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by Arthur Vaeni
Some years ago, I attended
a friend's birthday party at which the only person with whom I was acquainted
was my friend.
As any self-preserving introvert would do in a room full of strangers, I made
my way to the back. There I discovered a kindred soul. Rather than stand together
in silence, we did our best to make small talk. What began as small talk, however,
grew to a conversation that revealed to me an astounding conception of the universe.
I discovered that my companion was a physicist whose primary interest was string theory. Given my struggles with college physics, it's surprising our conversation did not end before it started.
As it happened, this particular scientist, Brian Greene, was preparing to write a book about string theory for people like me. In 1998, he published "The Elegant Universe."
That evening, I learned that string theory describes a universe in which all the stuff --you and me, the trees, rocks and stars -- arise from infinitesimally thin vibrating strings. While the strings are the same, they vibrate in different ways similar to the vibrations of guitar strings. The different notes produced create the various forces and particles in nature.
The vibrations produce the electrons as well as the quarks that constitute protons and neutrons. These protons, neutrons and electrons compose the atoms that make up molecules, which in turn form matter.
According to string theory, all the matter of Earth and the stuff of our lives arise from the varied notes. Or, to put it a bit differently, we and everything else are sung into existence by the interrelated reality that is the universe.
I find this theory wonderfully exciting. You see, the nature of the universe, as physicists currently describe it, is quite different from the understanding that has prevailed in the West since the time of Isaac Newton. According to Newtonian physics, the universe is composed of inert matter, predictable forces and vast voids of space.
However life got here, the universe has been perceived as little more than an inanimate backdrop for the advancement of autonomous human beings. This perception played a significant role in the way Western societies experienced and treated the earth and its inhabitants.
I believe, for example, it has informed our feelings of alienation as well as our sense of entitlement to dominate the earth and its other beings.
The evolving scientific view of the universe portrays a vastly different scenario. It's a view that I find corresponds remarkably with descriptions disclosed by the mystics of various religious persuasions.
For instance, the 19th century Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: "We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. Meantime within man [sic] is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. ... We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul."
My excitement over the evolving scientific views of the universe lies in the promise it holds for altering our relationship to life.
Perhaps we will experience ourselves as interdependent with all other beings, as part of a unified whole, as manifestations of a living universe. Should that happen, what an extraordinary difference it could make in our ways of being human!
The Rev. Arthur Vaeni is the minister of the Olympia Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Olympia.
Perspective is coordinated
by Associated Ministries in cooperation with The Olympian. The views expressed
are those of the author and are not necessarily endorsed by Associated Ministries
or The Olympian.
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