Genesis

Before the beginning there was nothing.  Then something appeared, first infinitesimal, a billionth the size of a pin head.  It was extremely hot and highly volatile.  In seconds it exploded into a vast universe.

This was the description given by cosmologists recently, of the beginning of the universe.  When asked how something came from nothing they say they think it might be possible.  Stephen Hawking says that the universe is made up of matter and anti-matter in equal proportions, and together they equal zero, the implication being that if they equal nothing then they can come from nothing.

But how the spontaneous explosion occurs, even though it creates matter and anti-matter in equal measure, is not known.

Then there is a new theory afloat that nothing has something in it.  If this is true should it be called nothing?  It may well be a pre-material dark energy, but that still sounds like something to me.

Another theory is that ours is just one universe of many, that there is a multiverse, and that the ether from which these explode has the required conditions for big bangs to spontaneously occur.

Before the beginning, 14 thousand million years ago, there was nothing.  Or was there, and which beginning, and what type of nothing?

For recently evolved humans, this is all too remote, too irrelevant, too arcane for their organic and emotional life on earth. However for them it is important that there is a higher power.  Whilst some get this by marveling at nature, and by being a part of a complex and engaging human society, others prefer to think in terms of a supernatural God.  This is simpler and easier.  In the end, most humans are just not comfortable thinking about a scientific Genesis.  They would prefer this: "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth", where God is all that is unknown and all that is mysterious and encompasses everything.  Through this belief they get their higher power, albeit an earth centered one.

It is only a few who have the capacity to cope with a genesis thousands of millions of years ago that has everything coming from a mathematical nothing, or a further multiverse extending back to who knows when.  But if they do prove it, what then?  Sitting here in the library I wondered how I would feel if this was the new paradigm.  I look around at my fellow humans and I think, "You are all just cosmic phenomena".  My heart goes out to them, I feel a new empathy for our creaturehood.

I want to forget about genesis and just get on with my animal life here on earth.  The Universe is too big for us.  I am tired of our insane penchant for conquest.  There is always some nut who will be happy to set off into the abyss not knowing if they will ever return.  As individuals we know we are small, that the world is bigger than us.  Perhaps that is all we are ever going to know, ever need to know.