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God and Physics: An Interview with Bernard Haisch

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God and Physics: An Interview with Bernard Haisch

Tikkun - March-April 2007
http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0703/frontpage/godtheory


God and Physics:

An interview with Bernard Haisch, author of "The God Theory"

TIKKUN: What is the central theory of  your book, The God Theory?

BERNARD HAISCH: You can be a science-oriented person, perfectly comfortable
with the Big Bang origin of the universe 13.7 billion years ago, a 4.6
billion year old earth, Darwinian evolution, and still believe that there
is room for a God behind it all, and that there is no contradiction. Once
you go past the Big Bang and ask yourself what might be the ultimate origin
of things, you have a choice. You can choose to assume that there
pre-exists quantum fields or inflation fields or quantum fluctuations, and
out of those the universe was born. But then there has to pre-exist some
form of law or tendency, because if nothing at all existed, nothing at all
would happen. So you still have to assume there is something there, some
sort of laws of nature pre-exist. Well, then you ask, where did those come
from? Or, you can assume that behind it all there is intelligence. That
intelligence could be assumed to have a purpose in doing this.

In the last twenty years there have been a number of discoveries about the
fundamental properties of the universe. If some of these fundamental
constants had been much different, we wouldnÆt be here.

First there is the ratio of gravitational to electrical force. If that
ratio were much different, there wouldnÆt be planets and stars that were
the right size to have evolved on the same kind of timescale to produce a
favorable environment for life.

Then we have the strength of nuclear force. If the nuclear force were maybe
10 percent stronger than what it is, all of the hydrogen at the beginning
of the universe would have been used up in the heavy elements and you
wouldnÆt have the basic ingredients of stars anymore. If the nuclear force
were much weaker, you wouldnÆt have thermonuclear reactions in stars
because you wouldnÆt be able to have the chain that powers hydrogen into
helium, which is what powers stars; therefore, we wouldnÆt have planets,
and we wouldnÆt have life.

ThereÆs the strength of the dark energy that is accelerating the universe.
It was only discovered in 1998 that the universe is actually accelerating.
Now if that dark energy, whatever it is, were twice as strong or ten times
as strong as it is, the universe would be blowing apart, and, again, we
wouldnÆt have the conditions necessary for life. Similarly, if the amount
of dark matter were much greater than it is, you wouldnÆt get a compact
universe that would evolve through its lifetime in thousands or millions of
years.

ThereÆs the cosmic microwave background. A few weeks ago a Nobel Prize was
given to scientists who measured this in detail fifteen years ago. They
found tiny fluctuations from point to point in the sky, which could be
traced back to the beginning of the universe. If these fluctuations were
much greater, you would probably have regions of density in the universe
where you would have black holes instead of galaxies. So, again, the amount
of dark matter has to be within a certain range, and, more importantly, if
you run this back in time, how critically this has to be a certain value
gets much, much more tightly constrained by about a factor of a billion
times a million.

Then, there are a couple of peculiarities about some chemical elements.
Life is composed of carbon primarily. Carbon is manufactured in the cores
of very hot stars and what you end up with is a reaction that leads to
helium, and then a reaction that leads to beryllium formation, and helium
plus beryllium combine to form carbon and stars. Beryllium is quite
unstable; it doesnÆt last very long, so the helium plus beryllium reaction
has to take place very quickly if you are going to get carbon. Well it
turns out the carbon forms very nicely because there is an energy resonance
that lets that reaction take place very fast before the beryllium decays
again.

And the last thing is the peculiar property of water. Most liquids become
denser as they freeze; however, water becomes less dense when it freezes,
which means ice floats. ThatÆs important for our climate because if ice
sank to the bottom of the ocean then youÆd get an accumulation of ice on
top of ice and pretty soon the ocean would freeze over.

So, all these things could have been totally differentùthereÆs nothing in
the laws of physics that says that these things have to be this way. So
this then raises the question, why is our universe ôspecialö? Now of course
the scientists hate that. They donÆt want to see anything special in the
universe because that might imply that there is intelligence behind it. So
the explanation is: ôwell ok, if our universe looks special, thatÆs an
accident.ö It means that there are lots and lots of other universes, maybe
an infinite number of other universes that are totally different from ours
and that weÆre just not in those universes because we couldnÆt beùours only
looks special because weÆre in it and could-nÆt be somewhere else.

You can accept that as an explanation. However, IÆm saying that itÆs
equally defensible to assume that ours is special because there is thought
that went into it. IÆm just pointing out that there are two equally likely
possibilities at this point in time. One does not lean over another by
virtue of any kind of evidence. Except, perhaps, if you take the evidence
of intelligence from mystics and people who have had prayerful or
spontaneous experiences, who have experienced it with their consciousness.
Now of course scientists will say, ôThat evidence doesnÆt count, we donÆt
believe that kind of evidence because we canÆt measure it with our
telescopes or microscopes.ö So I say, fine, you want to discount that
evidence, there is still a zero on both sides; therefore, believe whichever
side you want.

TIKKUN: Now, letÆs go into this intelligence for a second. ThereÆs another
position that IÆve heard articulated that says that intelligence and
consciousness are what they call an ôemergent.ö That is to say they werenÆt
there in previous stages in the development of the universe, but that they
come into existence under conditions A, B, and C. The emergence didnÆt
pre-exist then, it just happens when a certain number of factors come
together. For instance, having a body with a certain kind of nervous
systemùat a certain level of complexity of that nervous system,
consciousness emerges, and at a further level of complexity of that nervous
system, self-consciousness emerges. And we can see that in the child
developing, so why canÆt we see that in the species developing? A child
seems to be conscious but not self-conscious for a period of maybe a year
or so and then we see it changing in the level as certain stimuli hit it
and it is nurtured by other beings. So, couldnÆt it just be that
consciousness of the universe that people have experienced that you are
talking about, namely mystical experience, be real, but be a product of a
certain stage of development of the universe rather than a pre-existing
aspect of the universe?

BH: Well, that is the way scientists think about it. They assume that when
things get assembled in the proper level of complexity, something else can
seemingly appear, but the key word here is seemingly because there is no
such thing as real consciousness in that view because real consciousness is
a kind of epiphenomena. You are still stuck with atoms and molecules;
thereÆs nothing really new, itÆs just a new arrangement of the same old
stuffùthatÆs the thinking in science. Again, I canÆt argue that that is
irrational, itÆs perfectly rational, but I think itÆs also rational to
assume that there is some other thing called consciousness that may have
been the root of it all, rather than epiphenomena that arises when things
get seemingly complex enough. It is rational and logical to assume that the
universe is more like a great thought than like a great machine.

One of the things that I argue in my book The God Theory is that we human
beings do know on a deep level that our consciousness is sort of a primary
thing.

You might be able to persuade me that some fact of logic is wrong, for
example that in some mathematical system 1+1 is not equal to 2. But you
canÆt persuade me that I donÆt possess a deep consciousness. ThatÆs the
most fundamental thing I know, a root knowledge that you cannot take away,
and I believe that kind of root knowledge points to the fundamentality of
consciousness as the stuff behind the universe, that there is intelligence
that thought up the universe and whose thoughts then became these very laws
of physics that we are talking about right here.

There may be many other universes that this intelligence thought up because
if it is an infinite intelligence then it has infinite diversity. So,
making universes that correspond to different ideas that work together
seems like really a neat thing to do if you are that kind of consciousness,
because that way you can take your potential and turn it into experience.
ThatÆs what I think is the basis of all of this, the point behind itùthat
if there is an infinite intelligence with infinite potential, potential is
fine but experience is better.

TIKKUN: So you are attributing to that consciousness a desire.

BH: A desire to know itself.

TIKKUN: Why would it have that particular desire?

BH: Actually, I think I should point you back to Kaballah, where it talks
about this desire and it says that to know the basis of this desire is
beyond human comprehension, but there is a desire to know itself. I guess I
would take that as sort of a postulate of a theory.

TIKKUN: ThereÆs a version of the Kaballah that has a different analysis
that says that itÆs because that fundamental consciousness is not just a
consciousness, but also a loving consciousness, that it desires love and
companionship, that it desires an other. That the fundamental birthing of
the universe comes out of the desire for connection with an other. So the
tilt of the universe is toward making loving connection more and more
possible.

BH: That sounds perfectly consistent, and that loving desire can also give
rise to the desire to create. You create an other so that you can then be
united with an experience of the other.

TIKKUN: But is it ever really an other if itÆs part of the same?

BH: ThatÆs the trick. You can never really be an other but you can sort of
act as if you are another. I think thatÆs why we come into life not knowing
what we really are, because if we knew what we really are it wouldnÆt be
other anymore.

TIKKUN: Part of the essence of God is freedom and self-consciousness. To
have an other is to create a space in which the other can be and that means
allowing it freedom. So, imparting it with the freedom to move whichever
direction it chooses is what is necessary in order to actually have love,
because love requires a freely choosing other.

BH: In fact, this is where evolution enters in. In this view you want
evolution to take place. If you had intelligent design you would have God
stamping out cookie-cutter creatures and that would be making an other that
isnÆt really an other. If you let evolution take place, you have freedom,
then you get a real other, so this view is even more compatible with
science.

TIKKUN: Now then the evolution of the universe may be a self-choosing of
the universeùin other words, there is more freedom in the process of
evolution than if there is a designer who is standing there at each stage
saying, ôLet the carbon divide into this and that.ö It may be that the
designer, at least at a certain stage, is letting go of the process and
saying, ôOk, IÆve created enough here.ö So that it is now in a position
that it can evolve itself and choose itÆs own direction, having already set
in place that its direction will move towards some greater levels of
consciousness, and that it will tilt toward love. For example, if you have
a child, at a certain point, whatever that point is, you decide that more
good will come for your child if you let that child be free than if you
tell it what to do and try to shape its circumstances totally, even if
shaping those circumstances totally will allow you greater control and will
allow you to be sure the outcome you get is the one you really want. This
undermines exactly what I want, which is a freely choosing being to choose
to love.

BH: IÆm not disagreeing with you. I am arguing that these fundamental rules
are sort of boundary conditions. You have to have a certain set of boundary
conditions to create the space in which things happen. So you have to set
some of the fundamental rules of the laws of physics. I think these rules
were set with the thought in mind of having freely choosing beings arise.

TIKKUN: So, do you believe that the laws of physics are eternal?

BH: Well I think the laws of physics go with our particular universe. There
may be many other universes, and their laws of physics may be totally
differentùthere may not be such realities as space and time in those
universes, so we canÆt even comprehend them. But I think the laws of
physics pretty much eternal for our universe.

TIKKUN: WhatÆs our argument for that? Is that a belief statement, or is it
something for which we have evidence, where we can look at something from
10,000 years ago and say, ôHereÆs the evidence that the laws of physics
were operating in exactly the same way?ö And, does eternal mean static?

BH: Once in a while you find articles that talk about the possible
variations, for example most recently people talked about the possible
variation of the quantum structure constant, a pretty technical aspect of
physics, but that was never conclusive. To answer your question, we look at
the spectra of distant galaxies and quasars and find that indeed, they have
the same signature elements that you would expect in the right place. So
this spectroscopic evidence from distant objects lets you infer that the
laws have been the same at least for 13 billion years or so.

Now, whatÆs interesting is that in the last twenty years, thousands of
physicists have dedicated their time to the study of String Theory and
Membrane Theory. And in those theories you have to postulate additional
dimensions. ItÆs in the mathematics that instead of having four dimensions
of space and timeùbecause we live in a four dimensional world, three of
space and one of timeùyou need either a ten or eleven, or twenty-six
dimensional space to make the mathematics work. So we take seriously the
idea that there are additional dimensions. Most of the time they are
thought of as kind of like rolled-up dimensions. TheyÆre not really the
same as ours, but theyÆre tiny dimensions.

So these scientists talk as if our universe is part of a greater ten,
eleven, or twenty-six dimensional space in which universes may exist side
by side with each other. ThatÆs mainstream, conventional String Theory. So,
the notion that there are other universes, or at least the possibility of
other universes, and the possibility of fundamentally different properties
within them is built into String Theory, which has been the focus of
particle physics for the last twenty years.

TIKKUN: What do you think a physicist would say in argument against your
book? What would be their best shot?

BH: Well, I think that without realizing it, they would go back to God and
say, ôI hate the thought of God, God has been disproved; therefore, weÆve
shown that we can explain why our universe is special by invoking an
ensemble of universesùthatÆs a perfectly rational explanation, why would
you want to go back and invoke this medieval ancient idea called God?ö And
thatÆs what it would consist of. There is no logical argument against what
IÆm saying because we are in an area beyond evidence and beyond proof. 
WeÆre sort of asking, ôWhat came before the Big Bang?ö And thereÆs not one
shred of evidence that either side can point to.

TIKKUN: So, youÆre saying that they have a faith conviction against God,
and from that faith conviction they then say, ôThe reason we have a faith
conviction against God is because we simply donÆt believe that there is
anything in the universe that canÆt be measured or subjected to empirical
observation.ö

BH: Yes, thatÆs right.

TIKKUN: In my book The Left Hand of God I argued against that empiricist
hypothesisùwhich I see as just another religious conviction. I want those
who move beyond science to understand that all reality is governed by the
same principlesùa move that I call scientismù to recognize that they are
really on the same ground as any other religion.

BH: ThatÆs right. Unfortunately, theyÆre not very tolerant. I say ôtheyö
and I feel funny about that, because IÆve been practicing science myself
for thirty years.

TIKKUN: So, thatÆs all they could say?

BH: You know, I think so. As I said, thereÆs no evidence that points one
way or another, the most they can say is that itÆs an unnecessary
hypothesis. However, built into that argument is the idea that there must
have been pre-existing laws of some kind because if youÆre going to invoke
a quantum fluctuation as the basis of the universe then you have to ask,
why do quantum fluctuations happen? Because there are quantum laws. Well,
where do they come from? So you have to take that as a given.

TIKKUN: So they would just invoke OckhamÆs razor and say that we should
stay within the sphere of those things for which we have empirical evidence
and not add any new hypothesis that we donÆt need.

BH: What is getting discounted in that dismissal is that consciousness is
not going to fit into that materialistic kind of explanation.

TIKKUN: Their answer would be, ôYeah, IÆm not going to deny that there are
these experiences that you might have had on a drug or you might have had
because youÆre tuned into some aspect of the world that IÆm not tuned into,
because I know that there are all kinds of things happening right in this
room that if I just had the appropriate receivers for, IÆd be receiving
them. ItÆs just that when we finally can explore them, we will explore them
through the mechanisms of observation and measurement and so forth and they
will eventually be accountable for in the same laws of the universe that
everything else has been. WeÆll be able to find whatever it is about the
physical nature of the universe that makes that possible.ö

BH: And I would say to them, ôFine, your position is perfectly logical and
plausible. IÆm not going to try and argue that away, all I want to do is
have some respect and tolerance for the other view that there is more to it
than that.  You have not proven that there is not more to it than that.
YouÆre speculating that in the future everything will be brought into this
scientific rubric, but thatÆs as equally a speculative thing as what IÆm
saying.  So IÆm just trying to argue for space for the other side. And for
a tolerance you rarely find among the more dogmatic secularists.ö

TIKKUN: Why do they find it so hard to credit an alternative position?

BH: If youÆre a physicist, you probably wound up maturing in a community
that believes, ôThis empirical research is what we do, and that research
will eventually explain everything that needs to be explained.ö That is the
ruling paradigmatic belief and so you sort of assimilate that. And science
has been really successful, thereÆs no denying that, and itÆs easy to
extrapolate that success into explaining everything. You always want to
believe that what youÆre doing is the most important thing so you look at
your field and say, ôWeÆre smart people, weÆve explained so much,ö and then
you add to that the religious baggage from over the years: the Catholic
Church and the inquisition and the persecution of science and the nuttiness
going on in the Middle East and some in the Islamic world wanting to take
us back to the eighth century, and you conclude ôI want nothing to do with
religion, itÆs the worst thing that has ever happened to mankind.ö

TIKKUN: So thatÆs the culture. And thereÆs no place in the scientific
education or training where people are asked to deal with the fact that
science has equally been used to generate weapons of mass destruction and
create the technology to destroy the planet. And that medicine isnÆt
solving all of our problems, that weÆre still only focused on
end-of-the-line solutions.

BH: ThatÆs right. Also there is a big problem with the scientific world in
that it is nihilistic and destructive. If you really take it to heart, the
scientific, materialist, reductionist perspective removes any real purpose
from our lives. I mean, you live a good life for what you do for your
friends and your family and your neighbors and so on, but ultimately itÆs
pointless.

TIKKUN: Are there parts of the books that you think a general intellectual
audience ought to hear about that I havenÆt asked about yet.

BH: Yes, hereÆs an interesting thing that is somewhat a bit of evidence
that this universal consciousness is something that we tap into. This goes
back to something that Aldous Huxley wrote in the 1950s when he wrote a
book called The Doors of Perception that talked about an experience he had
with mescaline in the 1950s. He took it deliberately to try and understand
what another reality might feel like, and being a very articulate writer,
he describes his experience with mescaline, but he couldnÆt really describe
it. He said he thought he might be able to interpret this as being like a
crack in the filter into the brain. So, rather than assuming that the brain
is the source of consciousness, assume the brain is the filter of
consciousness, that really there is an infinite universal consciousness and
what we experience in our everyday lives is just a tiny little part of that
because our brain filters out everything else because we couldnÆt survive
if we had a universal consciousnessùwe couldnÆt survive in this limited
realm. So the brain is actually a filter, this is my hypothesis. And his
mescaline experience cracked the filter a little bit and things flowed in.
I think there is a consciousness that we can tune into by retuning the
filter or cracking the filter.

TIKKUN: What is your belief in God?

BH: I guess I do picture some entity that has no properties that IÆm
familiar with, not space, not time, not matter, an absolutely infinite
entity that wants to know itself and has ideas. And those ideas become the
basis of universes, like ours, and perhaps like many others. The objective
of the universe is to provide a space for that being to experience that
subset of ideas that went into that universe. You canÆt experience infinity
all at onceùyou have to experience parts of it at a time. So, the point of
all this creation is to give that intelligence a place to embody itself and
experience part of its ability.

TIKKUN: What about the idea that God is evolving?

BH: I guess I would say that that makes sense, because thatÆs what weÆre
doing here; weÆre evolving some of GodÆs potential into new experiential
creations.

TIKKUN: By the very conversation weÆre having. Exactly. ThatÆs why we would
say weÆre doing Torah at this very moment. Now, what would you say about
different theories of consciousness and how your theory differs?

BH: What I argue in the book is that it makes sense to consider the
possibility that itÆs not that consciousness arises somehow out of matter,
but that somehow consciousness is the basis of the physical universe. That
the matter energy that makes up the physical universe somehow derived from
the consciousness.

TIKKUN: What do you mean somehow? Why not say that matter and the
consciousness have existed forever rather than saying that the
consciousness exists and somehow creates matter?

BH: Because I would say that the matter has not existed forever because we
know that the Big Bang took place 13.7 billion years ago. So that was the
beginning of matter and energy, as we know it.

TIKKUN: But this Big Bang came from something, what banged? BH: I would say
it was the idea of the consciousness.

TIKKUN: And for those who would say that consciousness is epiphenomena that
just arises in certain circumstances you would say, ôno, itÆs the primary
phenomena, matter is what arises under certain circumstances.ö We donÆt
know what those circumstances are. When is it that consciousness gives rise
to matter? Or, on your account, why wouldnÆt consciousness create other
consciousnesses and not other embodied consciousness unless it itself was
already embodied?

BH: I guess I donÆt see how consciousness could create other
consciousnesses because itÆs operating at the same levelùhow could it have
that ability? ItÆs like me operating on some deviceùthe device is
subordinate to me therefore I can operate on it. In that same way I would
see consciousness as able to operate on the world of matter and energy but
not on itself.

TIKKUN: And how could anything else that this consciousness creates be
anything separate if itÆs creating it?

BH: I would assume that whatever its infinite intelligence is it could
splinter itself into little consciousnesses that could then enter into the
art form of universes and hosts.

TIKKUN: Why does it need hosts?

BH: To have experience. Experience and ideas are two different things. ItÆs
the difference between understanding the rules of the game and playing the
game.

TIKKUN: In the best possible world, what would you hope comes from this
book? BH: What I really want to do is offer some new ideas for society. I
wrote this book as a sort of public service. We face a huge problem today
because religion has caused a huge amount of problems in the world and is
still causing problems today. Therefore, smart people in the sciences and
humanities hate religion for the problems itÆs caused and therefore throw
out spirituality as well because they canÆt differentiate between the two.
So then weÆre heading down a very reductionist, materialist path on the one
hand, and a fundamentalist religious path on the other, and we are heading
for disaster. I want to point out that you donÆt need either one of those
sides, that down the middle there is a perfectly logical worldview that is
compatible with science and that we ought to take seriously.

TIKKUN: How do you see this relating to the project of spiritual
progressives that is put forth in The Left Hand of God?

BH: It addresses the metaphysical side of the argument. We want to bring
into the same political tent people who are very scientific and either
agnostic or atheistic, but who politically have progressive ideas about
making the world a better place, very humanistic.  In that tent you also
want to have the people who are looking for a purpose in life and who donÆt
buy the claims that the universe is without purpose. My book offers the
metaphysics that can persuade scientists to open their mind to see that
they donÆt have to give up anything scientific in order to take the notion
of God seriously, and for those looking for something truly spiritual, they
can have that while still being scientific in their beliefs. I see my book
as providing the metaphysics for the same group of people that Rabbi Lerner
is trying to put under that liberal tent in the Network of Spiritual
Progressives.

TIKKUN: Any last things you want to add?

BH: I guess IÆd like to advise religious people that they should try not to
humanize God too much. God is not what most religions teach God to be, God
is not some entity within the universe, because then who made the universe?
God is not some entity in space and time, because then who made space and
time? God is none of these things that religions tend to interpret God as,
which means also that you donÆt have a heaven in the way that most
religions teach. So my message to most people who are the product of a
religious upbringing is, ôRethink God, put God in a bigger context that
doesnÆt conflict with science. DonÆt try to limit God to some entity that
couldnÆt exist if science were correct, that would be incompatible with
evolution for example. Broaden your view of God.ö

TIKKUN: What message would you have for Christians who see God as Jesus?

BH: I have one single quote out of John, where Jesus says, ôIn all truth I
tell you, whoever believes in me will perform the same works that I do
myself, and will perform even greater works.ö To me this implies that Jesus
was God incarnate, but so are we all. He may have been a very advanced
incarnation of God, but he says it here himself, we can do greater things
still. To me this implies that we can be as great as Jesus and greater
still. Therefore, Christians, nothing IÆm saying in this book contradicts
Christianity.

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