Reciprocity Nexus

“Miracles” – is a somewhat ironic song, in the sense that the concept of “miracles” usually has a religious context and application. But here, the idea of a “miracle” is applied to the empirical and scientific realm – in my view, often as remarkable and strange than even a religious miracle. How so?

Science often postulates a three tiered “cake” model:

a. at the human, earthly level, we have Newtonian, classical physics, which governs our earthly domain and explains things there adequately and in concert with our senses. An understandably causal, even deterministic world. A world of cause-and-effect. However…

b. …at the meta-level – the cosmological – we have entirely different physics. The physics of the universe; infinity; big bangs; multi-verses; black and white holes; the relativity of time and place; where things are more mysterious. For example:

• Why does classical physics break down in the proximity of black holes?
• If elsewhere, information is always retained, why not at the event horizon?
• Or does it there get absorbed holographically, encoding 3D information in a 2D, holographic mechanism? (The first bridge in the song refers this).

The mysteries are many – even if we take the part to tell the whole. The point being that at this, cosmological, level, Newton’s classical world no longer holds. We encounter profoundly mysterious phenomena. And…

c. …at the micro, sub-atomic, quantum level, things behave very differently again, and arguably even more strangely still. We encounter phenomena as counter-intuitive as super-position; quantum tunnelling; entanglement (verse two relays Albert Einstein’s famous quote “spooky action at a distance”); Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle; other. Another profoundly mysterious realm.

The great tension between the cosmological and the quantum, of course, is the juxtaposition of forces: at the quantum level, the electro-magnetic; the strong and the weak force; and at the cosmological level, gravity. Einstein and Hawking both attempted “theory of everything” reconciliations…and these may indeed transpire, eventually. String theory and it’s M theory sub-category representing but two attempts.

But the point is…in the context of this album, that things are still profoundly mysterious. We simply don’t have absolute explanations, yet. And so the song tries to make two points:

a. Mystery is NOT (just!) the domain of the religious only. There are profound mysteries at the heart of science too. Theology can not therefore claim some sort of metaphysical advantage.

b. The concept of causality (something dear even to Albert Einstein’s heart, cf. his famous quote about “God doesn’t play dice”) is NOT (necessarily) a given. Just as the question “where is north?” ceases to have meaning the closer one gets to true north, so might the same case be with time (according to Professor Brian Green and others). The whole idea of causality (the universe started somewhere – popularly with the idea of a creator) might be moot.

Like opening song (“There For The Grace”). this song mentions famous theologian William Planey and his equally famous watchmaker analogy, which simply states that the intimacy of the world implies intelligent design. (The same concept is mentioned in the song “Kaprekar’s Constant” later on the album). Maybe the idea of a creator has no meaning in an infinite universe – and the demands of causality are simply a function (read limitation) of our cognition.

But the point is…life IS mysterious. Even without a God. On the strict terms of science alone. This song celebrates that mystery.