988 Jacket: 'Written for the non-specialist, The Big Bang describes the greatest contemporary puzzles and achievements in astronomy, cosmology and astrophysics, clearly recounting the history of the universe and examining current controversies from several points of view. The book concludes with a self contained appendix providing the basic mathematical framework for understanding modern cosmology."
Amazon
back |
Stewart, Ian, Life's Other Secret: The new mathematics of the living world, Wiley 1999 Preface: 'There is more to life than genes. . . . Life operates within the rich texture of the physical universe and its deep laws, patterns, forms, structures, processes and systems. ... Genes nudge the physical universe in specific directions . . . . The mathematical control of the growing organism is the other secret. . . . . Without it we will never solve the deeper mysteries of the living world - for life is a partnership between genes and mathematics, and we must take proper account of the role of both partners.' (xi)
Amazon
back |
Papers
Hairston Jr, Nelson G, et al, "Rapid evolution revealed by dormant eggs", Nature, 401, 6752
, 30 September 1999, page 446. 'Lake Constance, in central Europe experienced a period of eutrophication (the biological effects of an input of plant nutrients) during the 1960s-70s, which caused an increase in the abundance of nutritionally poor or even toxic cyanobacteria. By hatching long dormant eggs of Daphnia galeata found in lake sediments, we show that the mean resistance of Daphnia genotypes to dietary cyanobacteria increased significantly during the eutrophication". back |
Nowak, Martin A, Joshua B Plotkin and Vincent A A Jansen, "The evolution of syntactic communication", Nature, 404, 6777, 30 March 2000, page 495-498. Letters to Nature: 'Animal communication is typically non-syntactic, which means that signals refer to whole situations. Human language is syntactic, and signals consist of discrete components that have their own meaning. Syntax is requisite for taking advantage of combinatorics, that is 'making infinite use of finite means'. ... Here we present a model for the population dynamics of language evolution, define the basic reproductive ratio of words and calculate the maximum size of a lexicon.'. back |
Pagel, Mark, "Inferring the historical patterns of biological evolution", Nature, 401, 6756, 28 October 1999, page 877-884. Review: 'Phylogenetic trees describe the pattern of descent amongst groups of species. With the rapid accumulation of DNA sequence data, more and more phylogenies are being constructed based upon sequence comparisons. The combination of these phylogenies with powerful new statistical approaches for the analysis of biological evolution is challenging widely held beliefs about the history and evolution of life on earth. . back |
Links
Albert Einstein, God does not play dice, 'Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that He does not throw dice.
Letter to Max Born (4 December 1926); The Born-Einstein Letters (translated by Irene Born) (Walker and Company, New York, 1971) ISBN 0-8027-0326-7. back |
Aquinas 13, Summa: I 2 3: Does God exist?, I answer that the existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. . . . The third way is taken from possibility and necessity . . . The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. . . . The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. back |
Aquinas 13 (Latin), Summa: I 2 3: Whether God exists?, 'Respondeo dicendum quod Deum esse quinque viis probari potest. Prima autem et manifestior via est, quae sumitur ex parte motus. Certum est enim, et sensu constat, aliqua moveri in hoc mundo. Omne autem quod movetur, ab alio movetur. Nihil enim movetur, nisi secundum quod est in potentia ad illud ad quod movetur, movet autem aliquid secundum quod est actu. Movere enim nihil aliud est quam educere aliquid de potentia in actum, de potentia autem non potest aliquid reduci in actum, nisi per aliquod ens in actu, sicut calidum in actu, ut ignis, facit lignum, quod est calidum in potentia, esse actu calidum, et per hoc movet et alterat ipsum. Non autem est possibile ut idem sit simul in actu et potentia secundum idem, sed solum secundum diversa, quod enim est calidum in actu, non potest simul esse calidum in potentia, sed est simul frigidum in potentia. Impossibile est ergo quod, secundum idem et eodem modo, aliquid sit movens et motum, vel quod moveat seipsum. Omne ergo quod movetur, oportet ab alio moveri. Si ergo id a quo movetur, moveatur, oportet et ipsum ab alio moveri et illud ab alio. Hic autem non est procedere in infinitum, quia sic non esset aliquod primum movens; et per consequens nec aliquod aliud movens, quia moventia secunda non movent nisi per hoc quod sunt mota a primo movente, sicut baculus non movet nisi per hoc quod est motus a manu. Ergo necesse est devenire ad aliquod primum movens, quod a nullo movetur, et hoc omnes intelligunt Deum.' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I 44, 3, Is God the exemplary cause of things, or there be other exemplars beside him, 'I answer that, God is the first exemplar cause of all things. . . . it is manifest that things made by nature receive determinate forms. This determination of forms must be reduced to the divine wisdom as its first principle, for divine wisdom devised the order of the universe, which order consists in the variety of things. And therefore we must say that in the divine wisdom are the types of all things, which types we have called ideas--i.e. exemplar forms existing in the divine mind. . . . ' back |
Aquinas, Summa, I, 2, 3, Summa: I 2 3: Does God exist?, I answer that the existence of God can be proved in five ways. The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. . . . The second way is from the nature of the efficient cause. . . . The third way is taken from possibility and necessity . . . The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. . . . The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. back |
Astronomy - Wikipedia, Astronomy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects (such as stars, planets, comets, nebulae, star clusters and galaxies) and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth (such as the cosmic background radiation). It is concerned with the evolution, physics, chemistry, meteorology, and motion of celestial objects, as well as the formation and development of the universe.' back |
Cosmology - Wikipedia, Cosmology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'Cosmology (from the Greek κόσμος, kosmos "world" and -λογία, -logia "study of"), is the study of the origin, evolution, and eventual fate of the universe. Physical cosmology is the scholarly and scientific study of the origin, evolution, large-scale structures and dynamics, and ultimate fate of the universe, as well as the scientific laws that govern these realities. Religious or mythological cosmology is a body of beliefs based on mythological, religious, and esoteric literature and traditions of creation and eschatology.' back |
Dei Filius - Wikipedia, Dei Filius - Wikipedia, the fre encyclopedia, 'Dei Filius is the incipit of the dogmatic constitution of the First Vatican Council on the Catholic faith, which was adopted unanimously on 24 April 1870.
The constitution set forth the teaching of "the holy Catholic Apostolic Roman Church" on God, revelation and faith' back |
Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen, Can the Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?, A PDF of the classic paper. 'In a complete theory there is an element corresponding to each element of reality. A sufficient condition for the reality of a physical quantity is the possibility of predicting it with certainty, without disturbing the system. In quantum mechanics in the case of two physical quantities described by non-commuting operators, the knowledge of one precludes the knowledge of the other. Then either (1) the description of reality given by the wave function in quantum mechanics is not complete or (2) these two quantities cannot have simultaneous reality. Consideration of the problem of making predictions concerning a system on the basis of measurements made on another system that had previously interacted with it leads to the result that if (1) is false then (2) is also false, One is thus led to conclude that the description of reality given by the wave function is not complete.' back |
European Space Agency, Planck > Publications, 'Planck will help provide answers to some of the most important questions in modern science: how did the Universe begin, how did it evolve to the state we observe today, and how will it continue to evolve in the future? Planck's objective is to analyse, with the highest accuracy ever achieved, the remnants of the radiation that filled the Universe immediately after the Big Bang - this we observe today as the Cosmic Microwave Background.' back |
Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, Fixed point theorem - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'In mathematics, a fixed point theorem is a result saying that a function F will have at least one fixed point (a point x for which F(x) = x), under some conditions on F that can be stated in general terms. Results of this kind are amongst the most generally useful in mathematics.
The Banach fixed point theorem gives a general criterion guaranteeing that, if it is satisfied, the procedure of iterating a function yields a fixed point.
By contrast, the Brouwer fixed point theorem is a non-constructive result: it says that any continuous function from the closed unit ball in n-dimensional Euclidean space to itself must have a fixed point, but it doesn't describe how to find the fixed point (See also Sperner's lemma).' back |
Genesis 1:1-2, Genesis 1 ESV, '1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. back |
Holy See, Catechism of the Catholic Church, para 293, '293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God." St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things "not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it", for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand." The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and "almighty power", not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . ." [Dogmatic Constitution Dei Filius] back |
John Paull II, Apostolic Constitution Fidei Depositum, '3. The Doctrinal Value of the Text
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, which I approved 25 June last and the publication of which I today order by virtue of my Apostolic Authority, is a statement of the Church's faith and of catholic doctrine, attested to or illumined by Sacred Scripture, the Apostolic Tradition and the Church's Magisterium. I declare it to be a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion.' back |
Oxford Evolutionary Biology, Oxford Evolutionary Biology, 'This is a site for various projects in evolutionary biology, molecular evolution and phylogenetic epidemiology being carried out by members of the research group headed by Paul Harvey in the Department of Zoology at the University of Oxford.' back |
Pope John Paul II, Catechism of the Catholic Church 293, 293 Scripture and Tradition never cease to teach and celebrate this fundamental truth: "The world was made for the glory of God." St. Bonaventure explains that God created all things "not to increase his glory, but to show it forth and to communicate it",for God has no other reason for creating than his love and goodness: "Creatures came into existence when the key of love opened his hand." The First Vatican Council explains:
This one, true God, of his own goodness and "almighty power", not for increasing his own beatitude, nor for attaining his perfection, but in order to manifest this perfection through the benefits which he bestows on creatures, with absolute freedom of counsel "and from the beginning of time, made out of nothing both orders of creatures, the spiritual and the corporeal. . .". back |
Princeton University, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, 'We invite you to learn more about our research activities by exploring links to the faculty in each of our core areas—ecology, evolution and behavior.'
back |
Thomas de Aquino, Thomas de Aquino, Summa Theologiae, Prima Pars qq 44-49, 'Post considerationem divinarum personarum, considerandum restat de processione creaturarum a Deo. Erit autem haec consideratio tripartita, ut primo consideretur de productione creaturarum; secundo, de earum distinctione; tertio, de conservatione et gubernatione. Circa primum tria sunt consideranda, primo quidem, quae sit prima causa entium; secundo, de modo procedendi creaturarum a prima causa; tertio vero, de principio durationis rerum. Circa primum quaeruntur quatuor. Primo, utrum Deus sit causa efficiens omnium entium. Secundo, utrum materia prima sit creata a Deo, vel sit principium ex aequo coordinatum ei. Tertio, utrum Deus sit causa exemplaris rerum, vel sint alia exemplaria praeter ipsum. Quarto, utrum ipse sit causa finalis rerum.' back |
University of California Museum of Paleontology, Understanding Evolution Home, 'Welcome to Understanding Evolution, an evolution website for teachers.' back |
Vacuum - Wikipedia, Vacuum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, 'According to modern understanding, even if all matter could be removed from a volume, it would still not be "empty" due to vacuum fluctuations, dark energy, transiting gamma rays, cosmic rays, neutrinos, and other phenomena in quantum physics. In the electromagnetism in the 19th century, vacuum was thought to be filled with a medium called aether. In modern particle physics, the vacuum state is considered the ground state of matter.' back |
|
