Physics, Discovery, and Fuel for Nihilism

 Aidan Minnihan

Professor John Horgan

Physics, Discovery, and Fuel for Nihilism

Throughout human history, it has been in our nature to ponder the secrets of the universe. Usually, this takes the form of various religions, the choice to believe in higher powers that are behind the creation and governing of the universe that we reside in. Nearly every civilization had their own beliefs with regards to this concept, and many are still present to this day. This essay is not to claim any one religion to be more correct than any other; rather, it is to discuss the decline in such beliefs as a result of our species’ discoveries of the true nature of the universe. This is far from something bad; in fact, it’s difficult to deny that the acquisition of knowledge, and as such, undeniable truth, is entirely beneficial to humanity. The point of this essay is simply to convey a feeling that has lodged itself deep within the pit of my soul - an ironic choice of words, given what I am about to note. That feeling can be described as such: the more discoveries we make about these laws of physics governing our reality, the harder it is to interpret any meaning to life at all. Forgive me as I indulge this bout of nihilism.

I distinctly remember how, when I was a child, I would contemplate what the odds of me being born as “me” were. To be more specific, I would wonder why my consciousness ended up being that of a human being; in my child mind, I had wondered what was stopping my consciousness from being born into the body of any other creature, be it another human or another species. With my increased understanding of the circumstances surrounding one’s birth, though, I now know that these trivial ponderings were far off the mark, and the truth was that I should have worried about my slim chances of existing at all. Robbert Dijkgraaf, a contributing columnist for Quanta Magazine, paraphrases the biologist Richard Dawkins in the following quote: “…we human beings — along with every other organism that has ever lived — are all the lucky winners of a cosmic lottery. From a mind-boggling number of possible genetic blueprints, our codes were chosen by chance to be realized as a living prototype.” Every single species alive, including humans, had an impossibly slim chance of even existing as they are now; what’s more, every single individual of any species is only born as a result of extremely specific circumstances, including a reliance on the meeting of two other individuals, who themselves had slim chances of being born. This is the simple truth of the nature of birth, and in the end, it’s all determined by the numerous laws of physics that influence even the simple meeting of two people, let alone the existence of a planet for us to be born on. Some may take solace in this, knowing that against all odds, they’re here, given a chance to do something with this life they were granted. However, it can be just as easy to fall into a certain despair at the realization that every one of us could be seen as flukes in the cosmic scheme of the universe. When I think of all of the ways that I could have not been born, it makes me feel truly distraught.

Beyond that, even as we develop a greater understanding of the way the universe may function, it’s still difficult to glean any meaning in these discoveries, at least as far as a meaning of life goes. Quantum physicists are in the constant effort of proving that the ideas backing up string theory (more specifically, superstring theory) hold true, and that they are the absolute truths that the universe is built off of. As described by American theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, “the theory is a radical, ‘crazy’ departure from the past, being based on tiny strings vibrating in 10 dimensional space-time.” I do not doubt that this is an exciting concept for physicists everywhere, but as an average person who only thinks in three dimensions, the idea that the truth of our universe exists in at least seven more dimensions that I can’t even begin to comprehend does nothing to bring me solace. Is the nature of reality truly so incomprehensible? I recall feeling similarly when a middle school science class had taught us that, since objects absorb lights of like colors and reflect others, any color of any object we see is actually anything but the color we are perceiving. This fact is true, as might be the ten dimensional (at a minimum) nature of string theory, but in spite of learning the truth, I feel that I have gained very little from the knowledge. It simply feels like the world has been stripped of a little more wonder when I know that the reality I perceive might not even be the way it truly is.

There are several truths that we have deciphered through physics that make me feel similarly distraught; how the universe is doomed to eventually stop expanding and reach a heat death; how the LaPlace’s Demon thought experiment posits that the knowledge of every single particle’s superposition and the forces acting on them would allow one to predict exactly what will happen, thus invalidating free will (and while quantum physics proposes that particles are inherently random in what they do, the knowledge that I am made of particles controlled by forces beyond me either way still deeply bothers me); how there is no concrete evidence of any form of life after death. All of these revelations, no matter how true they are, can be seen as evidence for the nihilist belief that, in this world that cares not for us in the slightest, nothing truly matters. This is not to say that I absolutely subscribe to nihilist beliefs, but the more I learn about the nature of our universe, the less wonder I have towards this world that I’ve been born into, and the more dread I feel about my very existence. Perhaps this is simply a part of growing up; you learn more about the nature of the world, and how it isn’t nearly as wonderful as you might have told yourself as a kid. Even still, these truths can prove to be tough pills to swallow; I can say with confidence that they have been for me.

Works Cited

Dijkgraaf, Robbert. “Contemplating the End of Physics.” Quanta Magazine, 27 July 2022, https://www.quantamagazine.org/contemplating-the-end-of-physics-20201124/. 

Kaku, Michio. “M-Theory: The Mother of All SuperStrings.” Official Website of Dr Michio Kaku RSS, https://mkaku.org/home/articles/m-theory-the-mother-of-all-superstrings/. 

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