When one puts aside for a moment or two,his routine daily assignments that secure his temporal and spatial locus in human society,the immediate passion that engulfs him is a thirst or an overwhelming desire to know more about his status and the relevance of it in the seemingly infinite universe,his own origin way back since times immemorial,and the origin the universe itself(this desire is an essential component of human consciousness,a primal human instinct,and I am just no exception).
While men of wisdom-scientists and philosophers do seem to tie themselves in knots of abstraction that seem quite self-evident to me,behind such seemingly pointless debates lie some profound enigmas.Pondering over these riddles,scientists have lately warmed up to an idea that was once considered unscientific.
The idea goes by the esoteric name of Weak Anthropic Cosmological Principle.Its essence in a nutshell declares that if the initial conditions and the natural constants of our universe were not exactly what they are,there would be nobody to observe it,much less to enquire into its origin(Anthropy loosely refers to the aspect of creation of human beings).The corollary is radically awe-inspiring,suggesting that the conditions were such at the moment of creation of our universe,the Big Bang,that it presaged the eventual emergence of intelligent life in it.
The human mind's cognition and the ability to understand the laws of nature has presented many eminent scientists with a Mystery.Einstein expressed it most cogently when he famously remarked,"The most incomprehensible fact about Nature is that it is comprehensible.."when he was toying with the then-nascent idea of Quantum Entanglement.Equally bemused was Roger Penrose by the fact that the universe has developed 'in obedience to laws that human consciousness seems designed to grasp'.Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner also referred to the 'double miracle' of the existence of laws of nature and the human mind's capacity to divine them.
The anthropic principle provides a means for reconciling the two miracles.And that principle essentially states that the universe at the first moment of Creation,in some sense,must have known that we were coming.Here I would be most happy to be corrected by enlightened minds but this is the idea which I,as an absolute 'non-physicist',have formed for my own comprehension of the anthropic principle when my extra-curricular fondness for the subject of quantum physics compelled me to read books and through bits and pieces of information theorised by these scientists I mention here today.The perusal and subsequent conceptualisation becomes all the more ecstatic when one finds in this unique cosmogenic principle of Anthropy,clear and precise reflections of our own ancient texts on spiritualism,namely the Rig-Veda,the Upanishads and the Atharva-Veda.
At its inception,the entire universe was smaller than atom,the primal state of singularity,and thus subject to the laws of quantum physics.This means that the universe could have begun in near-infinite possible ways.The anthropic principle can be(and has been)factored in and indoctrinated HERE,thus requiring to state the evolution of conscious,intelligent beings was a necessary pre-condition for the beginning of the universe.The idea is blissfully awe-inspiring to me.
John Wheeler emphasizes in his mystically famous book At Home With The Univrese,"It is incontrovertible that the observer is a pariticipator in genesis.".The observer is Consciousness,and we are conscious agents,vehicles for manifestation of a potentiality that was there.
The idea is more metaphysical in essence than physical,and naturally it provokes sensible scepticism worldwide.The resultant debate is amongst the positive things the very concept of anthropy has led to-it has continued to stimulate human reasoning and all arguments,for or against,can only lead us closer to "The Truth".
A skeptic shall argue:Isn't it absurd to think that the enormous visible universe with its hundred billion galaxies,each with a hundred billion stars with their theoretically near-infinite number of planetary systems would be needed to produce life on just one planet?An anthropic protagonist would give an answer which has to do with the ever-expanding size of the universe,and the duration of time it takes to make the heavy elements necessary for life as we know it.The primeval universe consisted mainly of hydrogen and helium.The heavier elements have taken billions of years to be produced through thermonuclear reactions.For the universe to exist this long without 'falling unto itself',it had to expand to the incredible size that we perceive today.And we can't help it if we happen to occupy just a very small part of it.
Though named anthropic,the principle of cosmogeny allows space for hypotheses about possible extra-terrestrial life forms.For us humans,consciousness is earth-bound as our planet seems to be the only one(till now)to be cohabited by life and consciousness that is human,hence the term 'Anthropic'.There is compelling reason to believe that life and consciousness may not be unique to earth alone.The anthropic principle requires the presence of cognitive consciousness to act up to full definition.And preposterously speaking,consciousness might not be anthropo-centric.Here again staunch skeptics of a possible hypothesis of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence but willing to support the anthropic principle do speculate about another mind-boggling concept-the possibility of Multiple Universes.
The ATHARVAVEDA and the KATHOPONISHAD,while discoursing upon the esoteric concepts of Satya and Maya,indirectly touch upon a seemingly impossible concept of 11 parallel universes and 26 dimensions.One can simply marvel at the sheer brilliance of the philosophical minds that thought about these concepts 4,500 years ago.The most accomplished of theoretical physicists find it difficult to 'visualise' a 4 dimensional model of the universe while pondering upon equations that accommodates the presence of 6 or 7 dimensions(what they are apart from length-breadth-height of Space and Time is beyond my comprehensive capability,yet their hypothetical existence must be serving some purpose somewhere in the scientific world).And to come to think of it,ancient philosophers felt the presence of a multiversal,polydimensional Absolute Truth through inspired meditation.Over the last 80 years,the concept of the Multiverse(the simultaneous coexistence of multiple universes) has become a hypothetical necessity in quantum physics when one studies and tries to rationalise probable cosmogenic principles.
The major problem with the multiverse concept is that there is no way to confirm its actuality.Yet the fact that similar cosmological insights were meditated upon by man 4,500 years ago,should be a sharp pointer to a possible scheme of things and beings.The concept is seductively alluring,but still remains in the speculative domain.
So one can be best advised to deal with the universe we can genuinely observe and press forward the most provocative of enquiries:WHAT IS THE NATURE AND EFFECT OF OUR OBSERVERSHIP?
John Wheeler strongly believes that "in defining any useful concept of reality,we have to take into account the indispensable place of the participating observer-evidenced in quantum mechanics."
After going through the minds of great minds,the concept of anthropy impresses an audaciously simplified(not necessarily simple)statement in my mind-Consciousness itself seems to be Fundamental if not Primary.
I would be the first person to dismiss consciousness as a mere by-product of our brain's electrochemical activity.The concept of consciousness as an epiphenomenon(or a phenomenon resulting from another phenomenon)was compatible with mechanistic classical physics.But the advent of Quantum Physics has altered this picture(I believe-Forever).In quantum physical experiments,an observer's consciousness Is Capable of bringing about a particular outcome from the coexisting possibilities inherent in any quantum system.The observer and the observed are fundamentally connected.Their relationship is interactive and participatory.The most comprehensive source of this statement comes from the EPR(Einstein,Podolsky,Rosen),the Entanglement or the Nonlocality experiment in 1935.(Ironically its purpose was to disprove quantum mechanics.But the very "impossibility" of an influence being faster than the speed of light that Einstein believed would be quantum physic's undoing turned out to be one of its signature proofs.)The entanglement theory basically proposes a simultaneous coexistence of all possibilities at the same time-Quantum Coherence.It can be represented mathematically using the Schrödinger Equation.
What all this has to do with human consciousness resides in the thesis advanced in various ways by Roger Penrose-"the human brain enfolds within its finest levels a quantum coherent state." Some line of large-scale quantum coherence seems to act broadly across considerable regions of the brain.The concept seemed to be utterly reckless to me.But a simple thought changed my mind.An indication of the existence of such quantum states becomes apparent when one takes into account discrete changes(quantum leaps)in the state of our consciousness.Think of Sleep.Nobody remembers the exact moment one falls asleep.
Is it this quantum coherence of our brain that is responsible for our remarkable ability to interact with the universe and achieve the state we describe by the word "understanding"?
If this proves to be the case,then the most critical and uniquely human of our attributes is also,in more than a figurative way,entangled with the source of existence.
***"Cogito,ergo sum."(I think,therefore I am.) - Descartes.
***"Tat Twam Asi."(This is you) - the Upanishads.
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