The internet is awash with the UFO crowd and exopolitical theorists discussing why we should be worrying about intergalactic diplomacy. Others are playing the numbers game, explaining how in all probability the universe is teeming with life. But what kind of life are they talking of and just how realistic is it that we find any or even make contact?

On the question of life in the universe I would be very optimistic in us finding life all over the universe, but only of a most basic kind. Complex molecules which can replicate themselves and probably the odd single cell or maybe even bacteria but if that is all the life there is out there then its not going to get me too excited as I have enough problems keeping that sort of life out of my kitchen and bathroom without looking for more around the universe. The real question of interest is not ‘Is there life?’ But, ‘Is there intelligent life?’ And without getting into a discussion of defining what intelligent life may consist of I will use the rough guide of being similar to us in terms of intelligence.

As it is postulated that intelligent life abounds a plenty throughout the universe we get increased UFO sightings and advice of how we should deal with being in contact and what to worry about should they attack etc. This is all nonsense unless scientists have everything terribly wrong. The distances involved prohibit any kind of physical contact. We will not be travelling to any distance planets and there will be no aliens travelling from afar to meet us here on earth. And if we assume the physicists have it wrong – what would be the benefit of travelling such large distances? Any culture attempting such a humongous project would go bankrupt and destroy itself before the first spaceship left. Should they get a ship into space it would be generations before arriving here. Indeed, if the distance of Kepler 22-b is typical then it will take 600 years to send a message to them and 600 years to get a reply.

However, there is one other possibility which no one ever seems to want to confront and that is that we are alone in this universe. OK, so we share the universe with intergalactic bacteria but in terms of what passes for intelligent life we are alone and what is more there is a theory which fits perfectly all of the scientific facts and which concludes exactly this.

Based on the anthropic interpretation of quantum mechanics the idea of ‘The Rational God’ acts on the premise of intelligent life being a necessary component of a universe in much the same way that space or time are necessary components. A universe can only exist if it has the attributes of space and of time, The Rational God also adds ‘intelligent life’ to the list of necessary attributes. This is not as contentious as it might appear given what we know about the quantum realm.

In quantum mechanics the observer of a physical system plays a role in the collapsing of that system from a quantum state into a single real state. At a universal level, the universe from the moment of Big Bang would exist as an infinite quantum system until a time one of those infinite quantum universes evolved intelligent life. At that Adam and Eve moment the quantum system would collapse into a single real state which is the universe we now find ourselves in.

Given this interpretation of quantum mechanics there are a number of consequences to such a view. First of all it is inevitable that universes evolve intelligent life. That is, the probability that intelligent life exists within a universe is 1: Intelligent life is a necessary condition for universes.

Following from this are a number of extraordinary conclusions that seriously challenge our current view of who we are and how we arrived here. For example, the process of evolution is no longer one of pure chance, though we do need to qualify what we mean when we use this phrase. Each individual circumstance of genetic adaptability does occur by chance – nothing new there – but the process of intelligent life arising from a Big Bang leaves nothing to chance. In fact there is a case for claiming the universe which will become real from a quantum system containing infinite possibilities will be the universe which takes the shortest possible route from Big Bang to intelligent lifeforms. Therefore not only is the universe necessarily dependent on intelligent life existing, that intelligent life will arise in the shortest time it could possibly take.

This places the mathematical arguments for the existence of extraterrestrial life in to a completely different context.

Consider for example, the case of the possible universe which is the second fastest at evolving intelligent life. It no longer exists, instead it was collapsed out of existence when the quantum realm collapsed the fastest intelligent life evolving universe into reality. And whereas the intelligent life which has evolved by necessity arrived by the shortest evolutionary route in time that is possible, any further independent intelligent life to evolve on other planets within this actual universe has to evolve by pure chance alone. The history of evolution on this planet may not be a truly representative guide to the speed of evolutionary processes in other parts of the universe. Given that it isn’t, it is highly unlikely there is intelligent life anywhere else.

For example, an explanation using final causes would claim that a hammer exists so that nails can be banged into wood.

In contrast, the scientific reason for the hammer existing is because someone shaped a piece of wood, forged the head from metal and connected the two together. If the hammer is handled with skill it can be used as a tool which bangs nails into wood.

It is such a simple and widespread idea that it barely needs stating. Things do not exist for what they do; they exist because of the chain of events leading up to their creation. What is obvious to us now was not so obvious 400 years ago. Explanations of why were very often answered with the final cause answer; “things exist to perform the function they perform.”

The removal of teleology and its replacement by cause and effect is one of the most solid principles of what science does, and for the most part is desirable. But is it always desirable? As in most things, at the extremes the rules very often break down. Where a strict application of cause and effect is in most danger of breaking down is at the beginning of the universe itself.

Why? Consider how and why we are here. To get to the current moment in time in the universe’s history we can (if we had sufficient information) trace back the sequence of causes and effects back to the beginning. But what do we find at the beginning and what is the cause of the first cause? Whatever the conditions or principles are present at the first moment it is they which are responsible for all subsequent events. We can then quite legitimately pose the question, ‘Could things have been any different to the way they are now?’ We can also ask ‘Is it possible that things could have been any different to the way they are now?’

There have been a number of philosophers who have felt the need to make this point. Nietzsche’s eternal return is the view that the universe is destined to repeat over and over for all eternity. Spinoza decided ‘everything is as it is and could be no other way.’
Physicist Paul Davis points out that such a view is a valid option today. Video Here

The seed, or set of initial conditions, contain within them the blueprint for all that is going to occur and all that is going to exist. This leads us to quite a different view to the one commonly held that we are here by some pure chance or slice of good fortune. It could be that we are here because that is the only way the universe can be. We are every bit a part of the fabric of the world and every bit as important to the universe’s existence as anything else. The universe is spiritual in its essence equally as much as it is material.

It may be the case that we are the chance occurrence of large configurations of complex molecules which give off blips of thought….. But the evidence does not rule out the case of humans being of fundamental importance to existence and having been written into the blueprint of existence from the very beginning. The final cause of creation is us; the processes between the beginning and now are the causal and necessary links between the two.

I first came across Dawkins in the 1980’s when I first began reading books about the philosophy of science. The Selfish Gene is a brilliant book, popular science writing at its very best, explaining complex ideas with ease. It was the New York Times who classed it as ‘the sort of popular science writing that makes the reader feel like a genius.’

I have mixed feelings about Dawkins. He is clearly a top level scientist and a great writer. He is however a lousy philosopher and a lousy metaphysician. His anti religious rants are not derivable from his scientific evidence, rather they are merely piggybacked on his science and the impression is given that the one follows from the other. It does not. Since The Selfish Gene Dawkins has produced a number of other great books, but seemingly with each step has moved further away from the popular science genre and increasingly taken on the role of waging all out war against Religion. The great writer of popular science has become a savage anti-religious polemicist – preaching rather than arguing his case. In some senses he has become what he detests most.

Now I wouldn’t wish you to think that I am here to mount a knock down argument in the defence of religion. I am not. Much of what Dawkins argues – even at his worst – I can quite happily agree with. I probably agree with 99.9% of everything he writes. But at the core I am deeply unhappy with the fundamentals for which Dawkins argues. The case against God has not been proven. The case for scientific materialism has not been successful. Dawkins embraces everything he says with a materialist spin as if that is how evolution needs to be presented. It doesn’t. And the offensive part of Dawkins words is not the evolution but that materialist spin.

My second gripe with Dawkins is with his proposal for what we should do with the concept of God. He wishes to banish it from speech altogether so as not to give succour to those who he despises. He argues that scientists should cease giving acknowledgement to the God of Spinoza and of Einstein – The Rational God – because the ordinary reader confuses this Pantheist version with the Theist one. This is somewhat backward thinking. If scientists believe the concept is a valid one to have then they should not be browbeaten into naming it something else. Spinoza’s God is a clearly defined, internally consistent concept and can give us deep insights into the ultimate nature of existence.

In conclusion I would like to point out that Dawkins anti-religious views are not something which can be proven false by some scientific evidence. Yet neither are they self evident from the scientific facts as Dawkins generally assumes. The philosophical positions that Dawkins imports into his belief system are not the easiest to defend, and in the case of materialism are generally considered to be false by everyone. There are philosophical positions different to those of Richard Dawkins which can represent the scientific facts in an equally adequate way. For Dawkins to represent his philosophical viewpoint as scientific fact is disingenuous at best and anti scientific at worst.

We see two apparently different strands making efforts to explain the universe. There is the scientific and the religious. Mainstream opinion tends to hold the view that science is the serious approach whilst religion just offers us an outdated idea dreamed up by superstitious and ignorant ancients.

Whilst agreeing the best route to an understanding of the world is a scientific one I am not so ready to dismiss ideas of the ancients as superstition or ignorance. As long as we are discussing human beings then we can be sure that those who left us ancient writings had every capability that we have in terms of rational thought. Also, with less distraction than modern life and I suspect a lot more time on their hands it could be argued that the ancients had plenty of opportunity to engage in philosophical speculation.

We can see great intellectual achievement in ancient history, the pyramids in Egypt or the plays, architecture and academic works of the Greeks. All of this was from a pre-Christian world the world of the Pagans. Socrates, Aristotle and Plato were Pagans and great thinkers too, yet for two thousand years the term ‘pagan’ has been used as an insult.

The time when Paganism was eradicated coincides with the time Christianity rose. The early years of Christianity were a time of terror. In the 3rd century AD. Roman Emperor Constantin decreed that Europe was to be unified under one religion and that religion was to be Christianity. Those who failed to practice the new religion were persecuted and most likely killed.

There was also great division within the new church between those who considered the ancient texts to be literally true and those who considered them to be metaphorically true. More killing ensued as the literalists wiped out all opposition to their views.

Since then those same texts have been subject to re-writing, translation and reinterpreting. It should be no surprise that such influential documents have also been subject to being rewritten and re-interpreted with political objectives in mind.

The first original God was a pantheist one. God and the universe were considered to be the same thing. Human beings on that scheme are a part of God. It is not difficult to speak of this God in a metaphoric way and claim that he is all powerful. All things, all power is God. If God and the universe are the same thing then God is clearly everywhere and in all things. If human beings are a part of God then God is all knowing… at least in the sense that all things that are known are by default God’s knowledge.

This pantheist description of reality was never intended to be an excuse for inventing some super powerful being. Rather it was a metaphoric aid for truly understanding the nature of our universe. Using a pantheist model is a perfectly rational explanation of the world.

The political class in the days of early Christianity used the ancient beliefs for their own ends and objectives. They took the metaphorical aids and used them in a literal way creating a theist God who could be used as a political tool. If God was all powerful He could do as He wished. If God was everywhere, He could watch what you were doing at all times. If He was all knowing He could even know what you were thinking. The Theist God was used to watch over the population, to monitor their thoughts and to dish out cruel punishments for all eternity to those who failed to follow the government line.

Charlatans and fraudsters still use veiled threats and promises of eternal joy in the afterlife to persuade others to engage in actions and to give up money. The Theist God still has its uses for those seeking social and political control or who are trying to get rich on the donations of others.

But people tend to need some spiritual comfort. Science presents a world to us which is cold, random, here by chance and which in some interpretations is cruel. We are told that we are little more than a bag of chemicals which give off blips of thought and after three score and ten years we go back to nothingness from where we, by chance, appeared. This is a poor representation of the facts. The materialist doctrine has long been discarded and its replacement physicalism, is vacuous as a philosophy and says nothing at all about the world. See Materialism and Physicalism for more details

The Rational God then is a scientific and philosophical book. It is wholly rational and it is about the idea of God. Further, it is a book which describes reality and all of science in one easy to understand basic scheme, placing our scientific knowledge into context.

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Amended post 8th August 2011