Missing Link-God
How did our universe come into being? Material aspect of it has been balanced on ideas proposed by man so to speak. So many disciplines each setting out a piece to form a giant jigsaw puzzle. All these pieces must make one coherent whole.
In another analogy man like Archimedes could be looking for the lever to lift the How and Why of man and his universe. Is it Higgs boson particle? The Higgs mechanism proposes that there is a field permeating the Universe – the Higgs field – that allows particles to obtain their mass. Interactions with the field – with the Higgs bosons that come from it are purported to give particles mass. But is it God?
Without mass particles are like straws in wind and mass makes our earth run on a predictable orbit and have a gravitational field and so on.
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Life on the earth gives the earth an identifiable form since man’s ideas have laid bare the warp and woof of our known universe to great extent. It is ethnocentric since man is naming things. It gives certain semblance of truth. We speak here of truth in its broadest sense.
Consider this : with so many life forms species after species Science could study fossils and give it a time tag and arrange their evoltutionary path. From available evidences when we speak of evolution as the basis that life originated gradually. It is what anyone with an opn mind can accept as most likely nearer to truth. Charles Darwin made it his life work and despite of many vicissitudes that life often crowns persons that preserve after truth, -he suffered from Chagga’s disease as a result of his sea voyages to South America. Yet he did an yeoman service to the world at large. He was a pioneer and his work since then has attracted many scientists all across the world and their work a testimony to man’s need to know truth. They have dedicated their lives in order to throw further light into secrets of Nature in evolutionary biology.
The idea of Natural selection is one among many facets grounded on truth. Science has no interest to explore what reason cannot grasp. Thus we know How we have come this far. How is only one part of the puzzle of our existence. Why we are here?
Such a conundrum is not teased out of rational mind as some grist to the mental mill. (Science cannot work on faith alone in vacuum.) Those who sought to unravel the How are seekers of truth. What made some dedicate their lives not for silver or gold mind you, but something that give meaning to their lives. St. Francis of Assissi, the son of a rich merchant of Pisa could have served the poor without disavowing his wealth or connections. But he made himself poor to serve the poor. In his eye he settled for a life of utmost simplicity as Baruch Spinoza did. One did as service to God while the latter did for no other reason than serving truth. God, Truth are all terms that stand far beyond human understanding. Spinoza did not care to publish his works in his lifetime since fame or riches were not his goal. He had to give his physical life, a frail life at that, some semblance of truth as well as he knew. Most of those who have impacted the world have nearly counted everything besides truth as impediment in their search. How is part of truth as Why is equally an integral part.
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It is in this context we need to look at the search for Higgs boson as a milestone in our understanding of ourselves and the universe.
There is a Standard Model by which we have nearly explained how the Universe works – all of the particles that make up atoms and molecules and all the matter we see, along with more exotic particles. However, there is a glaring hole in the theory: it does not explain how it is that all those particles have mass. The Higgs mechanism was proposed in 1964 by six physicists, including the Edinburgh-based theoretician Peter Higgs, as an explanation to fill this hole. It is the only predicted elementary particle that has not yet been observed in particle physics experiments. Theories that do not need the Higgs boson also exist and would be considered if the existence of the Higgs Boson were ruled out. They are described as Higgsless models.
The crux of my post is that man has levered his universe on his rational mind. It has uncovered How which only requires the elusive Higgs boson that is what supplies mass. Positive Intelligence or God that supplies Why may go a long to speed up our knowledge.
Caveat:
Even though How and Why are found and consequently set into human language we need to realize we are transposing Truth Absolute in human terms.
benny