"Origins - Cosmic Beginnings and Human Ends - Where Science and Religion Meet" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dobson John)

Cosmic Expansion

Observationally, what we see is that all the distant galaxies seem to be running away from us. And the simplest and most straightforward explanation is that long ago there was this Big Bang explosion and that that is what drives the cosmic expansion. (In the Big Bang models, this explosion stands without explanation.) In this Steady State model, on the other hand, the energy which drives the cosmic expansion is simply the energy of the radiation which is lost in the expansion. As the galaxies and stars condense, their gravitational energy is transformed to radiation and radiated away into the expanding spaces of the Universe. If the energy of the radiation is lost in the expansion, then it must drive the expansion.


Background Radiation

In this Steady State model it is the conditions at the border of the observable Universe imposed by the expansion that are the source of both the background radiation and the "new hydrogen". As seen by us, the radiation from matter seen to be approaching the border is red-shifted approaching zero energy. But if the radiation energy approaches zero, so does the particle energy and the particle mass. Then, since radiation going through a field of low-mass particles would be thermalized to 3░ Kelvin, it would appear to us as the background radiation. The amount of 3░ Kelvin radiation predicted by this model matches what we measure. The amount predicted by the Big Bang model is at least one order of magnitude too high.


"New Hydrogen"

Also, near the border, where the mass approaches zero, the momentum of the particles must also approach zero, and with it, our uncertainty in that momentum. (You can't have a big uncertainty about a very small momentum.) Then, by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, if our uncertainty in the momentum approaches zero, our uncertainty in where the particles are must approach infinity. The hydrogen simply "tunnels" back in.


Helium Abundance

For the Big Bang models, the observed helium abundance is far too low unless most of the matter of the Universe involved in the fireball explosion was of such a nature that it could not be made into helium. It has therefore been suggested by some proponents of the Big Bang model that some 90% to 99% of the matter in the Universe is of such a nature that it responds only to gravity, and not to any of the other forces such as electricity and magnetism which might allow us to detect it. This "dark matter", as it is called, is thought to surround the visible galaxies, but not to reside within them. And the problem is, that if it responds only to gravity, why doesn't it all fall in?


Dark Matter

For a Steady State model, there is no problem about the dark matter being ordinary matter, because the visible galaxies could be expected to be surrounded by what I call "hovering layers" of ordinary matter blown out by the stellar winds. When a cluster of stars condenses from a cloud of gas, some 90% to 99% of the material in the cloud could be expected to be blown away by the stellar winds of the cluster. Since the diameters of these hovering layers may be five to ten times the diameters of the associated galaxies, their densities might be well below one percent of the densities of the associated galaxies. The detection of this material might be rendered problematical simply by its low density.

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THE ORIGIN OF LIFE

For a Big Bang cosmology, in which the early Universe was extremely hot, a discussion of the origin of life is of course appropriate, since life could not have been with us from the beginning. But for a Steady State model, in which the Universe is without beginning, perhaps life itself could be without beginning. However, the question then arises: how could it spread from solar system to solar system or from galaxy to galaxy? Somehow it seems that life must have had a start, that somehow life must arise spontaneously from non-living matter. Yet thus far there is no evidence for this.

Pasteur thought that he had shown that life does not arise from non-living matter but only from previous life. Darwin seems to have taken the other view, namely, that it might have arisen from "some warm pool". The evidence, of course, is simply that life does exist on this planet, which presumably had a beginning; so if life didn't come from elsewhere, it must have arisen here. But how? What could pull non-living matter across the border into life?

Natural selection as Darwin sketched it is a very good mechanism for selecting between two or more genetic programmings, but it makes no suggestion as to the origin of the programs. And as yet this is an unsolved problem. But how about the origin of sentiency and intelligence? Could they have arisen from inert matter?


Sentiency

For any cosmological model in which the Universe is considered to be "actual", the problem of the origin of sentiency and intelligence is insoluble. But if the Universe is apparitional, sentiency is in it from the word "go". Even the atoms are "sentient". We have senses for the perception of gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism, because the individual protoplasmic cells can respond to these same five kinds of energy. And the cells can respond to them because the atoms respond to them. The atoms themselves respond to gravity, kinetic energy, radiation, electricity and magnetism. The plumb bob "knows" where the Earth is, and the electron "knows" where the proton is. Sentiency is in this from the word "go", because the underlying existence is "involved" in what we see and must show through.

It is hopeless to expect that something like sentiency or intelligence, or anything, for that matter, could arise by "evolution" (as a rose evolves from a bud), unless it was first put in by "involution". The reason the oak tree can "evolve" from the acorn is because it was first put in the acorn through "involution" by the parent trees. But in the case of the tree and the acorn, the involution is by transformational causation, parinama. Whereas, in the case of the underlying existence and the Universe, the involution is by apparitional causation, or vivarta . What underlies the Universe is involved by apparition in us and what we see. And since what underlies all this is infinite, there is no knowing what may evolve. (1)

The expectation that sentiency and intelligence might arise from "inert matter" is contrary to all the experience of our race. But matter is not inert. It is "ert", (it moves by itself) because what underlies the apparition shows through. And the notion that what is more might evolve from what is less is beyond the domain of reason.
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1: c.f. Teilhard de Chardin: "In the world, nothing could ever burst forth as final across the different thresholds successively traversed by evolution (however critical they be) which has not already existed in an obscure and primordial way..." (Phenomenon of Man. New York: Harper and Row,1955. Book One, Chapter Three, Section I B.)


Intelligence

So sentiency arises by apparition and is with us from the word "go". But how about intelligence? Intelligence, as we know it, is associated with the egos of poly-celled organisms, like ourselves, who have brains. And brains come down through a long transformational past. Even our individual brains have a transformational past from a single cell, to where we are now. Each of our bodies is made up of a very great number of cells, and we have no awareness of the egos of the individual cells. Yet each of us, at the time of conception, was a one-celled organism without a brain. However, that single cell had a complete human form transformationally involved in its gene code through the grace of our parents.