Between, Before and Beyond

The Present Future: Between Before and Beyond

When Karl Rahner asserted that “Theology is Anthropology,” he was referring to the intimate connection between our God-understanding and self-understanding. God is not merely the fullness of humanity, He/She is the self-reflection of humanity. Anthropologically, talk about God is talk about human beings. Thus our self-understanding changes, shapes and reinforces our understanding of God and vice-versa.

Today science has profoundly shaped and changed the understanding of reality and of ourselves. In this paper, I want to study the intimately, relational understanding of reality and human beings as espoused by contemporary science. Such an understanding will have profound implications for the understanding of humans themselves..

In the first part of this chapter, I use the ordinary alphabets to indicate that language and reality is more than monadic letters. Then I take up three scientific theories to indicate the inherent connectedness of the whole reality. I also use another contemporary scientific finding to show us that we do not perceive much of the empirical world, urging us to be humble in our approach to the larger world. Then in the light of our scientific study, we recognize human beings not as a pure entity but as an evolving horizon that is ever becoming. Finally I dwell briefly on love which is constitutive of reality.

1. Counting the Alphabets

Alphabets, or phonemic alphabets, are sets of letters, usually arranged in a fixed order, each of which represents one or more phonemes, both consonants and vowels, in the language they are used to write. In some cases combinations of letters are used to represent single phonemes, as in English sh, ch and th.[1]

The word alphabet comes, via Latin alphabētum, from the Greek word αλφάβητος (alphabētos), which itself comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet, α (άλφα/alpha) and β (βήτα/beta). The best-known and most widely-used alphabets are the Latin or Roman alphabet and the Cyrillic alphabet, which have been adapted to write numerous languages. Most other alphabets are used for a single language or just a few languages.

The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing.[2] The first pure alphabet emerged around 2000 BC to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt and was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most alphabets in the world today either descend directly from this development, for example the Greek and Latin alphabets, or were inspired by its design. The Greeks were the first people to create a phonemic alphabet when they adapted the Phoenican alphabet to write their language. They used a number of Phoenician letters that represented sounds with no equivalent in Greek to write Greek vowels.

Looking at the structure of written English language, we can describe it as being made up of building blocks called words. Words, when they are written down, are made up sequences or strings of the 26 letters in the alphabet.[3] Not every sequence or string of letters that we put together forms a word that we recognize or accept as part of the English language.[4]

Similar to English, languages that are made of “words”[5] which are “strings” of “letters” from an “alphabet” are found in many areas of science. Biologists, for example, know that proteins are made up of discrete building blocks called amino acids that can only occur in certain combinations. A DNA molecule is a long chain made up of only four building blocks, but the patterns and ordering of the elements of this alphabet is used to write out the “words” that describe the genetic material of all living things.

After experimenting with the letters of the alphabet, it will become evident that for any finite set of letters or symbols of the alphabet, the number of words may be infinite! Thus obviously alphabets are important in forming words. But on their own they are useless and insignificant. Only in creative combination and guided sequence do they make sense.

What is noteworthy is the location of space between words. Unlike zero in number system, space does not have any value in itself. But it is the space that contributes to the construction of a meaningful word. Though the number of possible combination and permutation of the letters can be infinite, for any useful purpose to serve, they have to be located properly and bound suitably. So the space between words does have a function which is different from zero, but necessary for the meaning construction.

The use of alphabets to describe words denote the importance of positioning or placement in the derivation of meaning. So in using alphabets to write words, positioning, sequencing and recognition pattern emerge as very highly significant.

After focusing on the positioning and patterns that constitute meaning and life, I venture to take up a few important scientific theories that demonstrates that reality is much more than the empirical or quantifiable aspect of physical experience.

2. Some Scientific Pointers to Relationality

In this section we take up a few of the contemporary scientific theories that point to the inhererenlty relational and connected nature of reality. Due to lack of space we are forced to give only a general overview of some of the significant theories in contemporary science.[6] In the following sections, I shall see the salient insights of relativity theory, chaos theory and string theory which help us to understand how the whole of reality be intimately coupled.

a. Relativity Theory: The Field that Connects

Newtonian mechanics provided the paradigm to understand the classical physical world. According to Isaac Newton, material objects basically pull on each other, with a force that increases with the mass of those objects; and decreases with the distance between them. His solution relating mass, force, energy and acceleration, was elegant and accurate. Though, Newton, himself, was not satisfied because he saw no way for this force to be conveyed through empty space. Thus in spite of the mind-boggling and fantastic achievements, Newton laments:

I have not as yet been able to deduce from phenomena the reason for these properties of gravity, and I do not feign hypothesis. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.[7]

In sharp contrast to Newton’s theory, Einstein proposed that the structure (or geometry) of space was responsible for gravity, In fact, this greatest scientific genius seldom saw no need for material objects as he affirmed: “We could regard matter as the regions in space where the field is extremely strong.... There would be no place, in our new physics, for both field and matter, field being the only reality.”[8]

Although matter is generally conceived to be made of atoms, the actual volume of atomic (or sub-atomic) particles in a material object is only about one-trillionth of the total volume of that object. The rest of the volume is occupied by relational space. So almost all the volume of matter is actually space. And within that space, there lies electric and magnetic fields that somehow serve to hold matter together.

Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity did away with many of the classical problems of physics, and at the same time it radically altered physicists’ view of the Universe. The main features of General Relativity may be summed up as:

• Space and space-time are not rigid arenas in which events take place. They have form and structure which are influenced by the matter and energy content of the universe.

• Matter and energy tell space (and space-time) how to curve.

• Space tells matter how to move. In particular, small objects travel along the straightest possible lines in curved space (space-time).[9]

In curved space the rules of Euclidean geometry are changed. Parallel lines can meet and the sum of the angles in a triangle can be more, or less than 180 degrees, depending on how space is curved. Einstein’s theory gave a correct prediction for the perihelion shift of Mercury. It also explained why objects fall independent of their mass: they all follow the same straightest possible line in curved space-time. Finally, in Einstein’s theory the instantaneous gravitational force is replaced by the curvature of spacetime. Moving a mass causes ripples to form in this curvature, and these ripples travel with the same speed as light. Thus, a distant mass would not feel any instantaneous change in the gravitational force, and special relativity is not violated.[10] According to Albert Einstein, “The electric and magnetic field or in short, the “electromagnetic” field is, in Maxwell’s theory, something real.”[11]

b. Chaos Theory: The Butterfly that Terrifies

The Theory of chaos is among the youngest of the sciences, and has rocketed from its obscure roots in the seventies to become one of the most fascinating fields in existence. At the forefront of much research on physical systems, and already being implemented in fields covering as diverse matter as arrhythmic pacemakers, image compression, and fluid dynamics, chaos science promises to continue to yield absorbing scientific information which may shape the face of science in the future. This theory deals with non-linear and complex situations like stock-market, flow of blood in the human body, weather forecast, etc.

The two main components of chaos theory are the ideas that systems – no matter how complex they may be – rely upon an underlying order and that very simple or small systems and events can cause very complex behaviors or events. This latter idea is known as sensitive dependence on initial conditions, a circumstance discovered by Edward Lorenz (who is generally credited as the first experimenter in the area of chaos) in the early 1960s. Taking only the second aspect of the theory, I want to limit my investigation to the butterfly effect, which theorises that something seemingly innocuous, such as a butterfly’s wings, may be the catalyst for something larger, such as a tornado.

The butterfly effect is a phrase that encapsulates the more technical notion of sensitive dependence on initial conditions in chaos theory.[12] The small variations of the initial condition of a nonlinear dynamical system may produce large variations in the long term behavior of the system. At times this is sometimes presented as esoteric behavior, but can be exhibited by very simple systems: for example, a ball placed at the crest of a hill might roll into any of several valleys depending on slight differences in initial position.

The phrase refers to the idea that a butterfly‘s wings might create tiny changes in the atmosphere that ultimately cause a tornado to appear (or prevent a tornado from appearing). The flapping wing represents a small change in the initial condition of the system, which causes a chain of events leading to the large-scale phenomena. Had the butterfly not flapped its wings, the trajectory of the system might have been vastly different. [13]

Recurrence, the approximate return of a system towards its initial conditions, together with sensitive dependence on initial conditions are the two main ingredients for chaotic motion. They have the practical consequence of making complex systems, such as the weather, difficult to predict past a certain time range (approximately a week in the case of weather).[14]

Sensitive dependence on initial conditions was first described by Jacques Hadamard in 1890 and popularized by Pierre Duhem’s 1906 book.[15] The idea that one butterfly could have a far-reaching ripple effect on subsequent events seems first to have appeared in a 1952 short story by Ray Bradbury about time travel (see Popular Media below), although the term “butterfly effect” itself is related to the work of Edward Lorenz. In 1961, Lorenz was using a numerical computer model to rerun a weather prediction, when, as a shortcut on a number in the sequence, he entered the decimal .506 instead of entering the full .506127 the computer would hold. The result was a completely different weather scenario. Lorenz published his findings in a 1963 paper for the New York Academy of Sciences in which it was noted that “One meteorologist remarked that if the theory were correct, one flap of a seagull‘s wings could change the course of weather forever.” Later speeches and papers by Lorenz used the more poetic butterfly. According to Lorenz, upon failing to provide a title for a talk he was to present at the 139th meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1972, Philip Merilees concocted Does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas as a title.[16] From then on butterfly effect has become a popularly successful theory.

So there are in reality many natural phenomenon which are so extremely sensitive to the initial conditions, that the outcome –intended or unintended – cannot be theoretically predicted! In such a world, one can visualize that the relationship between events or between individuals are so complex that we cannot sensibly speak of determinism and cause-effect. Thus in such areas what we have are not accurate measurements but rough approximations. And a major aspect of reality is thus approximation, which belong to the world of roughness and inter-relationships.

c. String Theory: The Twine that Binds

We live in a wonderfully complex universe, and we are curious about it by nature. Time and again we have wondered – why are we here? Where did we and the world come from? What is the world made of? It is our privilege to live in a time when enormous progress has been made towards finding some of the answers. String theory is our most recent attempt to answer the last question.

So, what is the world made of? Ordinary matter is made of atoms, which are in turn made of just three basic components: electrons whirling around a nucleus composed of neutrons and protons. The electron is a truly fundamental particle (it is one of a family of particles known as leptons), but neutrons and protons are made of smaller particles, known as quarks. Quarks are, as far as we know, truly elementary.

Our current knowledge about the subatomic composition of the universe is summarized in what is known as the Standard Model of particle physics. It describes both the fundamental building blocks out of which the world is made, and the forces through which these blocks interact. There are twelve basic building blocks. Six of these are quarks – they go by the interesting names of up, down, charm, strange, bottom and top.[17] The other six are leptons – these include the electron and its two heavier siblings, the muon and the tauon as well as three neutrinos. [18]

There are four fundamental forces in the universe: gravity, electromagnetism, and the weak and strong nuclear forces. Each of these is produced by fundamental particles that act as carriers of the force. The most familiar of these is the photon, a particle of light, which is the mediator of electromagnetic forces. (This means that, for instance, a magnet attracts a nail because both objects exchange photons.) The graviton is the particle associated with gravity. The strong force is carried by eight particles known as gluons. Finally, the weak force is transmitted by three particles, the W+, the W- , and the Z.

The behavior of all of these particles and forces is described with impeccable precision by the Standard Model, with one notable exception: gravity. For technical reasons, the gravitational force, the most familiar in our every day lives, has proven very difficult to describe microscopically. This has been for many years one of the most important problems in theoretical physics – to formulate a quantum theory of gravity.

In the last few decades, string theory has emerged as the most promising candidate for a microscopic theory of gravity. And it is infinitely more ambitious than that: it attempts to provide a complete, unified, and consistent description of the fundamental structure of our universe.[19]

The essential idea behind string theory is this: all of the different 'fundamental ' particles of the Standard Model are really just different manifestations of one basic object: a string. We would ordinarily picture an electron, for instance, as a point with no internal structure. A point cannot do anything but move. But, if string theory is correct, then under an extremely powerful 'microscope' we would realize that the electron is not really a point, but a tiny loop of string. A string can do something aside from moving – it can oscillate in different ways. If it oscillates a certain way, then from a distance, unable to tell it is really a string, we see an electron. But if it oscillates some other way, well, then we call it a photon, or a quark, and so on. So, if string theory is correct, the entire world is made of strings! [20]

Think of a guitar string that has been tuned by stretching the string under tension across the guitar. Depending on how the string is plucked and how much tension is in the string, different musical notes will be created by the string. These musical notes could be said to be excitation modes of that guitar string under tension.

In a similar manner, in the string theory, the elementary particles we observe could be thought of as the “musical notes” or excitation modes of elementary strings. In string theory, as in guitar playing, the string must be stretched under tension in order to become excited. However, the strings in string theory are floating in spacetime, they are not tied down to a guitar. Nonetheless, they have tension. The string tension in the string theory is denoted by the quantity 1/(2 p a'), where a' is p “alpha prime” and is equal to the square of the string length scale.

If string theory is to be a theory of quantum gravity, then the average size of a string should be somewhere near the length scale of quantum gravity, called the Planck length, which is about 10^-33 centimeters, or about a millionth of a billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a centimeter. Unfortunately, this means that strings are way too small to be seen by current or expected particle physics technology (or financing!!) and so string theorists must devise more clever methods to test the theory than just looking for little strings in particle experiments.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about string theory is that such a simple idea works – it is possible to derive (an extension of) the Standard Model (which has been verified experimentally with incredible precision) from a theory of strings. But it should also be said that, to date, there is no direct experimental evidence that string theory itself is the correct description of Nature. This is mostly due to the fact that string theory is still under development. We know bits and pieces of it, but we do not yet see the whole picture, and we are therefore unable to make definite predictions. In recent years many exciting developments have taken place, radically improving our understanding of what the theory is.[21]

But particles in string theory arise as excitations of the string, and included in the excitations of a string in string theory is a particle with zero mass and two units of spin.

If there were a good quantum theory of gravity, then the particle that would carry the gravitational force would have zero mass and two units of spin. This has been known by theoretical physicists for a long time. This theorized particle is called the graviton.

But it wasn't enough that there be a graviton predicted by string theory. One can add a graviton to quantum field theory by hand, but the calculations that are supposed to describe Nature become useless. This is because, as illustrated in the diagram above, particle interactions occur at a single point of spacetime, at zero distance between the interacting particles. For gravitons, the mathematics behaves so badly at zero distance that the answers just don't make sense. In string theory, the strings collide over a small but finite distance, and the answers do make sense.