Below is another installment from the "Many Worlds" book (see Metaviews 092).

The chapter excerpt below is from Christian de Duve, who shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine for pioneering work on cell structure and function. De Duve has devoted his career to studying the biochemistry of life. A native of Belgium, he studied at the Catholic University of Louvain where he earned an M.D., Ph.D., and advanced master's degree in chemical sciences. After postdoctoral fellowships at the Medical Nobel Institute in Stockholm and Washington University in St. Louis, he was appointed a lecturer in physiological chemistry on the Faculty of Medicine of the Catholic University of Louvain in 1947, becoming emeritus professor in 1985. Since 1962, he has shared time between his Belgian alma mater and the Rockefeller University in New York, where he was named Andrew W. Mellon professor in 1974, reaching emeritus status in 1988. De Duve is the founder of the International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology in Brussels, served as its president director from 1974 to 1991, and now is a member of the Institute's board of directors. De Duve is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Royal Society. He holds sixteen honorary degrees from universities in Europe, South America, Canada, and the United States. He is the author of some 375 scientific papers and three books; the most recent is "Vital Dust: Life as a Cosmic Imperative." It is an honor to present Christian De Duve on Meta.

In the book chapter, De Duve discusses the significance of the consensus views in biology over the last century. In the excerpt below he posits a universe that favors both life and intelligence and wonders about evolutionary advances that will someday surpass humans and may have already done so elsewhere in the universe. De Duve writes:

"Contrary to what I call the 'gospel of contingency,' popularized by a number of contemporary thinkers, the human species is not the meaningless outcome of chance events in a pointless universe. For the first time in the history of life, beings exist that have access, albeit in a very primitive and rudimentary fashion, to the reality behind the appearances... Although apprehended only dimly, these abstractions are the closest we can get with our feeble means to the ultimate reality to which many give the name of God."

Next week I'll run another excerpt from the MANY WORLDS book (ed. by Steven Dick, 2000). If you like what you read, the book is available for purchase online at <http://www.templetonpress.org/order.asp>.

-- Billy Grassie

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The Future of Life, by Christian DeDuve

One last lesson of biology: evolution is far from over. According to cosmologists, our planet should remain able to bear life for about another five billion years before being engulfed in the fiery expansion of the dying sun. What can happen in such an enormous stretch of time is entirely beyond our imagination. Whatever the future may bring, humankind is most unlikely to remain at a standstill during all that time. It will either disappear or evolve. In either case, we are not the ultimate achievement of evolution, only a transient stage. The old anthropocentric view of a human-focused universe must be abandoned, even in its recent reformulation in the so-called "anthropic principle."

It would be surprising if in the future development of life on Earth, vertical evolution toward greater complexity did not continue to take place, perhaps leading to beings endowed with considerably sharper means of apprehending reality than we possess. Such beings could arise by further extension of the human twig, but they do not have to. There is plenty of time for a humanlike adventure to start all over again from another twig and perhaps go further than did the human adventure.

Lessons of Life for Philosophy and Religion

Creationism, vitalism, finalism, dualism, and anthropocentrism have all been left by the wayside by the progression of modern biology. For scientists, the scenery is deeply gratifying in its austere and coherent beauty. But to others, the message may seem disquietingly bleak, because it questions a number of familiar notions, rooted in the biblical tradition and still entertained and propagated in more or less literal form by the major monotheistic religions. Aware of the potential conflicts, many philosophers and theologians have begun reflecting on how basic beliefs can be reconciled with the findings of science. This necessary reappraisal will not be easy, considering the intricate network of social structures that has been knit around the churches by centuries of shared faith and aspirations. In this exercise, the scientist can only point to what is now established beyond reasonable doubt or at least highly probable. Such has been the purpose of my brief survey. As to extrapolating from science to philosophy, scientists are poorly trained for such a venture and generally shy away from it. Here, for what they are worth, are a few suggestions.

A first notion to be singled out is that we belong to a universe capable of giving rise to life and mind. This affirmation would seem like a mere statement of the obvious, were it not for the widely publicized view that life and mind are freak products of a highly improbable combination of chance circumstances most unlikely to occur any time, anywhere. This attitude was summed up by Jacques Monod when he wrote, "The Universe was not pregnant with life, nor the biosphere with man."2 This statement challenges evidence. The facts are that the Universe has given birth to life and the biosphere has given birth to humans. To affirm that those two births took place without pregnancies amounts to invoking miracles, which is certainly not what the great French biologist had in mind.

Miracles, in the form of special creative acts of God, are what religions traditionally invoke to account for the existence of life and mind in the universe. The lesson of modern biology is that such interventions were not needed and probably did not occur. Life and mind most likely developed through purely natural events rendered possible by the prevailing physical-chemical conditions or perhaps even imposed by these conditions. As the defenders of the anthropic principle have pointed out in great detail, these occurrences require an extraordinary degree of fine tuning of many key properties of the universe. The "pregnancy" that was erroneously negated by Monod is in fact the outcome of very special features built into the natural structure of the universe.

Some contemporary physicists, including Rees and Smolin, two other contributors to this volume, minimize the significance of this fact by assuming that our universe is not unique. They see it as a part or as an evolutionary product of a large set of universes-a "multiverse" in the suggestive terminology proposed by Rees-that display a wide array of physical properties. Lost in this ocean of "nonpregnant" universes, ours would be no more than the odd one that happened, by chance, to have the right combination of properties for life and mind to arise. Intriguing as they are, these theories do not in any way diminish the overwhelming significance of our universe as it exists. Whichever way they appeared, and whatever the probability of their emergence, life and mind are such extraordinary manifestations that their existence can only be a telling revelation of ultimate reality. Even diluted by trillions of lifeless universes, ours remains supremely meaningful. The anthropic principle is correct in this respect, except for its anthropocentric connotation.

A second major lesson of modern biology concerns the humble status of our species, which, far from being the ultimate goal of creation it has long been thought to be, now appears as a transient link or perhaps even a side branch in a long evolutionary process very likely to give rise some day to beings much more advanced than we are. There also is a real possibility that beings with mental attributes similar or superior to ours exist elsewhere in the universe. Although these possibilities have not been verified in reality, they deserve sufficiently serious consideration to be incorporated into our new world view. The resulting picture is not, however, as negative as is maintained by those who see in the findings of science reasons for denigrating the human species.

Even though we may not be the final product of evolution, our emergence nevertheless represents a watershed. Contrary to what I call the "gospel of contingency," popularized by a number of contemporary thinkers, the human species is not the meaningless outcome of chance events in a pointless universe. For the first time in the history of life, beings exist that have access, albeit in a very primitive and rudimentary fashion, to the reality behind the appearances, including the nature of matter, the structure of the universe, the basic mechanisms of life, the historical processes through which these entities have arisen and evolved, and especially abstract notions, such as truth, beauty, goodness, and love. Although apprehended only dimly, these abstractions are the closest we can get with our feeble means to the ultimate reality to which many give the name of God. No doubt, the beings with expanded mental powers who are likely to succeed us one day will see this reality more clearly. But the glimpses we are afforded already are immensely rewarding.

Also important and unique to the human condition is the acquisition of moral responsibility. Although disputed by some neurobiologists and philosophers, the feeling we have of being in command of our own actions and of being responsible for them is not likely to be abandoned, even by those who question its authenticity. It is an indispensable foundation of our societies. Far from yielding to the advances of science, our responsibility is made increasingly important by those advances, to the extent that they are giving us increasingly effective means of shaping the future of our planet, of the living world, and of our own species. To wield wisely the immense powers with which science in the twentieth century has endowed humankind will be the main concern of coming generations.

Conclusion

The advances of biology have revolutionized the view we have of ourselves and our significance in the world. Many myths have had to be abandoned. But mystery remains, more profound and more beautiful than ever before, a reality almost inaccessible to our feeble human means.

Notes

1. C. de Duve, Vital Dust (New York: Basic Books, 1995).

2. J. Monod, Chance and Necessity, trans. A. Wainhouse (New York: Knopf, 1971), 145-146.

MANY WORLDS is available for purchase online at<http://www.templetonpress.org/order.asp>.

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Published   2000.11.01