Ponmala

What was the state of reality at the Big Bang? The answer that entropy points to is this: At the Big Bang there was perfect orderliness, which was a simple state of very low entropy. After the Big Bang brought atomic particles into existence, protons and electrons were floating around in equal numbers. It was so hot then that the electrons could not stick on to the protons so as to make a hydrogen atom. As the universe cooled four-hundred thousand years after the Big Bang, the protons and electrons bound together and formed neutral hydrogen, the simplest atom, and allowed the photons produced at the Big Bang to stream off, creating light. Until then, the photons were banging around, knocking off the charged particles that scatter light. So, for four hundred thousand years it was a universe teaming with nothing but atomic particles, and so quantum mechanics dominated.

The formation of atoms, and later molecules, marked the birth of the macrocosmic world of classical physics, which ended the dominance of quantum mechanics. But classical physics did not eliminate quantum mechanics. Both existed as two separate layers of reality and worked in unison. A physical theory that could describe this coexistence of two completely different layers of reality, which Stephen Hawkins called ‘The Theory of Everything’, has daunted the human intellect until now. Scientists are breaking their heads to evolve a mathematical equation that could describe the multi-layered reality of the universe in its entirety. I for one believe that it is a futile effort. Physics itself provides the proof for it.

The Nobel Prize was recently awarded to three scientists who experimentally proved the ‘quantum entanglement’ of atomic particles. Quantum entanglement, which was first elucidated by Erwin Schrodinger in 1935, is a phenomenon by which a pair of subatomic particles are allowed to exist in a shared state where they have complementary properties. This phenomenon helps us to instantaneously know the properties of one particle by measuring the properties of the other, regardless of how far apart the two particles are transported. From it follows that simultaneity is a fundamental property of quantum entanglement. Simultaneity rules out the concept of time, because the semi classical concept of general relativity rules out absolute simultaneity in space-time. Since time coexists with space, wherever time is ruled out, space is also ruled out. Little wonder, Einstein, the father of space-time, decried the concept of quantum entanglement. But the fact remains that both the incompatible realities of general relativity and quantum mechanics have been experimentally proved. I am inclined to believe that efforts at finding a mathematical formula that reconciles these two incompatibles will come to naught – how on earth can you arrive at a formula that reconcile time and simultaneity?

There were at least three more instances of mathematically incompatible layers emerging during the evolution of reality. They are the emergence of life from matter, sentience from life and intelligence from sentient life. Chemical reactions are believed to have caused the emergence of life, but trying to explain life in terms of quantum mechanics will never succeed. Both are different layers of reality that have their own laws of nature, just as is the case with quantum mechanics and relativity. The same is true of sentience and intelligence. Just as in the case of life, we will never find a quantum mechanical equation for sentient life and intelligence. Quantum entanglement, space-time, life, sentience and intelligence co-exist, but at different strata. They exist as different paradigms of reality. If at all there is a Theory of Everything, it is this co-existence of incompatibles, which makes the universe the kind of inscrutable and marvellous wonder it is, for which a mathematical formula will never be found. The day we arrive at such a formula, we will have become capable of predicting what is to come… the entire future of evolution… of the universe.

The brain is not just a quantum computer of a very high order. It is reality existing at an altogether different level. The laws of quantum mechanics do not have total control on the working of the brain. Consequently, intellectual activities cannot be fully evaluated or predicted using algorithms. We may have an equation for the wave function, but we cannot have an equation for the working of the intellect. If we had, we would not have creativity and inventiveness, because our intellect would then be bounded by the parameters of that equation.

Evolution is creativity in action, because none of the different levels of reality that have appeared were predictable and none of those that will appear are predictable. Which equation could have predicted the  emergence of entropy from order?… or of particles from simplicity?… or of matter from particles?… or of life from matter?… or of sentience from life?… or of intelligence from sentient life? Do we have an equation that will predict what are all yet to come, in which the creative intellect of man will also play a huge role? Could quantum mechanics have predicted the emergence of matter and space-time?… or general relativity have predicted the emergence of life and intelligence? There seems to be in reality a creative intelligence in action, which is neither deterministic or predictable. Would you call that God? For the wise men of the East, God is cosmic intelligence, and for the wise men of the West, God is extra-cosmic intelligence. The former is an intrinsic driver of reality’s evolution; the latter is an extrinsic creator of reality. Both would agree God is the Theory of Everything, in search of which scientists are burning the midnight oil.