The "Big Bang", creation and materialism
Part 1 of a two-part series
 
(The following articles were published in "The Guardian", newspaper
of the Socialist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday,
September 11th, 1996. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills.
Sydney. 2010 Australia. Fax: 612 281 5795. Email: guardian@peg.apc.org
Subscription rates on request)
******************************
 
Peter Symon*
In June a team of cosmologists led by Dr James Dunlop of
Edinburgh University discovered some stars which according to
their calculations were billions of years older than the 12
billion years ago which has been nominated as the date of the
"Big Bang" creation of the universe. ("The Australian" June 30,
1996) This caused "consternation" among some scientists.
 
In January a report of the findings of the Hubble telescope was
published. (Sydney Morning Herald" January 20, 1996) Thousands of
distant galaxies had been observed for the first time, (not just
single stars) in just a very small segment of the sky. No-one has
ventured to put a time on the origin of these galaxies which are
billions of light years away. More from the Hubble is bound to
follow in coming years.
 
These discoveries are seriously undermining the theory of a "Big
Bang" creation of the universe, if not yet finally blasting it
out of contention.
 
Scientific gloss
 
In the view of this writer, the "Big Bang" theory is an attempt
by those who persist in the idea of a "creation" by some super-
natural hand, to give such concepts a scientific gloss.
Innumerable scientific discoveries have, for many people, made
the idea that the world was created by a god in seven days or in
some similar fanciful way unacceptable.
 
The "Big Bang" theory enables those scientists who wish to defend
the idea of a "creation" to do so by dressing it up in terms of
physics, cosmology, mathematics, etc.
 
All "creationist" theories of the universe and humankind come
with an assault on materialist philosophy. This is not surprising
given that materialism rules out a super-natural "creation" of
the universe, "god's will", "divine providence", etc.
 
Nonetheless, belief in the super-natural continues to be
widespread. It is difficult for humankind, who's span in time is
very limited and has a beginning and an end, to conceive of an
infinite universe without a beginning or an end.

The galaxy in which planet Earth is located is estimated to
contain anything from 50 to 100 billion stars -- no-one has been
able to count them. It is also estimated that there are at least
as many galaxies in the universe as there are stars in the Milky
Way, that is, billions. Infinity and these magnitudes are
impossible to comprehend.
 
And why should there be a limit? That which humans have not been
able to comprehend or explain has often led to an acceptance of a
super-natural explanation.
 
One of the leading protagonists of the "Big Bang" theory of
creation is Professor Paul Davies of Adelaide University. He is a
prolific and popular writer having written many easy to read
science books. He is a sought after lecturer and gives his
"creationist" convictions a scientific aura. He is a strong
opponent of materialism. Matter and mind
 
Materialism is a scientific view which asserts that matter is
primary and consciousness, (thought, ideas, theories) are a
reflection of the external world obtained through our sense
organs.
 
Thought is a product of matter -- the brain. But thought also
enables us to see the world around us in all its complexity and
beauty, to understand it, to act upon nature, influence and
change it. The material world and thought are inextricably
interconnected.
 
Materialism is opposed by idealist philosophy which puts things
around the other way, asserting that consciousness, thought,
ideas, are primary and that matter is a product of thought.
 
"I think, therefore I am", is one expression which illustrates
idealist thinking. The various concepts of a super-natural
creation of the universe (god's will, god's hand, god the
creator) are all products of idealist thinking. Giving a creator
a scientific mantle does not alter the basic proposition.
 
The assault of Paul Davies on materialism is explicit. In his
book The Matter Myth (co-authored with John Gribbin) he
triumphantly proclaims: "Materialism is dead". He writes: "Many
people have rejected scientific values because they regard
materialism as a sterile and bleak philosophy, which reduces
human beings to automata and leaves no room for free will or
creativity. These people can take heart: materialism is dead."(1)
 
Materialism
 
Interestingly, this particular book was published in 1991, just
as some others were triumphantly proclaiming: "Communism is
dead". This was no chance coincidence. Communist philosophy is
based on materialism and Paul Davies and anti-communist
politicians are fighting the same battle although on different
fronts.
 
Many modern day advocates of religion are not averse to giving
super-natural creationist theories a scientific gloss so long as
the basic idealist philosophical content is retained.

Something out of nothing
 
Materialism for its part, does not rule out the possibility of
huge cosmic events, including "big bangs" but rejects both the
super-natural and "something out of nothing" explanations.
 
Neither Paul Davies nor other followers of the "creationist"
school of thought are original. In his book, Materialism and
Empirio-Criticism Lenin wrote in 1908:
 
"Anyone in the least acquainted with philosophical literature,
must know that scarcely a single contemporary professor of
philosophy (or theology) can be found who is not directly or
indirectly engaged in refuting materialism. They have declared
materialism refuted a thousand times yet are continuing to refute
it for the thousand and first time."(2)
 
Caricature
 
Paul Davies and John Gribbin use a familiar tactic in their
attempt to refute materialism. They present a caricature of
materialism, reduce it to an absurdity and then proceed to
demolish it.
 
On page 302 of The Matter Myth, the authors write of "clod-like
particles of matter in a lumbering Newtonian machine" to describe
materialism and compare it with their concept of an "interlocking
network of information exchange ... vibrant with potentialities
and bestowed with infinite richness."
 
Cogs
 
Paul Davies equates materialism with "machine-mindedness" and
having made that equation declares:
 
"People feel a sense of helplessness; they are merely 'cogs' in a
machine that will lumber on regardless of their feelings or
actions." (3)
 
Davies and Gribbin quote the writer George Gilder: "the powers of
mind are everywhere ascendant over the brute force of things",
transforming "a material world composed of blank and inert
particles to a radiant domain rich with sparks of informative
energy".(4)
 
There is nothing new in this sort of device. More than a century
ago Engels, in criticising those who branded materialism as
"mechanical", wrote: "The most comical part about it is that to
make 'materialist' equivalent to 'mechanical' derives from Hegel,
who wanted to throw contempt on materialism by the addition
'mechanical' ..."(5)
 
Asserting the dynamic nature of modern materialism Engels wrote:
"... the motion of matter is not merely crude mechanical motion,
mere change of place, it is heat and light, electric and magnetic
tension, chemical combination and dissociation, life and,
finally, consciousness." (Ibid, p 332)
 
Clockwork or network

Waxing lyrical about a Multi-Function Polis that was to have been
established in Adelaide, Australia, the authors claim that the
MFP "will surely become the norm throughout the world as
commodities assume less and less importance and ideas and
information take their place. And the new social order will place
its emphasis not on the clockwork image of Newtonian materialism,
but on the network image of the post-Newtonian world view. For we
live not in a cosmic clockwork, but in a cosmic network, a
network of forces and fields, of nonlocal quantum connections and
nonlinear, creative matter."(6)
 
If "commodities are to assume less and less importance" while
"ideas and information take their place", we might expect that
Davies and Gribbin believe it possible to sustain their material
existence, not by eating such "clod-like" substances as potatoes
and beef steaks, but with an omelette of "ideas" and
"information".
 
We are certain that both authors in their daily routine do not
attempt such a dietary course.
 
Computing devices
 
The logical outcome of the replacement of matter with mind is to
be found in the concluding chapter of their book, From Matter to
Mind. Davies and Gribbin refer to Frank Tipler of Tulane
University in New Orleans.
 
According to Tipler, intelligent life -- or more likely a network
of computing devices -- will spread out from its planet of origin
(possibly Earth), and slowly but surely gain control over larger
and larger domains.
 
Tipler envisages not just the Solar System or the Galaxy, but the
entire Universe coming under the control of this "manipulative
intelligence".
 
Although the process may take trillions of years the upshot of
this creeping "technologisation" of nature will be the
amalgamation of the whole cosmos into a single intelligent
computing system!
 
In effect, intelligence will have hijacked the "natural"
information-processing system we call the Universe, and used it
for its own ends.(7)
 
Tipler's conjectures, which are apparently supported in their
basic philosophy by Davies and Gribbin, are breath-taking in
their intellectual arrogance not to mention scientific nonsense.
 
Man is god
 
Those who believe that a god created man in his own image --
beware! They are to be outdone in this scenario. Man is to
overthrow that god and become god himself by "hijacking" nature
and turning it into a "single intelligent computing system".
 
The new god is, of course, a scientist (probably a computer
whizz-kid) in alliance with the corporations.

Davies and Gribbin write:
 
"Today, the ascendant nations and corporations are masters not of
land and material resources but of ideas and technologies ... The
global network of telecommunications can carry more valuable
goods than all the world's super tankers. Wealth comes not to the
rulers of slave labour but to the liberators of human creativity,
not to the conquerors of land but to the emancipators of
mind."(8)
*****************************************************************
(1) Davies P & Gribbin J, The Matter Myth, Penguin Books,
England, 1992, p 7.
(2) "Materialism and Empirio-Criticism", Lenin's Collected Works,
Vol 14, page 22
(3) The Matter Myth, p 7.
(4) Ibid, pp 9-10.
(5) Marx-Engels, Collected Works, Vol 25, p 532.
(6) The Matter Myth, p 11.
(7) Ibid, p 302.
(8) Ibid, p 9.
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PART 2
 
THE WAR AGAINST MATERIALISM
 
Professor Paul Davies and John Gribbin in their book, "The Matter
Myth", continually distort materialism in their war against it.
They would give their readers the impression that there have been
no advances since Newton's admittedly "mechanical materialism".
How could it have been otherwise. Newton lived 1642-1727 and his
theories (which continue to be used in mechanics today) accorded
with the then existing knowledge. It is rather cheap of Davies
and Gribbin to lambast Newton's theories and with them
materialism while ignoring the great advances in materialist
philosophy since Newton's time.
 
Materialists recognise that matter exists together with motion
which is a fundamental characteristic of all matter. There is no
matter without motion and no motion without matter. The world
around us is, therefore, subject to constant change. Space and
time are also essential qualities of matter.
 
Infinite variety
 
Matter appears in an infinite variety of forms and structures
(solid, as particles, in a wave form) and all matter is
interconnected. While the forms of matter change constantly it
can be neither created nor destroyed and is infinite. Matter may
be either organic (taking on the characteristic of life) or
inorganic.
 
In the "The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy" it
states: "Matter is all the infinite multiplicity of different
objects and systems that exist and move in space and time, that
possess an inexhaustible diversity of qualities..."(2)
 
Those who want to belittle materialism always separate mind and
matter by disconnecting one from the other or by asserting the
predominance of mind over matter.

George Gilder, already referred to speaks of the "overthrow of
matter" and declares that the "powers of mind are everywhere
ascendant over the brute force of things..."(3)
 
Matter that thinks
 
But materialists say: "Even the most abstract ideas and concepts,
not to mention sensations and perceptions, are the result of the
activity of a material organ -- the human brain -- reflecting the
properties of material objects."(4)
 
The mind is "matter that thinks". Thoughts and ideas do not have
any independent, separate existence from matter. Thinking is one
of the forms of matter in motion.
 
Idealist philosophers, on the other hand, stand things on their
head. Bishop Berkeley (1685 - 1753), a prominent theologian and
philosopher of his time wrote: "For as to what is said of the
absolute existence of unthinking things, without any relation to
their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible."
 
Put more simply, this amounts to saying that all objects exist in
the mind of the beholder and "to be" means simply "to be
perceived". When they are not perceived they do not exist.
 
Billions of years
 
Scientists are able to demonstrate that matter has existed for
billions of years, yet the emergence of human beings with the
capacity of consciousness is a relatively recent development on
planet Earth.
 
Millions and millions of years in the development of the material
world elapsed before a life form arose with the capacity of
thinking. It arose from the development of matter and is
inseparably bound up with it.
 
Davies and his supporters constantly attempt to portray
materialism as a philosophy which has no place for ideas. This is
false.
 
Materialism does not underestimate the enormous capacity of the
human brain to think, to expand knowledge, to create, to
rationalise and reflect, and so on. As a result of this capacity,
humans are able to determine their actions, build machines,
conduct scientific research, dam rivers and in many other ways
alter (influence) surrounding Nature -- often for the worse as it
turns out.
 
Truth
 
Davies and Gribbin have something to say about truth and reality
but again resort to exaggeration to undermine a scientific
approach.
 
They write: "These deep divisions within the scientific
community, concerning the nature of reality, point up the
shakiness of any claim that science deals with the whole
truth."(5) We are not aware that any responsible scientist has
ever made a claim to be able to deliver the "whole truth", if by
that is meant a complete knowledge of all things in the universe.
Materialists certainly make no such claim.
 
They believe that all things are "knowable" and that there are
those things which are complete in themselves, are unconditional
and immutable.
 
For example, the concept of matter in motion is not conditioned
and not limited by anything. It is eternal and inexhaustible. In
that sense it is an "absolute truth".
 
Relative truth
 
But within and related to that concept is the constant motion and
change in the forms of matter which constitute an inexhaustible
number of "relative truths". Constant change renders that which
is true today is only transient. Tomorrow it will have changed.
 
Nature
 
Another aspect to emerge from Paul Davies writings is the idea
that homo-sapiens has some superior place in nature. Nature is to
be "hijacked" says Paul Davies.
 
Others have claimed that it is man's role to "conquer" nature.
This confrontationist approach to nature is leading humankind to
create on earth such problems as will make life on this planet
untenable if continued.
 
Would the extinction of homo-sapiens bring an end to Nature or to
planet earth, to our galaxy or to the millions of other galaxies
and other possible forms of life "out there"? Of course not!

Nature did not come to an end when the dinosaurs became extinct.
Humankind, in blind arrogance and imagined "power over nature",
could just as easily suffer the same fate.
 
Materialism maintains that humankind is an integral part of
Nature and does not stand above or outside it.
 
Frederick Engels makes the point: "At every step we are reminded
that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a
foreign people, like someone standing outside nature -- but that
we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in
its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact
that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able
to learn its laws and apply them correctly."(6)
 
Lumps of matter
 
The authors of "The Matter Myth" assert that materialism sees
only "lumps of matter", and that "increasing numbers of
scientists are coming to recognise the limitations of the
materialistic view of nature, and to appreciate that there is
more to the world than cogs in a gigantic machine".(7)
 
It is not possible to estimate whether an increasing number of
scientists are being taken in by one or another of the
creationist theories, but what is known is that in their daily
work, scientists invariably apply objective materialist concepts
and dialectical methods in their scientific endeavours.
 
They make experiments based on the material world around them
whether in medical research, using the laws of physics to fly
into space, chemistry, cosmology or other fields.
 
Grandeur of nature
 
In their research many are enthralled by the grandeur, infinite
diversity, colour and creativeness of the material world and do
not make any use of a supernatural agent to provide an
explanation of the process being investigated or to make it
interesting and exciting.
 
David Attenburgh does not need any god or supernatural force to
explain the enthralling complexity, adaptability and sparkle of
the real world about us.
 
Waves and particles
 
As scientific research has deepened it has been found that matter
is not merely solid. Supposed solids can be broken down and may
have wave like properties. The atom was not the total picture. It
could be split into many parts. Matter could be both a "solid"
particle or a "wave". We talk about light "waves", radio "waves",
etc.
 
Davies and Gribbin draw upon these characteristics to bolster
their assault on materialism. They write:
 
"... theorists often refer to abstract entities called 'virtual'
particles. These ephemeral objects come into existence out of
nothing, and almost immediately fade away again... So to what
extent can they be said really to exist? Might virtual particles
be merely a convenient aid to the theorist's intuition -- a
simple way to describe processes that are otherwise unimaginable
in terms of familiar concepts -- rather than real objects?"(8)
Davies and Gribbin write: "Newton's deterministic machine was
replaced by a shadowy and paradoxical conjunction of waves and
particles, governed by the laws of chance rather than the rigid
rules of causality."(9)
 
Materialism does not pose the "solid" against the "particle and
wave" as Davies and Gribbin seem to do. They are recognised by
materialists as different forms of matter as any reference to a
book on materialism would show.
 
Miraculous ways
 
The fact that something may have "far less substance than we
might believe" or behaves in "miraculous ways", that there are
many things as yet unknown or not thought possible, or that
matter takes on a variety of forms in its constant motion
(including a "wave" form) does not lead to a conclusion that
these phenomena are not material and that something can be
created out of "nothing" or disappears into "nothing".
 
It simply means that our current knowledge is inadequate.

Evolution or creationism
 
Paul Davies persists in his speculation of some supernatural
"design". In his book, "The Cosmic Blueprint"(10), he writes:
"Consider, for example, intricate organs such as the eye and ear.
The component parts of these organs are so specifically
interdependent it is hard to believe that they have arisen
separately and gradually by a sequence of independent accidents.
After all half an eye would in fact be utterly useless."
 
It is more realistic to argue that only those components of
living matter survive which work and assist the body concerned to
survive -- to eat, build, reproduce and develop. Any
characteristic which is retrograde leads to the death and
elimination of that organism. That which survives has been
"honed" over millions of years.
 
In writing about the evolution of species Engels wrote in the
Introduction to "The Dialectics of Nature": "Thousands of years
may have passed before the conditions arose in which the next
advance could take place and this formless protein produce the
first cell by formation of nucleus and cell membrane.
 
"... from the first animals were developed, essentially by
further differentiation, the numerous classes, orders, families,
genera, and species of animals; and finally mammals, the form in
which the nervous system attains its fullest development; and
among these again finally, that mammal in which nature attains
consciousness of itself -- man.
 
"Man too arises by differentiation. Not only individually, by
differentiation from a single egg cell to the most complicated
organism that nature produces -- but also historically.
 
"When after thousands of years of struggle the differentiation of
hand from foot, and erect gait, were finally established, man
became distinct from the ape and the basis was laid for the
development of articulate speech and the mighty development of
the brain ..."(11)
 
It was not the hand of god which first developed life forms out
of the primeval slime. It was the consequence of extremely
complex developments and the "self-organising" capacity of matter
in motion.
 
Primeval mud
 
Today's experimenters are trying to recreate "primeval mud" and
the conditions which gave birth to life forms. What will our
"creationists" have to say when life forms have been created in
this way in a laboratory? It will be yet another nail in the
coffin of the tenacious supernatural "creationists" in just the
same way as the most recent discoveries concerning the age of
some galaxies have undermined the big bang theory of the creation
of the universe.
 
But why should a capable scientist have to resort to such
supernatural explanations?
 
When Napoleon asked French scientist, mathematician and
astronomer, Pierre de Laplace, why God did not appear in his

"System of the World" he answered: "Sir, I have had no reason to
employ that hypothesis".(12)
 
Illusions
 
On the question of religious illusion, Karl Marx wrote as long
ago as 1844: "To abolish religion as the illusory happiness of
the people is to demand their real happiness. The demand to give
up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to
give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.(13)
 
Surely, Paul Davies has no need of illusions?
 
But just in case Paul Davies is unrepentant he will have a second
chance: "... we have the certainty that matter remains eternally
the same in all its transformations, that none of its attributes
can ever be lost, and therefore, also that with the same iron
necessity that it will exterminate on earth its highest creation,
the thinking mind, it must somewhere else and at another time
again produce it."(14)
 
Mark Twain
 
Let the last word be that of Mark Twain. Tom Gill in a letter in
"the Skeptic" (Winter 1995, p 59) quotes Mark Twain:
 
"Man has been here 32,000 years. That it took a hundred million
years to prepare the world for him is proof that that is what it
was done for. I suppose it is, I dunno. If the Eiffel Tower were
now representing the world's age, the skin of paint on the
pinnacle knob at its summit would represent man's share of that
age, and anybody would perceive that the skin was what the tower
was built for. I reckon they would, I dunno."
****************************************************************
(1) Lenin "Collected Works" Vol 14, p 280
(2) "The Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy
(Fundamentals), Progress Publishers, p 75
(3) Paul Davies & John Gribbin, "The Matter Myth", Penguin,
London, 1991, p 9
(4) "Fundamentals", p 72
(5) "The Matter Myth", p 22
(6) Engels, "Marx-Engels Collected Works" ("M-E CW") Vol 25,
p 461 (written about 1883)
(7) "The Matter Myth", p 3
(8) Ibid, p 14
(9) Ibid, p 8
(10) Paul Davies, "The Cosmic Blueprint", Penguin, p 111
(11) "M-E CW", Vol 25, pp 329-330
(12) Ibid, Vol 25, p 480
(13) Ibid, Vol 3, p 176
(14) Ibid, Vol 25, p 335
*****************************************************************
(*) Peter Symon is General Secretary of the Socialist Party of
Australia.

Answers:
Rafael Pla-Lopez
George Tsoupros