The Instant (Retroactive) Universe

The Instant Retroactive Universe

And God Said: "Let there have been a Big Bang!"

“I want to know how God created the universe. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon…I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” — Albert Einstein[1]

Do the details of creation follow from the underlying thoughts of God?

Tradition—comprising the Genesis Creation account, the Talmud, Kabbalah, and other sources—teaches us about the method and procedure of the creation of the universe, as well as about God’s program or purpose for creation. Combining various traditional sources produces the following distilled version of the Torah's Creation account:

In a free-willed act an all-powerful being designed and created a natural universe containing entities morally responsible for their choices.

Let's attempt to intuit[2] how such a process of design and creation might proceed, and then relate the resulting model both to the traditional account of creation and to the origin theories of science.

In some sense we'll be inspired by Einstein's statement above, and attempt to see how central 'details' of the creation account follow from 'the underlying thoughts of God' regarding the creation - ie from the above distilled (italicized) statement.

Combining the Scientific and Biblical points of view

“Another source of conviction in the existence of God…follows from the extreme difficulty or rather impossibility of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man…as the result of blind chance or necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in some degree analogous to that of man…”— Charles Darwin[3]

Humans exist now, but scientific research indicates they, and life in general, did not always exist on this planet. The scientific quest for human origins therefore seeks a model which allows for life arising where there previously had been none, basically to account for the emergence of humans from the inorganic (“the dust of the earth”) solely via the laws of nature. The theory of the big bang[4] coupled with that of evolution provides a scientifically satisfying hypothetical model for this.[5] Science does not deal with that which cannot be objectively and universally observed by scientists, and so does not deal with the soul. Consequently, the inability of the present-day scientific theories to account for the soul is not necessarily scientifically relevant.[6] Analogously, since science does not concern itself with whether or not the origin of existence and of the laws of nature lies in a creator or not, the thesis of Divine Creation does not compete with it.[7]

Combining the scientific and biblical points of view, Genesis can in the above context be read as describing God’s creation ex-nihilo and then infusion of a soul—and perhaps a mind as well—into a humanoid emerging from “the dust of the earth,” as detailed by evolutionary theory, in a universe which developed from a big bang created by God.

Free Will

In order for the created entities to be morally responsible for their actions they must possess a certain order of intelligence, free will, and a moral sense. Charles Darwin wrote in The Descent of Man:[8]

"I fully subscribe to the judgment of those writers who maintain that of all the differences between men and the lower animals, the moral sense or conscience is the most important."

Mind

According to the Biblical conception, humans actually possess an intrinsically free-willed consciousness, based on the existence of a mind or soul which is of a different order than the material, as clarified by Descartes. This free-willed consciousness and the moral sense distinguish humanity from the animals. In this sense humans were created "in the image of God".[9]

Designing the Cosmos

The traditional understanding of the metaphysical/spiritual aspects of the creation process may be seen (ex post facto) as following from the traditional conception of its purpose, i.e., the creation of free-willed moral beings. In order to make the free-willed actions of these ‘moral beings’ truly independent of the will of their designer-and-creator, we intuit a sacrifice of the sovereignty of the Creator’s Will, a withdrawal and narrowing of its exclusivity.

This parallels God’s tsimtsum (contraction) before Creation, as described by the Kabbala.

We can intuit[2] that in order for the Creator to bring an additional independent consciousness into existence, the pre-existent unity had to be shattered. This parallels the traditional mystical concept of shvirat ha’kelim, the breaking of the vessels.

The Garden of Eden Account

So that it will be morally responsible for its actions, the created being is given a share of the Creator’s free will—the attribute that underlies Creation itself.[10] In biblical terms, humans were created “in the image of God”[11] with some infusion of the Divine during the Creation process: “And God breathed into man the spirit of life”[12].

As it is not fair to create an entity burdened by existence, it makes sense to create the being in an idyllic environment (the Garden of Eden) to gain its retroactive acquiescence to having been created. It is similarly unfair to impose the obligation of moral responsibility on a being that did not choose it. The being could reject its moral responsibility by claiming that it had not chosen to be faced with moral dilemmas.

A situation can therefore be arranged whereby the being itself chooses whether or not to bear the burden of moral responsibility. The Creator forbids the assumption of this burden, so that the responsibility of the choice becomes that of the chooser alone.[13]

With the assumption of moral responsibility and the acquisition of free-willed consciousness, purposive history can begin.

Intermediate conclusion: We have in the above sections seen how central aspects of the Biblical creation (and Eden) accounts can indeed be said to follow in some sense from the fundamental creation-statement we formulated above: "In a free-willed act an all-powerful being designed and created a natural universe containing entities morally responsible for their choices."

Part II:

Designing the Big Bang: God’s Choice

Which parameters of the universe were chosen to allow for the fulfillment of the Divine purpose in Creation? Is ours the only type of universe and laws of nature that could exist?

“What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world” — Albert Einstein.[14]

According to scientific origin theory, in order to produce our universe, at some point a big bang would have to exist. It could not be just any big bang, since only a very specific type of big bang would lead to our universe, eg with human beings.

From the traditional perspective, if God created the universe via a big bang, the design for the big bang would therefore have to be carefully worked out in advance. [15] Since a central purpose of the created being is its exercise of free-willed moral choice, the universe would have to be designed to contain morally meaningful situations and dilemmas. The design of the universe must therefore be based on the opportunities of moral choice that the Creator desires the being to eventually face.[16]

Creation and its Description

We can match aspects of the traditional conception of the universe’s purpose to resulting elements of the physical creation procedure.

If, as stated above, it is the eventual human moral challenges that prescribe the universal blueprint, and if it is the Torah that prescribes these moral challenges, then it is the Torah that sets the parameters for the design of the universe and humanity. As the Midrash says, “God looked into the Torah and created the universe.”[17]

Only after assembling a complete picture of a moral being and an appropriate universe could there begin the design of the big bang and laws of nature leading to their emergence.

According to this scenario, the process of Creation began not with the big bang but rather with the prior idea to create a being with moral responsibility, and a mental conception of this moral being and of the universe it would inhabit. Prior to physical creation it would be necessary to mentally assemble the desired main ingredients of the universe until everything necessary to produce a moral being has been obtained. The blueprint of the universe is created one stage at a time. A new stage is initiated after the previous stage is seen to fit into the whole—“God saw … that it was good”[18]—until the end product is reached. A being is created in the Divine image and is integrated into the rest of the Creation—“God saw … that all … was very good.”[19]

A description of this creation could then consist of an account of the creation either of the universe itself or of the blueprint of the universe, which is completed with the design of humanity.[20] Given the entire functioning integrated blueprint of a universe containing moral beings, a big bang could then be designed and programmed to teleologically produce them.[21]

Part III: The First Moment—from the Teleological Perspective

With the design of the big bang ready, its creation can be initiated. Until the emergence of a free-willed intelligent being from this teleological designed big bang, however, everything that occurs is preprogrammed, an acting out of the mechanistic laws of nature with some quantum randomness thrown in. The truly “interesting” activity begins only with the onset of moral choice. Only then the purpose of the universe can begin to unfold.[22] In the teleological sense, Creation is completed not with the emergence of the big bang but rather fifteen billion years later when the first intelligent moral being emerges and decides to accept the burden of moral responsibility for its actions.

The Instant Retroactive Universe

Would the creation of a big bang be the most reasonable method of creation of such a purposive universe? Creation of a big bang involves a delay of billions of years until the free-willed being evolves and the desired moral activity begins. It would seem that the more reasonable [2] procedure would be the creation of the universe at the stage of the emergence of a free-willed human being. This would juxtapose the creation of the universe with the choice of the burden of the knowledge of good and evil.

This could be accomplished, for example, by a Divine mental extrapolation of the big bang conditions (imagine the creator performing a mental “fast-forwarding” on the design of the big bang - there would be a complete mental record of all the details of each stage of the universe. This would be done up to the moral stage of the universe, at which point there would be an actual creation based on the specifications in that mental record. Such a universe would of course have no trace of its having been created just then - it would be physicaly indistinguishable from a universe which had actually been created as a big bang and had developed naturally upto that point. In this way the universe begins at the point in which there is meaningful activity, not before, yet from the scientific perspective is quiote evidently 13 billion years old and originated in a physical big bang. [Thus, paradoxically, the physical creation of the big-bang-emergent universe actually occurs not at the big bang but with the emergence of the first moral being.[23]]

In this sense the 'reasonable creation method' is the creation of an “instant universe” at the moral stage.

Quantum metaphysics

This radical idea that the universe begins its physical existence only with the emergence of a moral being, and particularly in the previously-discussed context of the existence of 'mind' in distinction to the material universe (as proposed by Descartes), interestingly finds support and parallel in the suggestion of quantum metaphysics; according to one theory, the universe can emerge into true physical reality only upon emergence within it of a conscious being, who, according to our thesis, is a free-willed moral consciousness. As eminent physicist John A. Wheeler states, the emergence of a conscious being retroactively causes the emergence into reality of the big bang itself![24]

What Is the First Stage of Creation: the Big Bang or the Emergence of Adam?

As stated previously, for a purposive universe created as an “instant universe” the first stage of real existence is when purposive activity begins, so that the initial point is not the big bang but rather the emergence of free-willed consciousness capable of moral choice. There is another reason why a purposive universe of this sort would be considered as beginning at the moral stage rather than at the big bang. Since there are many quantum paths along which the universe could develop, including many paths not leading to the emergence of life or to moral beings, in order to have the universe fulfill its design it is necessary to guide the development of the big bang along a path leading to the emergence of the desired free-willed being. In this case the emergence of a moral being is the last stage of direct Divine intervention in developing the universe and hence the last stage of Creation and the first stage of the ‘natural’ existence of the universe. Thus, even in a universe physically starting with a big bang, it is the emergence of the moral being rather than the big bang that is the first stage of independent existence.

From the point of view of the Creator, and in the context of a teleological oriented creation account, the emergence of a moral being crowns creation. Thus, from the points of view of quantum randomness, quantum metaphysics, and teleology, the emergence of a conscious being—not the emergence of the big bang—is the first stage of the universe.

Perspectives on the Age of the Universe

The age of the universe may be considered from various perspectives:

• The non-physical teleological perspective: The universe originates with God’s decision to create or to plan its blueprint, when time did not exist, and so the age of the universe is not defined.
• The physical teleological perspective: The universe begins with the emergence of a newly created instant universe containing a moral being; evolutionary anthropology places the emergence of such a being probably not more than 100,000 years ago, and this is therefore also the maximal physical age of the universe.
• The quantum metaphysical perspective: The universe emerges at the moral stage, but retroactively from the big bang, so that at the moral stage the universe has no clearly defined age.
• The conventional scientific perspective: The universe begins with the big bang. At the stage of containing moral beings it is approximately fifteen billion years old.

In describing the creation of a complete universe at the moral stage, a creation account written from the teleological or quantum metaphysical perspective might imply simultaneity of the emergence of human free-willed consciousness with the completion of the creation of the universe or of its blueprint.

This provides a motivation for the juxtaposition of the creation and Eden accounts in Genesis [25].

There are also aesthetic reasons for the creation of a complete big-bang emergent ‘natural’ universe rather than a small ‘special’ universe. Constant intervention can be reduced by designing ‘laws of nature’ to allow the universe to be self-operating.[26] For self-operation and regularity there must be consistency and coordination within the entire universe. For this to be the case, there has to be a unifying factor. An elegant method of finding this common denominator is to find an entity which, unified in itself, could give rise to the desired universe. The big bang together with the laws of nature is such an entity.

When this big bang evolves or is extrapolated forward to produce later stages of the universe, all these eventual states are inherently regular and synchronized since all is derived from one entity. Everything within the resulting universe operates according to the laws of nature, and the desired moral stage of the universe eventually emerges, this time as a unified self-consistently-operating state of a ‘natural’ universe. It is a universe where humanity seems to arise as the result of natural selection, but where this selection is part of the Divine plan. As stated in the closing paragraph of Darwin’s The Origin of Species:[27]

Thus from the war of Nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and wonderful have been, and are being evolved.

Conclusion

As we have seen, in some sense our axiom suggested at the outset intuitively implies the central features of the traditional model of Creation. In this model Creation proceeds as described by tradition, and its physical development occurs as outlined by science.

From the teleological perspective, the first stage in Creation is to draw up the blueprint of both the desired type of moral being and the desired type of universe at the stage of the emergence of moral beings. Then comes a backwards extrapolation of the moral stage universe blueprint to find the right type of big bang to lead up to this stage.

After the design of the big bang from the specifications of the moral being and a universe that can support moral choice, the resultant ‘teleo-derived big bang’ is mentally extrapolated to the future along all quantumly possible paths of future development. Each possible path ends either in the emergence of a moral being, whose exercise of free will introduces non-predictability and therefore stops the extrapolation—or results in the end of the universe without the emergence of a moral being.

After extrapolation to the moral stage, the universe is ‘created in potential.’ In the quantum metaphysical sense this might be through a collapse of the wave function caused by the Creator’s consciousness observing the universe. “God saw it was all very good.” From the human perspective, the universe is brought into physical (human) reality by the created moral being’s exercise of free-willed consciousness and its existential awareness of the external universe, and of itself, as separate entities.

From among all the possible (potential) moral universes at the pre-moral stage, one is selected—the best one for fulfilling the purpose of Creation. “God saw all that He had created, and it was very good.”

In the instant retroactive universe everything proceeds in the most direct, logical, and aesthetic way. The Creator can withhold direct intervention after the ‘laws of nature’ take over upon the emergence of a moral being. “And [all] the Heavens and the Earth were complete….and God…rested”[28]

Consequently, a natural-law-obeying fifteen-billion-year-old instant universe emerges into physical reality unfolded from a moral-stage-teleoderived big bang. To paraphrase Genesis: 'And God said, “Let there have been a big bang”... and it was so.'

.....

Appendix: The Instant Evolutionary Universe: Neither Wasteful nor Cruel

Evolutionary advance is achieved by competition for survival, selection of the fittest via predatory and environmental extinction, fatal biological defects, and so on. The evolutionary path is littered with corpses and suffused with suffering. The emergence of humanity is achieved at the very heavy price of the sufferings of untold numbers of creatures losing their struggle to survive to those more fit than they. Billions of “unsuccessful” mutations, many of them horribly deformed animals unable to survive; billions and billions and billions of small organisms, insects, animals, and even primitive humanoids devoured by predators, killed by natural disasters or birth defects strew the evolutionary path. It is not comfortable to contemplate the total genocide of our ancestors’ competitors, the Neanderthalers. The path of “nature red in tooth and claw” (in the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson) leading to the emergence of humans strongly disturbed Darwin. Furthermore, the horrible evolutionary scenario of millions of years of catastrophic changes and evolutionary struggle was considered by many too clumsy to have been the creation of an all-powerful God and too evil to be the creation of a compassionate God.

In the instant universe scenario, however, these two objectionable features of evolution—that it is too clumsy and evil—disappear, at least in the period leading up to the emergence of humanity. Evolution in the context of an instant universe is not a violence-drenched process. The entire process leading up to the emergence of moral man takes place only in potentiality, in the ‘mind’ of God, as the working out of a process implied by the laws of nature and the initial conditions. Actual reality begins only with the emergence of moral man.

The evolutionary process according to this scenario is certainly not a clumsy method of producing human beings. Instead, the pre-moral stage ‘evolutionary process’ is merely the logically-consistent theory which underlies the emergence of man in a ‘natural’ physical universe. In actuality, however, the emergence of humans took place in a most elegant, clever, and direct manner—as the initial stage of an instant universe.

In addition, when the evolutionary process is seen as the “computational device,” which it is in the instant universe scenario, it can be seen in all its elegance. Evolution by random mutation in this sense is a self-improving program. It is a very simple yet efficient algorithm, used to run the ‘computer simulation’ leading up to the evolution of ever more complex creatures.

Similarly, the big bang theory is a beautifully simple algorithm for generating the blueprint of an extremely complex universe. Given the design of the intended moral being, the big bang generates a complex universe of billions of galaxies containing billions of stars, with billions of life forms containing billions of cells. All that is created is a singularity or big bang, operating according to one unified universal law in a four-(or perhaps higher) dimensional space-time, and the rest takes care of itself. By ‘mentally extrapolating’ this ‘algorithm,’ God obtains very simply a complete description of a totally self-consistent complex universe and uses this description to create an actual universe at the moral stage without any “red in tooth and claw” physical evolution.

[1] Cited in Ronald W. Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times (World Publishing Company, 1971) p. 19. Clark quotes

Esther Salaman in “A Talk with Einstein” in The Listener (8 Sep 1955).

[2] Intuition, tainted by anthropomorphic reasoning and guided by hindsight, and therefore admittedly a post-hoc argument.

[3] Cited in Neal C. Gillespie, Charles Darwin and the Problem of Creation (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1979) p. 141. According to Gillespie, this citation is from Darwin’s autobiography (Francis Darwin, ed.),

Autobiography of Charles Darwin and Selected Letters. This book was issued by W.W. Norton in 1993 as The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882 (Nora Barlow, ed.).

[4] Cosmology and astrophysics are required for theories of the emergence of life, e.g., the atoms in our bodies originate in the hearts of stars which later exploded.

[5] For excellent presentations of the logic behind evolutionary theory see, e.g., The Blind Watchmaker, Climbing Mount Improbable and other books by Richard Dawkins. Cf the writings of Stephen J. Gould.

[6] Science also does not as yet deal even with mind (as opposed to brain, which is heavily studied).

[7] occasional interventions by God into the physical universe such as miracles, or subtle (but far-reaching in effect) divine interventions in the path of evolution. are not the concern of science.

[8] Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (Prometheus Books, 1997) p. 70. Available online at http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/charles_darwin/descent_of_man

[9] See for example Sforno on “kidmusenu” (“after our likeness”).

[10] For discussions of the interrelationships between free will, creativity, quantum physics, complexity, consciousness, Creation, and scientific cosmology, see my manuscript The Retroactive Universe.

[11] Genesis 1:27.

[12] Genesis 2:7.

[13] Genesis 2:16-17.

[14] SHOULD WE PROVIDE ONLY HOLTON AS A SOURCE? Ie DELETE:?:

According to Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler’s Gravitation, Einstein said, “What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world” to an assistant. The reference they provide is a book review by G. Holton of Ronald W. Clark’s Einstein: The Life and Times that appeared in the New York Times, 5 Sep 1971. p.20. (DELETE??!: Holton wrote a lot about Einstein and presumably inserted this quote into his review.)

[15] See Paul Davies, The Mind of God (Simon & Schuster Touchstone, 1992) for interesting discussions on related topics.

[16] This may be seen as a version of the Anthropic Principle in cosmology.

[17] Genesis Rabba 1:1. The midrash says that we know this because the first word of Genesis, breisheet = with reisheet = with the Torah, which is called “reisheet.”

[18] Genesis 1:3, 10, 12, 17, 21, 25.

[19] Genesis 1:31.

[20] According to tradition, the Creation account contains the whole Torah; and, “God looked into the [Creation account of] the Torah and created the universe.” The Creation account is paradoxically both the blueprint of Creation and the description of the Creation from that blueprint. Fittingly, it ends with the onset of Shabbat, which paradoxically, while it is part of the purpose of Creation and therefore ‘logically prior’ to the onset of Creation, is also the commemoration of the completion of Creation, and therefore ‘chronologically after’ the cessation of Creation.

[21] Moral beings seem a late development of the big bang, but the true order is reversed: They are the first stage of the big bang’s design. As in Alkabetz’s Shabbat hymn “Lkha Dodi” in which Shabbat, which is seemingly the final act of Creation, is teleologically primary to it: “That which was last in execution [of Creation, i.e., the Shabbat] was first in intention.”

See also Genesis Rabba 10:9 and the commentary of Radal. By resting on Shabbat, God places the universe in its natural-law operating mode. This is simultaneous with and caused or allowed by the emergence of moral consciousness.

[22] See my The Retroactive Universe for a more thorough discussion.

[23] Both science and a literal reading of Genesis would place this event as occurring very recently, between five and one-hundred thousand years ago, rather than millions or billions of years ago.

[24] For an explanation of these points, see my book The Instant Universe or my papers “Free Will” in B’Or Ha’Torah 6E (1987) pp. 141-157; and with Herman Branover, “The Role of the Universe in Halakhah and Quantum Physics” in H. Branover and I. Attia, eds., Science in the Light of the Torah (Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, 1994), especially Wheeler’s diagram on p. 79.

[25] Furthermore the OFTEN OVERLOOKED SECONDARY “CREATION ACCOUNT” of Genesis 2:4-9 “… on the day God made Earth and Heaven…… God formed man”

(—emphasis and ellipsis mine) imply Creation simultaneous with the emergence of Adam.

[26] A universe without natural law would dissolve into chaos. Stars and human bodies alike would lose their structural integrity. Natural law also allows regularity of operation so that moral beings could know the results of their actions and therefore be morally responsible for them.

[27] Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species” chap. 15, last paragraph of the book. Available online at:

http://www.literature-web.net/book.php3/originofspecies

[28] Genesis 2:1-2.