Today, I am going to completely mess with your mind. That’s not a threat. I’m not going to hurt you, but I might really make the rest of your day seem like a fog because you are not going to be able to get this idea out of your head.

It’s OK. Don’t be afraid to read this article – unless you’re a chicken. I know, of course, that you’re not a chicken. You are a human being. You live on planet Earth, which is whipping around an ordinary star in the Milky Way galaxy at about 67,000 miles per hour. Yeah, I know that’s pretty freaky in itself, but that’s not the part that’s going to mess with you.

The part that’s going to mess with you is thinking about your “humanness” and how you fit into the universe in which you find yourself. Scientists, particularly theoretical physicists, have been thinking about that sort of thing for a long time, and they have put some pretty unsettling concepts on the table.

Big-brained thinkers have pondered the particulars of our universe, including the truly strange cosmological constant. Albert Einstein, while trying to work out the convoluted equations to describe the fabric of our universe, had to insert a constant term to avoid having the universe collapse upon itself. Nothing would allow for the universe to exist as we know it (hang on to that thought) without something to counteract the forces of gravity imparted upon everything in the universe by everything else in the universe – if that makes sense. In other words, some magic was required.

It turns out that this “magic” is everywhere, and it is always the same. Scientists call it the cosmological constant and designate it with the Greek letter lambda. So – if lambda was even a teeny bit larger or a teeny bit smaller, nothing could exist. With few notable exceptions, Einstein has been proven to be largely correct about his musings regarding creation. This concept is holding water today as well. It just is what it is. It is perfection and balance and beauty and nature and everything else that allows everything to exist – as we know it.

There’s that term again – “as we know it.” Who are “we”? Here’s where the unsettling part cranks up. We’re humans. We are sentient and therefore able to observe and make sense of the universe around us. Why? Is it because the universe was made for us specifically? Is it because there are infinite possibilities for matter and space to play out and the only one that works is the one that allows for us to be a part of it? If so, why?

I recently read one explanation of the anthropic principle, which is the name science has given this area of thought, that goes like this. Suppose you enter a room with a table in the center. On the table are 150 dice, all of which are showing the number six. You would conclude that someone must have arranged the dice in this way because the odds against someone simply rolling 150 dice and having them all land on six are astronomical.

Take this a bit further. Assume that the 150 sixes are absolutely required in order for you to exist, along with the dice, the table, the room, and everything else contained in your reality. Did the dice just get “rolled”? Did that happen millions (or billions) of times, all of those happenings ending in collapse – except the one in which you find yourself? This seems like an absurd thought experiment, but it is absolutely what the cosmological constant is all about – and it is absolutely valid based on Einstein’s calculations and everything that experimental physics has yielded.

Why?

To me, this is where science and faith appear to be on a collision course that will have no resolution other than alignment with the concept that there is some form of superintelligence at work, forcing all of the dice to land the same way, ensuring that the universe is fit for human existence. And human existence is required for human observation. And sentient (human) observation is circularly required for existence. (Read up on Schrodinger’s Cat for more head scratching about that.)

So, the cosmological constant is the very essence of perfection. It’s exactly what we need and it’s exactly what we have. Along with other odd and unexplainable perfections like Fibonacci’s weird number sequence, this level of exquisiteness points to intelligent design. I choose to believe that a loving Creator has loaded the dice for us rather than resting my faith on an incalculable random roll.

I know this installment from me is more obtuse than the norm. It’s a real stretch to think about existential subjects like the anthropic principle. It’s OK to stretch sometimes, though. For one thing, it’s good for your mind. For another, it’s also good to see more of our Creator’s fingerprints on the universe around us.

This article was written by Tilmer Wright, Jr. Tilmer is an IT professional with over thirty years of experience wrestling with technology. He’s also a proud member of the Authors Guild of Tennessee. His second novel, The Bit Dance is a cautionary tale about what can happen when technology runs away from its creators. You can find links to Tilmer’s books at the following location:

https://www.amazon.com/Tilmer-Wright/e/B00DVKGG4K%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_s…

His author information website is here: http://www.tilmerwrightjr.com/