APPENDIX Z42: The Goldilocks Dilemma
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APPENDIX Z42:
The Goldilocks Dilemma
***
“As we were leaving, a stranger came up to me,
gentle
gentle
and unassuming, and said, ‘I’ve just written a book
that
that
I think you might nd interesting. If I may, I’ll send it to
you.’ I thanked him and some days later the book
arrived.
arrived.
It was called Just Six Numbers [© 2001],
and with a
and with a
shock of recognition I realized
who the stranger was: Sir
who the stranger was: Sir
Martin, now Lord, Rees, Astronomer Royal, Master of
Trinity College, Cambridge
and President of the Royal
and President of the Royal
Society, the world’s oldest and most famous scientic
association. Sir Martin was, in other words,
Britain’s most
Britain’s most
distinguished scientist.
The thesis of the book was that there are six
mathematical constants that determine the physical
shape of the universe. Had any one of them been
even
even
slightly different, the
universe as we know it would not
universe as we know it would not
exist. Nor would life. It was my rst glimpse into
the new
the new
cosmology and the string of recent discoveries of
how
how
improbable our existence actually is. James Le
Fanu,
Fanu,
in his 2009 book Why Us?,
adds to this a slew of new
adds to this a slew of new
ndings in neuroscience and genetics to suggest that
we
we
are on the brink of a paradigm shift that will
overturn the
overturn the
scientic materialism of the past two centuries.
The new paradigm must also lead to a renewed
interest in and sympathy for religion in its broadcast
sense, as a means of expressing wonder at the
‘mysterium tremendum et fascinans’ of the natural
world. It is not the least of the ironies of the
New
New
Genetics and the Decade of the Brain that they
have
have
vindicated the two main impetuses to religious
belief
belief
– the non-material reality of the human soul and
the beauty and diversity of the living world –
while
while
confounding the principle tenets of materialism:
that
that
Darwin’s ‘reason for everything’ explains the natural
world and our origins, and that life can be
‘reduced’
‘reduced’
to the chemical genes, the mind to the physical
brain.
brain.
(James Le Fanu, Why Us?,
p.258)
p.258)
There may be, in other words,
a new synthesis in
a new synthesis in
the making. It will be very unlike the Greek
thought-
thought-
world of the medieval scholastics with its emphasis
on
on
changelessness and harmony.
Instead it will speak about
Instead it will speak about
the emergence of order,
the distribution of intelligence
the distribution of intelligence
and information processing, the nature of self-organizing
complexity, the way
individuals display a collective
individuals display a collective
intelligence that is a property of groups, not just the
individuals that comprise them, the dynamic of
evolving
evolving
systems and what leads some to equilibrium, others
to
to
chaos. Out of this will emerge new metaphors of
nature
nature
and humanity, ourishing
and completeness.”*
and completeness.”*
*** Jonathan Sacks, The Great Partnership, New York: Random House, Inc. 2011, pp.75-76
from the author –
As noted in the 2001 Sir Martin Rees book Just Six
Numbers, there are at least 6 cosmological constants,
(and, actually maybe a dozen+) which, if adjusted by
even
even
1 decimal point would preclude the cosmos having
life,
life,
among other things, as we know it.
Thus, “life” – and existence – exists at the
“knife-edge” of
“knife-edge” of
the precision of these constants.
By-and-large the scientic community and the
theological
theological
community is
not-quite-sure exactly how to understand this
“synchronicity.”
However, from Summa’s perspective the resolution is
clear. Obvious. The cosmic
order orients itself – and its
order orients itself – and its
crucial/integral cosmological constants – to
advance
advance
inter-related goals of
life, potential and extraordinariation.
life, potential and extraordinariation.
161 APPENDIX