The Symbiotic Universe: Life and Mind in the Cosmos

This book was a Wow! experience for me. It's one of those rare books that can suddenly and profoundly shift one's way of thinking about the nature of the universe and reality.

Greenstein has a welcome counterpoint to the pelthora of rather pessimistic tomes that have appeared recently. These speak of the chaos, randomness and pointlessness of the Universe, implying that we can never know nor understand the whys of existence. This book is a poetical reverie on the wonder of existence. The so-called Anthropic Principle - the idea that any feature needed for life must exist because we exist - is used as a foundation for the book. From this principle one can study the requirements of life and begin to ask why. Although A.N. Wilson has stated that we get in trouble the moment we ask "Why" that is the fate of mankind. These requirements are marvelous, sometimes incomprehensible. For example, the universe as we know it has three dimension because (hearkening back to our principle) it must in order for us to exist. The placement of our planet in the Solar System, the existence of a large moon, the tilt of the axis, the presence of water...all of these are required for the evolution of intelligent life and all must exist because sentient creatures developed on Earth.The author states that "Creation was Perfect" or otherwise we would not be here. The forces between atomic parts must be as perfect as those between galaxies. For this reason, some have opted for "Intelligent Design" as an alternative to the Big Bang and its sheer randomeness. This book is even cited as a proponent of that view despite the author's belief that life originated from non-life and his clear pronouncement on the matter: "Science expands - rather than shrink - the mysteries. A religious account...has the opposite effect." What is true is that the CONDITIONS for life exist in the universe only because that was how things turned out. This could be Universe 143,000 and the only one that established the conditions for life. Great book.

As a reader of a great many books about the universe I find that much of the time I am re-reading what I have read before, with a few new nuggets of insight added toward the end. In this case, however, I was almost constantly learning something new. Greenstein is an artist with the information available to him. He uses scienfic fact and well established theory to lead us towards a conclusion that is both remarkable and heartwarming. It seems, paradoxically enough, that the universe did not create life, but rather life created the universe. How can this be? Well, quantum physics is based on the constantly confirmed observation that the act of observation itself gives reality to what otherwise remains ephemeral. This is a proven reality that contradicts almost all of our assumptions about the world. It is maddening and inescapable. As a result, it is almost like looking into a mirror to observe an electron. We see there not what is, but what results from our act of observation. One of the problems of physics that has not been much dewelt upon is that at the speed of light time stops. This means that for light there is no time. In other words, energy exists in one kind of unierse, and matter in a different one. This dichotomy between matter and energy is so strange that it has not been the subject of much discussion among scientists, and it is not dealt with in this book either. But if you think of all the light in the universe as existing simultaneously throughout space and time, you begin to get a sense of how it might be that life could be creating the universe rather than the other way around. That doesn't tell us how life came to be, but neither does Darwin. This book makes a good prelude to reading AT HOME IN THE UNIVERSE by Stuart Kauffman. Without interacting in their arguments much, these two books seem to illuminate one another. We are left in a kind of Socratic position of realizing that we are wise only to the extent that we know we can't really understand all this.

The top of the metaphorical mountain is in sight, watch for theologians. What I found most enlightening and refreshing about this book is the open way Greenstein discusses his own and other scientists' innate prejudice to the data scientific inquiry is providing. There is a crisis amongst the atheist intelligentsia. Evolution cannot have happened as it is taught in public schools (slime to man). They all know it, as clearly described by Greenstein, but as someone said, "We have to believe in evolution, even though it is impossible, because the only alternative is creation, which is unthinkable." The problem is how to avoid the dreaded "God Hypothesis" when every field of science confirms Intelligent Design. Greenstein's thesis is, essentially, that the universe evolved Man so that Man could become the observer, required by quantum theory, to create the universe. This is the very definition of a circular argument. Greenstein wrote"The more I read (about the Anthropic conditions of the universe) the more I became convinced that such 'coincidences' could hardly have happened by chance. But as this conviction grew, something else grew as well...It was intense revulsion, and at times it was almost physicial in nature." He says that "in my own experience whenever the problem of the fitness of the environment is broached, most scientists respond neither with interest nor with opposition. They respond with a smile. They respond with a shrug. That is the most damning response of all. The problem has been rejected, and the rejection is instinctive, It is gut-level, unmediated by rational thought, and it takes place prior to the point at which any serious consideration is possible. Before anyone has had time to think, the subject has been dismissed." [p. 24 & 25] What is this? These are "rational" scientists dispassionately evaluating the evidence? Since the 1800's the Biblical claims have been considered an absurdity in a rational world. Mankind's attention has been diverted from the real conflict for a couple hundred years. Greenstein acknowledges that the Biblical claims are no longer irrational. The fact of the existence of God is no longer really an issue, even if just subconsciously for most of the scientists. We are back in the Garden of Eden, at that point where Eve chose to eat the apple because she was seduced by the thought that she could be "as God". It was a very clear, and entertaining read. It displays the inner workings of the heart of science to day.