Inhabiting A Universe
Existence
It is hard to know what to make of our universe, for there is nothing to compare it with.
We can conceive of universes similar to our own but with different histories, and of universes that run under different regimes of physical laws and constants, but no other universe is observable. Our guesses are just the playthings of our imaginations.
It is also possible to conjure up a vague sense of the nothingness that there’d be if our universe didn’t exist at all. But it doesn’t make sense to talk about a time before the universe existed, or an afterwards, for time itself is part of our universe.
There’s also something odd about us — each one of us a part of this universe — imagining the universe not existing, for our imaginings themselves are palpable demonstrations of existence. Nothingness is at best an abstract concept.
All we can do is accept existence as a stark truth.
A Vast and Seamless Universe
It is impossible to grasp just how much universe there is.
There is the vastness of time. This universe of ours has already been unfolding for many billions of years and will continue for many more.
There is the vastness of scale. Our homes sit on patches of land that are small in comparison to Earth as a whole, let alone to the sun that warms and illumines our planet. But there are hundreds of billions of solar systems in our galaxy and hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observable universe. And there is yet more beyond the horizon of the observable — stars in regions so far away that their light will never reach our galaxy.
The universe is not just big. It is also intricate. Existence erupts at all scales right down to the infinitesimal. At the quantum level, sub-atomic particles fly and ripple through fields of potentiality that are constantly in flux.
Somehow this immense bundle trundles along seamlessly. Every level of order meshes with every other level in a weave of fabric that never drops a stitch.
A Benign Universe
This is also a universe that provides the conditions for complex life.
If the laws of physics were a little different, it wouldn’t be possible for creatures like us to evolve. If protons were just 0.1% heavier, for instance, they would spontaneously decay into neutrons and positrons. Atoms couldn’t hold together and without stable atoms there would be no stars, no planets, no organic molecules, and no possibility of life.1
That the universe is benign is, of course, demonstrated by our own existence. If it didn’t create the conditions for complex life, we couldn’t be here thinking about the universe’s scale and intricacy.
An All-Enveloping Whole
It is remarkable that we inhabit a universe like our own — an all-compassing ocean in which each of us is but a current. We move through a shared realm that we all experience and all act upon.
It is impossible to swim beyond oceans, even with our minds. So there’s no point in trying to speculate about entities that may exist beyond the realm of experience that we share.
There is plenty that we can know, however, when we focus on reality. We can map its consistencies with science and with common sense. We can navigate the universe’s possibilities towards the futures we consider most desirable. And we can enjoy the beauty that exists at all levels of scale.
One way or another, the universe hopped into existence. Locked within its uninterruptible flow, we can only be glad.
- “The ratio of the mass of the proton to that of the electron is 1,836.1526675—an utterly mundane number. The neutron-to-proton mass ratio is 1.00137841870, which looks equally uninspiring. Physically, it means that the proton has very nearly the same mass as the neutron, which, as we have already seen, is about 0.1 percent heavier. Is this important? Indeed it is, and not just in determining the ratio of hydrogen to helium in the universe. The fact that the neutron’s mass is coincidentally just a little bit more than the combined mass of the proton, electron, and neutrino is what enables free neutrons to decay. If the neutron were even very slightly lighter, it could not decay without an energy input of some sort. If the neutron were lighter still, yet only by a fraction of 1 percent, it would have less mass than the proton, and the tables would be turned: isolated protons, rather than neutrons, would be unstable. Then protons would decay into neutrons and positrons, with disastrous consequences for life, because without protons there could be no atoms and no chemistry.” Paul Davies, The Goldilocks Enigma, London: Allen Lane, 2006, p 165.