“Science, religion, art, literature, and music all study the same reality. The wonder of it –perhaps the glory of it – and certainly the confusion of it – is how differently they see it.”
Title: The Fire in the Equations: Science, Religion & the Search for God
Author: Kitty Ferguson
Category: Expository – Philosophy & Science
Year: 1994
Version: 1997
Pages: 301
What is the book about as a whole?
The book is about the common ground that science and religion have as sources to explain the ultimate questions of humanity. She compares both and rather than favoring one over the other Ferguson explores the pivotal questions about our existence and then addresses our endeavors to answer them. Also talks about how both science and religion converge and differ.
What is being said in detail, and how?
Ferguson starts its book right away without introduction, instead as starter uses Chapter 1: ‘THEY BURIED HIM IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY’. There she uses the allegory of the burial of Charles Darwin in the Christian church to show how faith and science might not be in conflict but rather in consilience. It also raises some of the questions that will accompany the whole reading: Can we know anything for sure? Will we be able to know everything about the universe? Where can we find the answers to all these questions?
After the three pages of the former chapter the book continues with “SEEING THINGS” she starts the chapter with an anecdote about how she was thinking about a chair from her grandparents’ house. She realized that in a level is a chair but in a more elemental level it is just a blur of atoms. She asks herself how she can know anything about the chair. In fact the question here is how can we know anything about the universe? Well, it seems we only have our senses and with those tools we have to be able even to answer even the great questions. (“What is the universe? How did it begin? What happened before that? How and when will it end? What is space and, even more puzzling, what is time?”). We only have them to answer (if even possible) ‘Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?’
If at some point we attain answers to all those questions we then would be able to say we know the mind of god. But the quest to find these answers is the search of truth that both science and religion (at least western) have at their bases. Even if seems odd to think they might have something in common, religion and science, agree on some fundamental facts. Because we need a starting point, a point that if not taken would make our quest a gamble. Think for example about the following articles of faith. The universe is rational. The universe is accessible to us, to our investigation. There is such thing as objective reality. There is unity in the universe, one explanation which is fundamental to everything.
These are principle shared with science and western religion. Why? Well because they in essence world views and it happen that both are looking to the same universe as source of answers. But that doesn’t mean all humans will share them, even experiencing the same reality some disagreements might arise.
Going back to our senses she continues reminding us that our existence is the only sure that we have. Then from sanity to all other knowledge we have to remain faithful to this articles since there is no way to prove them, we have to assume them. It seems paradoxically since they themselves will be the base for all other knowledge. But ‘is the universe rational at all?’ she asks herself. Or it is a kind of imposition that as humans we do on the universe, a belief by product of evolution into brains that search for patterns. Even more deeply, how can we be sure Cause and Effect apply to all the universe? It is nature at all so careful about patterns or it is us who give extreme importance to them?
Another startling idea to ponder is if we are free at all? Are we determined to act and do everything given the initial circumstances of the universe? Can we escape them? This is another point of encounter among both science and religion. Finally, we can challenge us to think if it is true that the universe will have only one explanation. But even if it does, would we be able to find them with our limited senses?
Next in the chapter ‘ALMOST OBJECTIVE’ she starts with a quote by Henri Poncaire that talks about that not only experience is needed to find truth there is also need of an instrument. Next she introduces the idea of the scientific method as that instrument that as humans we devised to help us in our quest for truth. In our times and experiencing all the benefits that we enjoy we have arisen to a high level of faith on science. But science is made by human beings and as such it has the right to be wrong. This might sound odd for some people that have a naïve view of science believing that it is the tool that will free us of biases and will provide us an absolutely objective standpoint of view. But we have to remind that science is a human act and cannot be disentangled of the observer implicit in the scientist. The quest science do is not as often portrayed as the work Michelangelo did with the marble to take out of it a beautiful final masterpiece in this case truth, in many cases it involves uncertainty about the findings or as said by Ferguson in this analogy, science would chop itself sometimes.
Besides that science will be limited by many other factors. Take in consideration our location in the universe, it define in a great degree what we are capable of observe and conclude of the whole universe. In other words our findings would be limited by the spectacles by which we observe the universe not only as humans but even as different persons that are experiencing the same phenomena. Ferguson give the example of the drawing above that might look like a duck or a rabbit depending on what you want or might are able to see. Now Ferguson also brings up the factor of beauty in this quest. Is truth beautiful? It would a right hint to follow in order to find out what is the case or it is again our human bias to pattern that will suggest truth is beautiful.
Another possible limitation to science is that truth might surpass proof. Ferguson talks about Kurt Godel and the Incompleteness Theory that warns us to see that in every formal system there are theorems that are truth but cannot be proved by the system itself. If this is the case for the universe there might be some truths which we are not going to be able to prove.
Other limitations of science arise of being part of a collective activity that gives the arise to a kind of elite and status quo that might hinder (or maybe accelerate) the advance of science. Also we might see how the mind-set of a specific time might bias the work of scientist. We are now able to easily detach ourselves of former biases of former times but are not as easy when it comes to our time. There are needs and priorities that are set by the time in which we live.
Also we can see how the topic of God is, for better or worse, linked with the scientific endeavor. Although the usual case is to set religious beliefs outside the working framework of science sometimes it is inevitable to find a clash in them. Think for example the case of The Big Bang Theory it was something in the realm of physics that had implications on the cosmology of some people. Those who advocated for an atheist view saw in TBBT a cause of worry since would give a place of creation and function to a god.
As such Science enhances our perspective about how things are, it is in fact the most systematic approach we can have to the universe in which we live. But on the other hand we also have Art, Music, Religion, and Tradition that also provide legitimate ways to see the world. In other words if we achieve the goal of a Scientific Theory of Everything it wouldn’t be a Theory in Everything since it would lack layers of meaning beyond the realm of physics. And finally there are things that by its nature cannot be answered by science… is truth good? And other questions beyond the spectrum of science. Nevertheless and with all its limitations Science has been shown an extremely useful instrument in the quest for truth.
Next in chapter four ‘ROMANCING THE CREATION’ Ferguson gives an account of the evolution of theoretical physics in the twentieth century and how deeply our cosmology changed after we realized, by the work of Edwin Hubble, that the universe is expanding. The Big Bang Theory caused a revolution in our understanding about the Cosmos and presented us with the notion of a beginning. This notion was rather uncomfortable since suggested that at some point there was a singularity of all that have existed in the universe in a very small point, and its latter expansion.
In other words we faced the existence of a point beyond our understanding, because how could we be able to know anything that ‘happen’ before the origin of the universe. That happening is in quotations since at the beginning time would also have begun. We will never be able to raise the curtain on the mystery of creation. As Robert Jastrow describes in an analogy it seems that scientist have scaled the mountains of ignorance and feel proud to reach the highest peak and when they do they find a closed door and a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.
Ferguson keeps going in the chapter giving an account of the advances in modern theoretical physics. She introduces to one of Stephen Hawking most famous questions: What is it that breathes fire into the equations? This question can be taken as an inquiry into the First Cause of which we have three major candidates. First, Mathematical and Logical Consistency, we have found that our world works with certain consistency and regularity and we also have devised that mathematics describe these accurately so are both Logic and Mathematic the source of the fire?
On the other hand we have the possibility that the Universe just is. Nothing else, it doesn’t owe its existence to anything. It is, it has been and it will be. The universe has no boundaries and is self-contained. Finally we have the traditional source of the first cause: God. He would be a extrinsic first cause the origin and the creator of the universe. One idea favoring God as first cause comes from Karel Kuchar who was pondering: Why God chooses not to give himself a choice, why is he so elusive, and thus hide the fact that he did? Well, maybe, to grant us freedom. Finally we might suppose that the three causes are in fact just one existing in perfect harmony. And even if we cannot conclude we can say that neither of the three can knock out the other two.
In ‘THE MIND OF GOD’ she explores the different conceptions that we might have to the concept of God. For instance we can think of God as the embodiment of the physical laws. This would be an anthropomorphic portrayal of the regularities that we have found in our universe in this sense it would not be different of Mathematical and Logical consistency it would coincide the definitions. Other view is to think of God as the presence behind the process. God would be the source of the process, the source of the universe. Then we might think of God as the source of purpose. Imagine we found a jar with boiling water then we might ask us how and why is it boiling? And we can get an answer given the physical reality we are describing. But the most obvious question would involve a ‘who’. Who put the jar in the stove? It was the granny preparing to have tea? In this view, God is the answer to that. We might be a scientific experiment that God did. Also we can think of God a watchmaker or the designer of the world given the perfection that we observe in nature. But some people oppose to this view, like Richard Dawkins, who argue that there is no need a designer to have the complexity that we now have. Given the laws of nature and probability we might have arisen by chance to our present level of complexity, given enough time.
Next in ‘THE GOD OF ABRAHAM AND JESUS’ Ferguson will address a more specific view of god, one that is actively involved in the events in the universe. Given this we might as ourselves “Can I believe strongly in the scientific view of the universe and at the same time believe in God?” Well we might 1. Choose to ignore the religious point of view. 2. You can believe in the God of the bible but then you might find yourself in a difficult position since both views will get often in contradiction. It would have to be separated or believe that God constantly break the laws of physics. 3. You can believe in God since there would not be breaking of laws, instead of hard legalism the laws will allow space for God action. 4. How can God break any laws if we not even know what the laws are. 5. You might suspect of a God that is involved since it would mean the apparent arbitrariness and injustice that we see are allowed by God. 6. You might came up with the essential limitedness of science and this would mean the scientific point of view is not the ultimate word. 7. You can just say “We have the universe we have, and we have the God we have.” So we should quit arguing about what is hypothetical and what is possible to know. In this chapter she also talks about the concept of the God of the Gaps, that one that one that explains what we cannot. Off course again Dawkins and other would argue that instead of a God to explain those gaps we can explain that things as consequences of the nature of the universe.
In INADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE she talks about the claims that we might have to argue for the existence of God and why they are inadmissible in the realm of science. First she explores that one of the main differences is that many of these claims are made by private experiences that individuals have and cannot make explicit to others. This is in sharp contrast to the requirement of Science of public experiences, those that can be repeated and be shown to others to test them. This is what she calls is the Lucy problem, from the book saga Narnia, inspired in the distrust of the brothers to the little Lucy claiming to have discovered a whole new world in the back of the wardrobe. Also logically these miracles as David Hume explains would mean a break in the laws of physics and then it would be incongruence to reason.
Going back to those inadmissible evidences that do not get in accord to the scientific standards we have the following. The bible as source of knowledge, although not everyone think it should be taken literally, in fact theologians like Aquinas have argued that we should not take everything literally but we can use our God-given reason to figure out the answers to the universe. Another evidence of this kind is the Explanatory Power that the idea of a creator might have, it would fill the gaps that we have and will give consistency to the different theories that we have. Then we can see also in nature an argument to the existence of GOD since we can find self-organization and beauty that seem to point to a creator, but without sound conclusions or ones that we can transcribe into the language of science. Finally we have the availability to get an answer to this question. In other words anyone is as competent to answer the question whether God exists or not.
Final the last chapter ‘THEORY OF EVERYTHING… MIND OF GOD’ is a recap of what we have explored in the book. It presents us again with the quest for truth that we have been exploring both by science and religion. Unless believing literally in what the bible says a person might not find absolute reasons to rule out the existence of God or other hand to assert his existence. Then the last court that we have, given the evidence provided by both science and religion to the question about God is our-self. The answer although might not be significant to science or even to anyone else, it will be significant to you. And you might choose to keep the quest either on the side of science or religion. One will recognize its limitations to find truth and the other suggest truth might not only be discovered but also might seek us.
What are the author’s questions and problems?
As stated by Stephen Hawking in this book Ferguson is trying to give “a clear account of the ultimate question.” In other words she is trying to present us with the human quest for truth and answers to the fundamental questions about the universe both by means of science and religion. In the book she is also responding the question of at what extent both of them are in contradiction and in what they agree. Since the topic is so broad and vast, and including the last finding in science difficult, she is working hard in how to present the topic in a digestible form.
The book is largely based in questions, that although are not answered in final terms, we are introduced ourselves to think about. Some of them are: Why does the universe bother to exist? Is there a God? How can we know? Are science and religion in contradiction? Is there a common ground in the search of truth via science and religion? How do measure the evidence presented by both? Who has the final word in answering this question?
What of it?
This book without doubt enhanced the view I had of the world, since made me be aware of the intense and long dialogue humanity have had about the existence of god! This is truly a fantastic dialogue that leaves no person outside and that it has a vast and rich tradition as I realized reading the book. The book also made realize how beautiful and fantastic the reality in which we live is!
It also made me got interested in the world of physics and how they are part of this fantastic quest for truth. Actually, this idea of the search of truth as a quest is pretty amazing for me. The book also helped me to understand the intricate relationship that science has with religion as ways to see the world, as cosmologies that help us to give a meaning to our life. For me is particularly meaningful since I’m empathetic to the ideas discussed and I just loved to know there is a deeper and still running exploration these questions… the GREAT QUESTIONS!
What quotes did you like the most?
“Ultimate reality, whatever that turns out to be, is the end of the quest. Paradoxically, it must be also the beginning.”
“My chair is made up of atoms, and atoms are almost entirely empty space. That means my chair consist in very large part of emptiness. My chair is a blur of uncertainty…”
“Perhaps that interpretation is the only possible interpretation on our level of the universe, but I’m curious as to whether you really would see and feel the same chair if you were here in my study.”
“The only certainty YOU have is your own existence”
“In case you are thinking that all this, thought fascinating, is not very relevant to the world of every day existence, let me remind you of the chair… All ordinary matter in the universe is made of atoms. That goes for this book, ourselves, planets, air, microbes as well as chairs. Every atom consists of particles, and the uncertainty principle applies to all particles. You and I and chairs and tables and all other matter in the universe are at one level a quantum blur –on any level an amalgam of uncaused events!”
“Human reason cannot be divorced from common sense…”
“But could the human or pre-human brain have created the very concept of pattern if there had been no pattern at all to be found in the universe?”
“Are there in reality an infinite number of dimensions, only four of them which our senses and our consciousness allow us to know about?”
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality” T.S. Elliot
“It is intriguing to find that religion shares much of science’s basic view of reality.”
“Whether or not nature’s book of mysteries is infinite, science has already encountered some specific pages of the book which seem to be unreadable.”
“Could it be that our mathematics sometimes builds houses of cards? Or should we give the strongest interpretation to the way mathematics always seems to match nature and conclude that if there are contradictions in mathematics, there are contradictions in nature? What happens to our unity then?”
“One of the finest teachers I ever had, who had lived an adventurous life that had taken him all over the world into many culture, insisted as an old man that he couldn’t stomach the modern rhetoric about all human beings being alike. ‘Don’t you see’ he asked us, ‘that the wonder of it… the glory of it… is how different we are!’”
“Science, religion, art, literature, and music all study the same reality. The wonder of it –perhaps the glory of it – and certainly the confusion of it – is how differently they see it.”
“We are, as physicist Murray Gell-Mann put it, ‘such a small speck of creation believing it is capable of comprehending the whole.’”
“…are we so hopelessly anthropomorphic that we have difficulty allowing a clever pattern to be the first cause of everything rather than a clever person?’
“Nature fills us with delight and awe. It moves us profoundly in ways that are difficult to express of asses and leads us to ask questions science might never be able to answer.”
“The evolution of the world may be compared to a display of fireworks that has just ended: some few red wisps, ashes and smoke. Standing on a cooled cinder, we see the slow fading of the suns, and we try to recall the vanished brilliance of the origin of the worlds.” George Lamaitre
“Why God choose not to give himself a choice, and thus hide the fact that he did? Perhaps God preferred a universe in which he seems superfluous because such a universe leaves us with no gaps, no mysteries where we must assume divine action. Maybe God’s choice was to allow us freedom as to whether we will believe in him: God simple doesn’t want to be found in the physical universe, because that would intimidate us and abolish our freedom of will.”
“If anything can be said to start small is a universe.”
“In the beginning was the Singularity”
“Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing?”
“What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes the universe for them to describe?”
“In every true searcher of Nature there is a kind of religious reverence; for he finds it impossible to imagine that he is the first to have thought out the exceedingly delicate threads that connect his perceptions. The aspect of knowledge which has not yet been laid bare give the investigator gives the investigator a feeling akin to that of a child who seeks to grasp the masterly way in which elders manipulate things.” Albert Einstein
“Perhaps the Universe is someone’s scientific experiment. Perhaps it was an interesting experiment, abandoned now to boil itself to nothing. Perhaps was the labor of love… or whimsy?”
“What does it matter whether God created human beings in the way described by Genesis or in the way described by Darwin? The important thing is that God created us.’
“I SHOULD NOT BELIEVE SUCH A STORY WERE IT TOLD ME BY CATO!” Ancient Roman Age
“…suppose I discover that something in my private experience is contradictory to public experience. Will I allow public experience to overrule me? If no-one have ever seen fairies at the bottom of my garden, and I see fairies there are among the zinnias, what then?”
“When there is a serious inconsistency between private experience an public experience one should doubt ones perceptions, admit the possibility of hallucination, perhaps in an extreme case even question one’s sanity”
“Our most reputable scientists, whatever sins of arrogance they may occasionally commit, do not really declare that what they don’t know isn’t knowledge or that what they haven’t experienced isn’t experience.”
What books are connected with it?
Godel, Escher, Bach
Copernican Revolution
A Philosopher Look at Science
Taming the Infinite
Concilience
