Solving For eXistence: Part 3

The Wrong Tools For The Job

Continuing on our mission to Solve For eXistence, we still have a problem. We exist, and we occupy a universe that also exists. The problem is, where does all this existing come from? Why are there things instead of no things?

For most of human history, our solution was to assume ‘god’ and leave it at that (I’m making no distinction here between monotheism and polytheism). We came up with religion to tell us about gods who were credited with creating everything. Ultimately, god was presented as the base layer of existence. The source of everything else.

When science got up and running as a guiding force in global culture, it didn’t originally have an explanation for existence. Science’s charter was to understand the nature of existence, not to wax philosophical. In fact, even with the Big Bang, science still doesn’t have an answer. That was never the bang’s function. It’s main job was to serve as a placeholder estimate for equations that required a starting point. It was never meant to explain existence, and it doesn’t.

Since then, physicists have presented theory upon theory to explain what came before the Big Bang: string theory, m-theory, sim theory, multiverses, holographic theory and myriad others, including a science-based variation of pan-psychism. But all of these fall prey to a whopper of a problem...the original mac daddy riddle of them all: infinite regression.

Infinite regression is the stuff of scientists’ nightmares. No matter what explanation we come up with for why there’s ‘stuff’, infinite regression always raises its hand and asks, “But what came before that?” It’s a lot like a five-year-old endlessly asking mommy, “Why?” It gets really tiresome, and mommy is desperate for any answer that will stop the madness. Here’s what infinite regression looks like:

• If existence is the product of sub-quantum strings that vibrate quantum particles into existence, what caused the strings to exist?

• If there’s a realm of aetheric membranes that collide together and create universes, where did the membranes come from? And what about the aether they swim in, for that matter?

• And for the religious-minded among us: if god made everything, who or what made god? (Yes, we acknowledge that the religious response is, “god created existence, no explanation necessary.” But that doesn’t work, as we’ll see.)

Infinite regression seems like a pest that just won’t go away, but it’s actually a symptom; a condition of our existence. It arises from a universal understanding we all have, that you can’t explain a beginning with something complex. We just automatically know that if you’re pointing to a complex thing and claiming that’s where it all began, you’re not going back far enough. You have to get to the point where there’s no more complexity; where the thing you’re pointing to is as simple and basic as a thing can get. Only then can you shut up the incessant voice of infinite regression. And sadly for science, it simply doesn’t have a non-complex base level thing it can point to. Everything science knows is already too complex to serve as an origin, so infinite regression wins Every. Single. Time.

You might be thinking, well, energy is basic.
But is it?

Energy has components. Measurable ones. Why is energy traveling? What set it in motion? Why is it heading in its particular direction? Why does it have a particular oscillation cycle or pattern? Where did it come from to begin with?

These are real, relevant questions that have to be addressed. Eventually, we run up against the fact that energy can’t exist without being generated. And if it was generated, something had to generate it. Infinite regression wins again. Energy is made up of components that give it presence, velocity, direction, amplitude, magnitude and so forth. It isn’t simple at all. Not even kind of. And sadly for science, energy is the most basic thing it knows. So if science’s most basic starting point is already this complex, what hope does science have of answering the big question?

Let’s cut to the chase: none. Science has none hope.

Science has no means of answering the big question, because it’s working in the wrong paradigm. Science’s charter restricts it to materiality, so it’s unequipped to study anything outside of materiality. Materiality happens to be inherently complex. Therefore, since science is restricted to materiality and materiality is inherently complex, science isn’t in a position to solve infinite regression. It literally cannot answer the big question.

We can state this in yet another way that illuminates the overall problem: Materiality can never answer the question of why materiality itself exists.

Materiality is immaterial
Science is an effort to reduce every phenomenon to the material level. But science is helpless to reduce existence itself to that same level. Existence, being a thing in and of itself, does not conform to the rules of materiality. It isn’t a materiality thing, and that means science is barking up the wrong tree. Science can explain natural phenomena, but it can’t explain Nature.

As stated in the earlier articles, this is a paradigm problem. Science is working to explain natural phenomena just the way it should, but it’s also being asked to explain the paradigm in which natural phenomena occur, and that particular paradigm isn’t one science can address. That lies outside science’s purview. This is what we need to recognize. We’re turning to the wrong tool for the situation.

"Science can explain natural phenomena, but it can’t explain Nature."

Religion
The knee-jerk response will be to look to religion. If not science, then god. Right? What’s wrong with pointing to god as the author of ‘stuff’?

It comes down to the very same problem. God is a complex being. God has a personality, qualities & characteristics, powers, intelligence, will, language, intentions, desires...and famously, a temper. God is by no means a basic thing without any component parts. We find it necessary to ask where god would have come from. Was god born? If so, from whom? Was god made? If so, by whom? Did god simply spring fully-formed into existence from scratch? If so, why? How? Via what mechanism? Did god begin helpless and small and knowing nothing, or was god always all-powerful and all-capable? If so, why? How does an individuated being attain all of that? Especially if he’s on his own with no peers to interact with? All of us learn socially. What did god do? What was his education?

There have to be answers for these things or the rational, reasonable person simply can’t buy into it. Believers insist it’s a matter for faith, but we’re not talking about what comforts us; we’re looking into legitimate explanations for “why is there stuff?” Faith’s got nothing to do with that.

Religion’s job isn’t to provide explanations for things; it’s to quiet the existential dread of living in a universe we don’t control. In other words, religion’s job isn’t facts; it’s comfort. So religion is out.

"Religion’s job isn’t facts; it’s comfort."

Isn’t it ironic? Here we are, speaking on the matter of where everything came from, and religion actually has nothing to tell us. Just as it was with science, we need to stop looking there.

Hopefully, you can see where this is headed. We’re going to have to shift to a different paradigm in order to understand why there is stuff. A universe full of stuff isn’t able to answer its own existential riddle. It’s trapped in its own paradigm and can’t see past it. Religion can’t give us a rational answer, and everyone turning to science to solve the riddle of existence is using the wrong tool:

• Science is solely concerned with materialist phenomena

• Even the most basic physical phenomena are already too complex to serve as fundamental

• Science has no means of studying anything other than materiality

• Religion points to something beyond materiality, but it’s unable to actually explain it

Conclusion: neither science nor religion can get us where we’re trying to go. We have to look into this on our own. And fortunately, we have other tools. What we’re truly looking for isn’t something currently defined by a belief system or a discipline. If it had been, we wouldn’t still be asking the big question. We have more work to do, and we need to figure out how to do it. That comes next time.