'Finding wonder in the face of existential dread': Grandeur of the universe gives comfort to physicist

* Originally published on April 14, 2020.

As the COVID-19 crisis trudges on, many are shifting their focus to the day-to-day struggles of living amid a global pandemic and away from uncertainties of the future.

But theoretical physicist and mathematician Brian Greene says in his book, Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe, that there is solace to be found by looking across the vastness of space and time — from the very beginning of the universe, to its ultimate demise far in the distant future.  

Greene told IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed that despite the universe heading toward a "meltdown" billions of years from now, there is a "sense of wonder and awe in the fact that we're here at all — that there is something rather than nothing."

"It's mind-boggling. Planets, gravity, people, our minds, stars — we're all made of the same self-organizing stuff."

Their conversation took place as part of HotDocs' Curious Minds Speakers Series, held on March 11, just before the COVID-19 crisis really hit. Here is part of that discussion.

I'd like to begin with a quotation you include in your book from the philosopher Gottfried Leibniz, who once asked what may well be the most fundamental question, which is: why is there something, rather than nothing?

Now that is the deepest of all questions, really. We studied the universe using the laws of physics. We study it through observation and experiment, and we do our best to find the patterns and we encapsulate those patterns in mathematical equations.

Why are there equations? Why is there stuff, space? Why is there time or anything at all? Those are questions that we have some vague ideas about. But there's something so deep and, in many ways intractable, that it's hard to have a satisfying response, at least at our current level of understanding. 

One thing that has been put forward that can at least give a semblance of an explanation is the case [for] nothing. You have to be very precise in what one means by nothing. But there's certain definitions of nothing that are unstable. [The universe] can't stay in that nothingness state. According to the equations it would fall apart into a "something" and an "anti-something." And if we are in the something and that's why there's something rather than nothing, cause it actually all adds up to nothing. We're only aware of the something part though of that story. 

Let's go right to the beginning. You have some pretty incredible passages [in] which you described the beginning [of the universe]. One that springs to mind immediately is what happened in the first billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a second after the Big Bang. What did happen? 

That was obviously a tiny fraction after the beginning, and that's usually the era when we imagine that the rapid expansion of space is just underway. And the deep question that has puzzled people for decades is, we've all heard of the Big Bang theory — this rapid swelling of space — but the question is what pushed things outward?

We observed distant galaxies rushing away. So we know that space is expanding and we can wind that film further and further back toward the beginning. 

I'd like to focus on the good side of things. And that to me borders' almost on reverence for the fact that we are here at all.- Brian Greene

And the beautiful thing that was revealed just in the last handful of decades is that gravity can be both attractive … but gravity can also be repulsive. It can push outwards under exotic circumstances, which we believe may have held true in the early universe. 

A little patch of space may have been filled, not with a clumpy thing like an Earth or a sun that yields attracted gravity, but with energy that's uniformly spread through space like steam in a sauna. That uniform energy distribution gives rise, according to Einstein's math, to a repulsive push.

The full title of your book is Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. In it you look at the origins of both mind and matter, and eventually, their ends. What was the intellectual itch that started this whole journey toward trying to find the answer to these questions? 

Well, I guess it's sort of two things. I've written previous books that, for the most part, were all about translating some of the most exciting ideas that physicists and mathematicians have been developing and… bringing that to a wider public in the kind of language that we speak with every day. 

[This book] was really focused on, if you will, bringing the brain to an unusual place. When I do physics, it isn't just about making the brain fill up with these ideas. It's really more of a full body experience. These ideas really matter. These ideas really have an emotional impact if you take them in fully. And I wanted in this book to have more of the human part of the journey integrated into the story.

You say in the closing section of your book: "As we hurtle toward a cold and barren cosmos, we must accept that there is no grand design." You also say that "we are inhabiting a breathtaking, if transient present." So how do you find meaning when you know that the universe is withering away? 

If the only place for you to find value in meaning is in legacy, in the future, in creating something that will last, then you will be disappointed by our understanding of how the physical universe works. Because nothing is permanent, nothing lasts over sufficiently long time scales. 

So that necessarily, for me at least, drives a shift in perspective. And [I have] just this deep sense of gratitude for being a human being, living in this era in which we can figure out so much and we can create wondrous things. We can also do devastating things to the environment, to ourselves and so forth.

But I'd like to focus on the good side of things. And that to me borders' almost on reverence for the fact that we are here at all. And that to me is enough.

Written by Adam Jacobson. Produced by Greg Kelly. Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.