Napoleon gets closer to the Institute
By 1799, the position of France had changed significantly. The territory of the republic expanded, and the plunder of the population of countries defeated by Bonaparte's troops made it possible to strengthen the finances of France. The position of the big bourgeoisie, thanks to these events, strengthened. All she had to do was finally strengthen her position. However, the internal situation did not allow the big bourgeoisie to be completely confident that the positions it had won would be maintained.
The country continued to be in continuous unrest. The undefeated royalists from time to time staged coups and threatened to restore the hated feudal order. On the other hand, the oppressed and starving proletariat of the capital and the petty bourgeoisie still harbored hopes of throwing off the yoke of the rich ruling class. Despite the brutal repressions, uprisings of the poor sometimes shook the capital and disturbed the peace of the bourgeois elite.
The Directory, with its indecisive policies, morally compromised, torn apart by internal contradictions, did not seem to the big bourgeoisie to be a reliable defender of its interests. After Bonaparte's performance in the Egyptian campaign, Suvorov, at the head of the Russian troops, took Italy from the French. The monarchical rebellion was again rising in the Vendée.
The Directory could not even cope with the gangs of robbers who were rampant in the country and interfering with free trade.
Therefore, the bourgeoisie and wealthy peasantry, freed from feudal oppression, longed for only one thing - a force capable of defending the positions they had won from the internal enemy - the urban and rural poor and the external - monarchical intervention.
The stage was set for a military dictatorship; many looked with hope at the strengthened army as a force that could nominate a candidate for dictator. Particularly popular was the young general Napoleon Bonaparte, who in the eyes of the broad masses was their decisive defender against the encroachments of the monarchists. It was memorable how on the 13th of Vendemier (October 5, 1795) he shot from cannon an armed crowd, organized by the top of the bourgeoisie and monarchists, who were going to disperse the Thermidorian composition of the Convention. Therefore, the workers, who dreamed of a “regime in which they eat,” did not see any threat to themselves in the fact that the brave General Bonaparte was destroying the hated directory.
On October 16, 1799, Bonaparte, who had already been seen as the “savior of the republic,” returned from Egypt and was greeted with applause in Paris. The general delight and hope that Bonaparte would establish “stable order” in the country and create “firm power” was fully shared by the National Institute.
Personally and well acquainted with the future dictator, Laplace was more than happy about Bonaparte's return to France. They were old acquaintances and almost friends.
A closed, proud young man, in whom no one could yet suspect a future merciless dictator, in 1784 he entered the Paris Military School. Having chosen artillery as his specialty, Bonaparte listened to lectures by Laplace and Monge. He took Laplace's final exams in mathematics as an examiner for the Royal Artillery Corps.
Laplace remembered a well-read and talented young man, in whom the ambition and perseverance common to both of them were hidden.
In the floreal of the XII, last, year of the Republic (1804), Laplace wrote to Napoleon: “I want to add to the greetings of the people my greeting to the Emperor of France, a hero to whom twenty years ago I had the happy privilege of discovering a career that he carried out with such glory and with such happiness for France."
Even before leaving for the Italian expedition, Napoleon was close to many members of the institute and did not break this connection until the end of his brilliant career.
Napoleon loved the names of “his” actors (like Talma), “his” writers (like Chateaubriand) and “his” scientists (like Monge) to shine in “his” state. Showing them petty attention from the height of his power, he knew how to influence their psychology, captivate them with himself, just as he knew how to influence his officers and soldiers. But the emperor’s increased interest in the physical and mathematical sciences and their representatives lay on a different plane.
It is well known from Napoleon's biography that in his early youth he devoted all his free time to reading. Most of all, military history, mathematics and geography attracted his attention. The fifteen-year-old inquisitive and critical young man could not help but be influenced by the lessons of such prominent scientists and science enthusiasts as Laplace and Monge. Napoleon was especially fascinated by artillery. As an artilleryman, and an outstanding one at that, he perfectly understood the importance of mechanics for the development of this type of weapon, which makes it possible to calculate the trajectories of projectiles, the firing range, the required charge size, etc.
In Oxonne in 1788, Napoleon wrote a treatise on external ballistics (on throwing cannonballs and bombs). If the revolution had not provided an outlet for his abilities and ambition, the inconspicuous artillery officer might have tried to achieve fame in the scientific field. Therefore, perhaps, his phrase addressed to Laplace during the period of feverish activity to organize the Boulogne camp is not so funny: “I truly regret that the force of circumstances removed me from the scientific field.”
After the Thermidorian coup, the twenty-five-year-old general, suspected of sympathizing with the Jacobins, was with difficulty enrolled in the topographical department of the military headquarters, headed by Carnot. During these months, he continued to study intensively, visiting the astronomical observatory, where, as they say, he eagerly listened to Lalande's lectures. At this time he renewed his acquaintance with Laplace and other members of the institute, mainly mechanics and mathematicians.
Soon after the successful suppression of the Vendémières rebellion of the royalists, Bonaparte abandoned his studies in science.
Having become the favorite of Barras, the head of the Directory, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Italian army, which, of course, attracted him much more than the study of celestial bodies.
Returning to Paris in December 1797 after the victorious completion of the Italian campaign, Napoleon, with the support of Talleyrand, began to seek funds from the Directory to organize a campaign in Egypt. Here Napoleon again turned to the National Institute, but no longer as a humble student, but as an idol of the army.
Napoleon's appeal to the institute testifies to the enormous influence that scientists enjoyed during this era. Talleyrand, and then Bonaparte himself, read reports on Egypt at the institute and argued how much France gains by turning a prosperous country into its colony. The study of the country's natural resources is impossible without the assistance of science, and Napoleon had no difficulty in convincing scientists to cast their weighty vote for the desirability of a military expedition to Africa.
Bonaparte's efforts were crowned with success. Preparing for a long campaign, Napoleon did not forget to take a whole galaxy of leading scientists with him to Africa.
Berthollet was in charge of recruiting scientists: “We don’t know,” he said, “where the army will go, but we know that it will be commanded by Bonaparte, and we will study countries as our legions conquer them.” In addition to major scientists, forty-six young people from the Polytechnic School asked to join the expedition, despite the uncertainty of its goals.
Laplace did not dare to go on a long and dangerous journey. He didn't like to take risks.
Immediately after occupying Cairo, Napoleon founded the Egyptian Institute (August 22, 1798), modeled on the National Institute in Paris. Despite its short-lived existence, the Egyptian Institute became famous for the fact that its employees managed to carry out a lot of local history work, which for the first time revealed to Europeans the country of the pharaohs and pyramids. The institute's mathematics class included Monge (chairman) and Laplace's friends - Fourier (secretary) and Berthollet. Bonaparte also did not forget himself and appointed the chairman of the same category of mathematics as a comrade. He refused the presidency, allegedly saying: “It is not me who should be made the head of the institute, but Monge; This is more consistent with common sense.”
Napoleon’s respect for the Institute was so great that, as the historian Taine says: “Already in Egypt, the winner put in the title of his proclamations “Bonaparte, Commander-in-Chief, Member of the Institute,” being confident, as they say, that this would be clear to the last drummer.”
Quickly returning to France with the firm intention of taking part in the division of power of the collapsing Directory, Napoleon immediately turned to the National Institute. He wanted to enlist his support in advance for the upcoming coup. In the short three and a half weeks that separated his arrival from the coup of the 18th Brumaire, he needed to see a whole string of the right people.
Napoleon tried to secure the sympathy of the members of the institute, who were representatives and leaders of the French intelligentsia, through flattery and promises.
The very first letter he wrote in Paris was addressed to Laplace and contained gratitude for sending him the first volume of Celestial Mechanics, which had just come out of print. Here it is:
“I accept with gratitude, citizen, the copy of your excellent work you sent. The first six months that I have the opportunity will be spent reading your wonderful work. If you have nothing better in mind, please do me the pleasure of coming and dining with us tomorrow. My respects to Madame Laplace."
The “first six months” that Napoleon could have had, of course, were no longer available to him before his exile to the island of Elba.
But Laplace really “couldn’t find anything better” than to accept Napoleon’s invitation. Probably, during this intimate conversation, Napoleon well sensed Laplace’s political mood, became convinced of his complete trustworthiness and, perhaps, hinting at future favors, even enlisted his support at the Academy.
Seventeen days before the coup, 1 Brumaire (October 23, 1799), Bonaparte went to the institute for a regular meeting. He entered the hall, took his seat as an ordinary member and carefully listened to the scientific reports. At the next meeting, four days later, at his request, he was given the floor to report. Bonaparte reported details of the state of Egypt and its ancient monuments. He argued that the Suez Canal, which connected the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, really existed and that it was possible to restore it from the surviving remains. He, Bonaparte, ordered astronomical and geodetic excavation and leveling to be carried out on the spot, which would facilitate the task of restoring the canal.
After Bonaparte, Monge made an additional report, emphasizing the scientific value of Napoleon's research and activities. Members of the institute were delighted, seeing in the all-powerful general a “conqueror-civilizer.” No wonder they said about Bonaparte: “Of all the military men, he is the most civilian.” In comparison with him, generals Jourdain, Augereau, Bernadotte, Layan and others seemed like rude martinets. Scientists naively imagined that Bonaparte was creating a progressive and scientific government, maximally encouraging science and philosophy. In their eyes, Napoleon's victory was a victory for their interests, political and ideological.
The institute began continuous propaganda in favor of Napoleon, led by his companions in Egypt: Monge, Bertollet, Volney and Cabanis.
Laplace, already privy to this secret, probably kept his mouth shut out of his usual caution.
Napoleon supported by all means the legend of his ideological closeness to the encyclopedists. Volney, for example, Napoleon gained among his supporters by praising his literary descriptions of the East, the veracity of which he could now allegedly verify during his expeditions. The general expressed his admiration for Kabanis with that actor’s “play,” which those around him recognized in him much later.
Almost five minutes later, a dictator, he strongly emphasized his sympathies for the last encyclopedists of the Enlightenment, swore allegiance to their ideals and often quoted Rousseau, whom he was a little fond of in his early youth. While preparing the sword, the general often visited places where philosophers gathered, and in the garden of Lady Helvetia he praised “a peaceful life in the bosom of a sweet nature.”
If these people knew that this “enlightened atheist” in epaulets would restore Catholicism in France for political reasons, they would immediately recoil from him. This was still the time when, for example, Najon, together with the astronomer Lalande, openly fought against religion, continuing the work of Holbach and Diderot. Once Nezhon exclaimed at a meeting of the institute: “I swear that there is no God, and I demand that his name never be mentioned within these walls.”
Napoleon's frequently expressed contempt for religious prejudice seemed to guarantee the preservation of materialism as the ideology of the future state. Who could have foreseen that soon the First Consul would openly speculate on religious prejudices, presenting his absurd theories in scientific circles, teasing his former comrades and telling them: “Try, Monge, with the help of your mathematician and philosopher friends, to shake my religion.” . By Monge's friends, Napoleon primarily meant the astronomers Lalande and Laplace. It happened that he expressed his displeasure with the speeches of Lalande, who had become accustomed to complete and open “freethinking” during the revolution, in a very harsh form. Laplace was, as always, modest in expressing thoughts that were displeasing to the rulers, and only at the beginning of his relationship with Napoleon did he decide to emphasize his atheism...
Failed Minister
On the 18th of Brumaire, Napoleon dispersed the Council of Five Hundred, the Directory and established a consulate, in which he immediately took the position of dictator.
The three newly appointed consuls - Bonaparte, Sieyes and Roger Ducos - devoted their first meeting the day after the coup to organizing power and appointing new ministers. However, three of the old ministers: Cambaceres - Minister of Justice, Bourdon - Minister of Naval Affairs and Reynard - Minister of Foreign Affairs temporarily retained their places.
Bonaparte made his faithful general Berthier his minister of war. Godin was appointed Minister of Finance.
Historian Vandal says: “A bigger name was needed for the Home Office. Since this department was in charge of public education and everything that concerned the intellectual life of the country, the consuls decided to test whether a first-class scientist could be a good minister, and they appointed Laplace so that at the helm of power he would be a representative of science and philosophy, the glorious class of scientists , among whom the reform found both fundamental sympathy and highly valuable support. Laplace's appointment was a share of the profits provided to the institute."
Vandal is not entirely right: Laplace was Napoleon’s personal protégé. Napoleon appointed neither Monge, nor Fourier, nor Berthollet, who shared with him all the hardships and dangers of the Egyptian campaign, to this responsible post.
Direct and honest Monge, although personally attached to Napoleon, until recently was an ardent Jacobin. His revolutionary principles would not allow him to become an obedient instrument in Napoleon’s struggle for an open dictatorship - Monge was clearly “not suitable.” Much the same can be said about Fourier. Berthollet would have been more suitable than others, but, apparently, he did not have sufficient fame and proper firmness.
In contrast to the sincere and naive Monge, the cautious, reserved and cunning Laplace was more suitable for the role of a minister. Napoleon liked Laplace's cold, calculating mind, and he found in it something in common with himself.
Napoleon, as you know, preferred “cunning rascals”, whom, if necessary, he could always outwit himself. It was not for nothing that he took the most corrupt intriguer Fouche as ministers of the all-powerful police.
Of course, the role of ministers under the consuls was unenviable. They did not dare to engage in politics; Only one thing was required of them: to meekly carry out the will of Napoleon. Ministers were not supposed to be politicians, but soldiers.
Two days after the coup, on the 21st Brumaire (November 12, 1799), the de facto head of state appeared at a closed meeting of the institute in a green civilian dress, hanging as if on a hanger on Bonaparte’s then skinny body. This time he stayed there for only three quarters of an hour - exactly as long as he needed to read the report that had been included in the meeting agenda in advance. Laplace learned about his appointment as minister from Bonaparte himself.
It is impossible to doubt that the high appointment extremely flattered Laplace’s enormous pride, but he hardly thought seriously about what and how he would have to do. After all, Laplace had not yet played an active political role and did not even know properly either the life or the situation of the Country. He devoted all his time to science, home and institute.
Meanwhile, the task that fell on his shoulders was great and responsible. The ministry apparatus was completely shaken. The offices were swarming with “an indescribable anthill of rogues and idlers.” The state treasury was empty; officials had not received their salaries for ten months. A few days later, Laplace was supposed to appear before the consuls with a statement that he “was about to get into trouble for lack of funds.”
A few days later, Laplace began to receive very diverse information from the provinces. The local authorities in most cases were elected or appointed by the Convention and, for the most part, did not put up well with the coup. Many local authorities did not want to recognize the Brumaire coup and opposed the publication of Bonaparte's proclamations. The Department of Jura was even going to rebel and march on Paris.
On the other hand, the coup inspired the hopes of the monarchists and groups associated with them. Intoxicated by the hope of success, they began to play a leading role in a number of cities, organized demonstrations and even organized attacks in some places on civil officials, mainly from the old cadres created during the years of the revolution.
It was not Bonaparte's intention to allow the royalist reaction to grow so large as to pose a serious threat to the Bourbon restoration.
Therefore, in the very first days of his reign, Napoleon impressively pulled down the presumptuous reactionaries. This was also necessary to reassure those who, in the revival of the reaction, could see the sympathy of the new government for the monarchical restoration.
The troops were instructed to disperse reactionary gatherings by force. Bishop Roya and other priests who loudly campaigned for increased reaction were given a stern reprimand. Between 30 Brumaire (November 21) and 6 Brumaire (November 27), Laplace and Fouché, by order of the consuls, drew up circulars guaranteeing the country against the return of emigrants and against the predominance of any cult. Circulars were sent to localities.
Laplace in his circular appears as a militant atheist and underestimates the purely political calculations of Napoleon. He points out, for example, with a considerable degree of naivety: “Do not miss a single opportunity to prove to your fellow citizens that superstition benefits no more than royalism from the changes that took place on the 18th Brumaire. You will justify the government’s trust only if you implement with the most unwavering accuracy the laws that establish national festivals and the celebration of the tenth day of the decade, the republican calendar, the new system of weights and measures, etc.”
Fouche, on the contrary, perfectly understanding, even predicting, Bonaparte’s policy in matters of religion, expressed himself differently. He wrote: “The government equally patronizes all religions,” giving hope to the Catholic clergy that from now on they would again be under the protection of the law.
Laplace, as Minister of the Interior, was supposed to be in charge of the entire administrative life of the country, including trade, industry, public works, communications and many other sectors, later allocated to other ministries.
One of the main obstacles to the economic revival of France was the disastrous condition of the roads. During the rainy season, in some areas the roads became completely impassable, and all communication between cities ceased. According to Laplace's report, the consuls issued a special loan of four million francs to the Ministry of the Interior for road repairs, but, as we will see, Laplace did not have to use it.
The new minister’s desk was filled with reports, such as the report of the assistant commissioner of the executive branch of the central administration of the Gironde department: “I have no right to hide from you, Monsieur Minister, that none of the established authorities of Bordeaux enjoys the confidence of society, which makes almost complete reform necessary. Society demands that the expected reforms be carried out as soon as possible, otherwise the government will cease to be recognized, and all its decrees will lose force; then the peace will necessarily be disturbed..."
At first, Laplace did not know who to replace the local authorities, and until Bonaparte began decisively to centralize power, the old cadres sat in the provinces. Laplace submitted for approval to the consuls only decisions concerning individuals. Few officials were fired who openly expressed hostility to the new regime, or who turned public opinion too much against them.
In the motivations given by Laplace, there were sentiments that were not in keeping with the spirit of the times, sometimes too abstract. He envisioned, for example, the dismissal of people “for dishonest performance of official duties,” “infamy,” “an enemy of all public order,” etc. Laplace managed to remove several tyrants, but general measures of a political nature turned out to be inaccessible to this genius mind.
In many places, administrators who were transferred to the role of “temporary”, not yet knowing what their fate would be under the new regime, sat idly by and hardly interfered in the life of the population. One of the agents wrote, for example, to Laplace: “The administration is involved in almost nothing, but I am forced to say that this only makes life more peaceful.”
Due to the duties of the minister, Laplace visited the consuls every day after lunch; sometimes Napoleon invited him to the morning breakfast and, as if by chance, gave certain directives.
Sometimes Laplace and his wife had to visit the salon of the future Empress Josephine, where the new nobility began to shine with the luxury of toilets and “gallantry” of manners.
Laplace's resignation
On the 24th of Frimaire (December 15, 1799), the municipalities of the Parisian sections, formed in military columns, marched through the city with drummers in front, announcing the new constitution. According to Napoleon's wishes, this constitution was “short and ... unclear.”
At the institute, the new constitution, supported by Berthollet and Laplace, who did not lose touch with his native institution, was warmly approved. Members of the institute were convinced that a place was secured for them in the future Senate, in the legislative body, and in the tribunal; the “whims” of popular elections no longer threatened them, just like the court of the people. Cabanis, on behalf of the institute, delivered a “eulogy,” in which there was still a glimpse of the hope that the government of the consulate would be a dictatorship of the mental aristocracy and intelligentsia, although governing in the name of “the revolution and the people.”
The interests of the big bourgeoisie and the stratum represented by the institute coincided once again. The institution created by the bourgeois revolution did not become an institution of the working people, but remained a typical bourgeois institution.
Less than a month and a half had passed since Laplace accepted the portfolio of Minister of the Interior when he received the following letter from Bonaparte:
“Bonaparte, Consul of the Republic, to Citizen Laplace, Member of the Protective Senate.
The services that you are called upon to provide to the republic, citizen, by performing the highly important functions assigned to you, reduce my regret about your departure from the ministry, where you won general sympathy with your activities. I have the honor to warn you that I have appointed citizen Lucien Bonaparte as your successor. I suggest you immediately hand over the briefcase to him.”
The decisive and quick resignation was carried out in such a way as to hurt the pride of Laplace and the institute behind him as little as possible.
It is said that Laplace took some steps to restore the lost position, but without success.
What made Napoleon replace his first candidate, Laplace, with another?
Subsequently, in his memoirs on the island of St. Helena, Napoleon wrote the following about Laplace:
“The first-class geometer soon declared himself to be a more than mediocre administrator; His first steps in this field convinced us that we had been deceived in him. It is remarkable that not a single question of practical life was presented to Laplace in its true light. He looked everywhere for some kind of subtlety, little things, his ideas were mysterious, and finally, he was completely imbued with the spirit of “infinitesimals,” which he brought into the administration.”
It is clear that Laplace, as the executor of Napoleon's will, could not be compared with such henchmen as Talleyrand and Fouche. Laplace was too little familiar with practical life and, indeed, he had too strong a desire to introduce mathematical calculation into administrative practice. We will soon see that during this period, Laplace’s head was already intensively swarming with thoughts leading to the improvement of the theory of probability and its application to the field of social phenomena. If we add to this that Laplace sometimes expressed, perhaps out of inertia, some “free thinking,” then it will easily become clear that he could not please Bonaparte’s sober practicalism, and that in his assessment of the geometer’s political activity the former emperor was absolutely right.
However, it was not just considerations of unsuitability for the role of minister that determined the fate of Laplace. From the very first days of his stay in power, Napoleon began to please his many relatives. And here he was guided not so much by family feelings as by political calculation.
Lucien's help in preparing the coup and in dispersing the Council of Five Hundred obliged Napoleon to somehow reward him and give an outlet to his energy and ambition. Napoleon decided that the most appropriate would be the Ministry of the Interior. Here Lucien would have many honorary responsibilities, opening exhibitions, meetings, maintaining relations with scientists, artists and writers. He knew how to do all this with the necessary external brilliance.
It is interesting to note that a year later Napoleon sent his brother into honorable exile, appointing him envoy to Spain, and his close relationship with Laplace continued until the end of his career.
New rewards
Having officially become First Consul, Napoleon transferred Laplace to the Protective Senate, which was a rather honorable appointment.
Sixty, later eighty, permanent life members were appointed to the Senate with a salary of 25 thousand francs! This significantly exceeded all of Laplace's previous income. The Senate was actually supposed to protect... Napoleon's power. After the expiration of the powers of the consuls, the Senate, according to the constitution, had to elect new ones, but it never had to exercise such a manifestation of its rights. But the First Consul lavished his favors on the Senate. In addition to Laplace, the scientists included in the Senate were Berthollet, Monge, Chaptal, Fourcroix, Bouganville and some from the literary world. Sieyès was first the President of the Senate.
Soon Laplace was appointed vice-president of the Senate, then even chairman, and from 1803 chancellor, but history has left us no traces of his activities in this field. The role of the Senate was to carry out the most precise implementation of the directives given by the lifelong consul. Only once did the Senate decide to confront Napoleon; it was his rejection of the first secret bill to proclaim the First Consul Emperor.
Laplace's only action, perhaps carried out on his own initiative during the imperial period, was the abolition of the revolutionary calendar and a return to the Gregorian (“new style”). The resolution decreeing this return took place after the report of Laplace, who clearly saw that Napoleon, who became emperor, was seeking to erase the last memories of the republic from the memory of the French.
The revolutionary calendar, developed by a commission chaired by Romm, was decreed in October 1793; he broke with a large number of archaic traditions. For example, the custom of considering January 1 as the beginning of the year was introduced in the 16th century by order of King Charles IX, the same one under whom the St. Bartholomew's massacre was carried out. The seven-day week of the Gregorian calendar is entirely associated with astrological superstitions (belief in the influence of heavenly bodies on earthly events), and each day was dedicated to a specific planet. The number of days in months is not the same.
In the revolutionary calendar, which was in effect for fourteen years, the year began with the autumnal equinox (September 22 or 23), which coincided with the day of the proclamation of France as a republic. The years were counted from September 22, 1792, i.e. from the moment of the overthrow of royal power. The year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each; names were given to them in accordance with natural phenomena, for example, Brumaire - the month of fogs; Nivoz - the month of snow, Vendemier - the month of the grape harvest, Thermidor - the month of heat, etc.
Each month was divided into three decades of ten days each, and at the end of the year five or six holidays were added.
With the introduction of this calendar, logical and quite simple, revolutionary France dealt a blow to Christianity, which associated the celebration of some saints with every day.
It was this calendar that Laplace tried to reject, although almost its only drawback was the absence of a specific system of leap years. Laplace, apparently, out of the sole desire to please Napoleon, advocated the abolition of this wonderful calendar, very weakly justifying his proposal on “scientific” grounds...
In 1805, Laplace's wife received the title of lady-in-waiting to Princess Eliza, Napoleon's sister.
When Napoleon established the Order of the Legion of Honor, Laplace was appointed one of its first gentlemen, and in 1808 he was elevated to the rank of Count of the Empire. The Order of the Legion of Honor added new income to Laplace.
During these same years, Laplace also received a number of international scientific titles, which were awarded to him as the greatest scientist of his time, despite the hatred of the conquered countries towards the French empire.
In 1801, Laplace was elected a corresponding member of scientific societies in Turin and Copenhagen, in 1802 a member of the Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, in 1808 a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences and in 1809 of the Dutch; Academy of Sciences. Napoleon's affection for Laplace was, of course, determined not only by the scientific merits of the great geometer, but rather by his shameless servility. Thus, Laplace dedicated the fourth volume of Celestial Mechanics, published in 1802, to Napoleon and in the dedication left far behind everything that he wrote seven years earlier in the dedication addressed to the Council of Five Hundred.
“Citizen First Consul,” the dedication read, “you have allowed me to dedicate this work to you. I am very honored and sweet to dedicate it to the hero, the pacifier of Europe, to whom France owes its prosperity, its greatness and the most brilliant era of its glory; an enlightened patron of the sciences, who... sees in their study the source of the noblest pleasures, and in their progress the improvement of all useful arts and all social institutions. Let this work, dedicated to the most beautiful of natural sciences, be a lasting monument to the gratitude that your attitude and good deeds evoke in those who study these sciences.”
In response to this dedication, after reading several chapters of “Celestial Mechanics,” Napoleon answers Laplace: “I truly regret that the force of circumstances removed me from the scientific field; at least, I wish that people of future generations, reading “Celestial Mechanics,” will not forget the respect that I had in my soul for its author.”
Having just become emperor, Bonaparte notifies Laplace from Milan: “It seems to me that Celestial Mechanics elevates the splendor of our century.”
Finally, on August 12, 1812, on the eve of the clash near Krasnoye, before the capture of Smolensk, Bonaparte sends a letter from distant Russia in response to receiving the “Theory of Probabilities”: “At another time, having the leisure, I would read with interest your “Theory of Probabilities”, but now I am forced only to express my pleasure, which I always feel when you publish works that improve and disseminate science, elevating the glory of the nation. The spread and improvement of mathematical sciences are closely connected with the welfare of the state.”
The favors that Napoleon showered on Laplace were not an exceptional phenomenon. Berthollet, however, was as close a collaborator of Napoleon as Monge and Laplace, and was also made a count of the empire, a knight of the Legion of Honor and a senator. Napoleon also elevated Monge, Carnot and Fourier to counts and gave them major government positions. Lagrange, who never interfered in politics, received from Napoleon the same honors as Laplace and Berthollet.
A student and collaborator of Laplace, the famous theoretical mechanic and astronomer Poisson received the title of baron.
Napoleon was generous with rewards that won people over in his favor. In addition, and this is the most significant thing, the tactic of feeding outstanding figures who show humility and support the existing system with their authority has always been characteristic, to one degree or another, of the leaders of an exploitative society.
There is a well-known legend that Napoleon once asked Laplace to tell about the origin of the solar system. Laplace began to expound his cosmology. The Emperor listened carefully and then asked: “Where is God in all this?” “Your Majesty, I don’t need this hypothesis,” Laplace allegedly replied.
The purpose of this note is to show that Laplace from the legend was somewhat disingenuous. To do this, we will have to go on a journey - looking into history a couple of generations before Laplace. We will have several diversions along the way.
The first digression is personal. I became interested in this topic a quarter of a century ago, in my first year. At that time, the theoretical minimum was no longer taken in my circle, but knowledge of the Landau and Lifshitz course was still considered necessary for a theorist. It was customary to informally choose a scientific supervisor early, and I was brought to the future boss almost immediately after admission. He said, “Okay, read the first volume and I’ll see what topic I can give you.” I still consider the first volume ("Mechanics") to be one of the best in the entire course (along with the second and fifth volumes). I read this volume in one sitting.
At school (and in the university course on general physics), mechanics was presented on the basis of Newton's laws. Landau and Lifshitz's course did things differently: it began with the principle of least action - the assumption that there is some smooth functional that is minimal for the true trajectory of the system (some of my readers know what these words mean, but for the rest I will return to this a little later). Newton's laws and all the rest of mechanics were derived from this principle. I was so amazed by the beauty of it that I couldn’t sleep that night with happiness. (I had such an impression of the book only once more - when I read the fifth volume of the course for the first time).
I came to the boss and quickly explained what I had read. I solved educational problems. He listened and then asked: “Okay, we derive everything from the principle of least action. Where did the principle itself come from?” I faltered. There was nothing about this in the book. The boss sighed: “Okay, I’ll give you a topic. You solve problems well. But if you don’t want to spend your whole life mindlessly solving problems, try to find the answer to my question.”
Since then, I have solved many problems - first with my boss, then on my own. But at the same time, I was thinking about the boss’s question - and after a while I found the answer. This answer is the main content of this note.
It must be said that in fact this answer is more or less a general place “for those in the know.” But for me then he was a discovery. In addition, recent discussions have convinced me that some commonplaces are not universal. So I decided to present it.
By the way, since I am not an expert and have not dealt with this issue for many years, I probably have many inaccuracies and errors. So treat my text with a certain degree of doubt.
So, let's go.
We do not know whether Newton understood the principle of least action. He does not mention it in his writings, but Newton had a habit of arriving at a result in one way and presenting it in another. In any case, soon after Newton, the principle of least action was discovered by Maupertuis. In fact, there was an ugly story about priority: König, after Leibniz's death, claimed that he had expounded the principle of least action before Maupertuis - in a letter of 1707. Now Koenig's version does not seem to be very recognized, but I am inclined to count Leibniz as the originator of this principle.
Here we will have to make another digression and talk about one of the main ideas of Western thought of the 17th century. This is the idea of predestination. The logical structure here is as follows. We know that God is omniscient: the past, present and future are revealed to Him. This means that there is no uncertainty in the future “from God’s point of view.” A person may doubt whether he will go to heaven or hell - but God already knows that. Moreover, He always knew this. Therefore, it is already determined and has always been determined. Everything is measured, weighed and counted - and always has been weighed, measured and counted.
Many important conclusions for ethics, economics and politics follow from this construction. They are discussed in detail in Weber's classic book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism." We will deal with the conclusions for mechanics.
But before that, let us note one important circumstance. Weber spoke about the influence of the idea of predestination on Protestant ethics. His book even begins by contrasting the economic success of the Protestant part of Germany with the backwardness of the Catholic lands. This is all true, but when we talk about physicists and mathematicians, the situation turns out to be more complicated. The fact is that Catholics had their own supporters of the idea of predestination: the Jansenists. Their teaching was later declared heretical (not least because it looked too much like Calvinism), but before that a very interesting person managed to join them: Blaise Pascal. It is with the Jansenists that his appeal to God is connected. Pascal considered becoming a monk in their monastery, but ultimately remained a secular Jansenist and wrote extensive treatises in defense of this teaching. Pascal corresponded with almost all mathematicians of his time. It is difficult for me to say whether as a result they became close to Jansenism - especially since not everyone wanted to advertise their sympathies for heretics. But I think it is reasonable to assume that predestination, sanctified by the authority of Pascal, occupied the minds of all mathematicians of that time: both Protestants and Catholics.
Let's return to our mechanics. So, suppose we believe in predestination. What follows from this? Let's imagine a system: its position at any moment can be described by a set of numbers. The change in these numbers over time is the trajectory of the system in some multidimensional space (a little later we will clarify which space we are talking about). We can imagine many different trajectories - but we know that only one of them is singled out, only one is chosen by God. This is the true trajectory. How to choose between different possible trajectories? Let us add that our God is a logical and clear God: He gave us precisely such a mind that can comprehend His plan. Therefore, the choice must be clear to our minds - it must be rational. Newton believed that the Universe is a book written in the language of mathematics, and knowable mathematics.
The simplest way to select is to assign a certain number to each trajectory. For a true trajectory, this number is minimal. This is what distinguishes the true trajectory.
This idea has a predecessor: Fermat's idea. Fermat once realized that the laws of geometric optics can be derived from one assumption: light moves in such a way that the travel time from point A to point B is minimal. This assumption leads to the uniqueness of the trajectory of the light ray and describes it. By the way, Fermat corresponded with Pascal - however, I did not find information about what he thought about Jansenism.
If each trajectory can be characterized by a number, then what can this number depend on? It is clear that it must depend on the coordinates of the system points. It must also depend on their speeds (or on impulses) - otherwise we will not describe the movements. Since we want simple and clear laws, we assume that it does not depend on anything else - in the sense, it does not depend on accelerations and higher derivatives. Next, since we want simple math, let's assume that it is a smooth function of these variables. This number is called the action, and in classical mechanics it is minimal for the true trajectory of the system in the space of coordinates and velocities (or coordinates and impulses).
All. We don't need anything else for mechanics. It is enough to assume that the trajectory of the system is obtained from the minimization of some smooth functional of coordinates and velocities (or coordinates and momenta) - and then we can write out the laws of nature. If we accept that space is Euclidean and time is absolute—neither Leibniz nor Maupertuis imagined anything else—then the result will be Newtonian mechanics. By the way, both the special and general theories of relativity also work out - it is enough to accept other assumptions about space and time. Thus we have mechanics as a consequence of the idea of predestination.
But maybe we got too carried away and attribute ideas to the classics that they did not have? Fortunately, we have serious allies: the classics themselves. The fact is that both Maupertuis and Leibniz left not only works on mechanics, but also theological treatises. Maupertuis (as Kant would later do) discussed past proofs of the existence of God, found errors in each - and then presented his proof. And the proof was this: since the principle of least action describes the reality around us, and in its derivation one cannot do without God, it means that God exists.
Maupertuis was generally an interesting person. They say he had thoughts about the evolution of species long before Lamarck and Darwin. Moreover, he believed this evolution - correctly, as proof of the existence of God.
Leibniz put the principle of minimization at the heart of his theology. Since God created the Universe in such a way that some function is optimized in it, it is logical to assume that this is true in a broader sense: our world is the most optimal of all possible worlds. This was the basis of Leibniz's philosophy of optimism. As any observer can easily see, our world is by no means perfect. However, it is the best of all possible: any other world would be worse. By the way, Voltaire wrote a vicious parody of the philosophy of Leibniz and Maupertuis - the famous “Candide”.
But on our journey we forgot about Laplace. Let's return to him.
Laplace was born a generation later than Maupertuis and Leibniz (he was ten years old when Maupertuis died). He was much less interested in questions of theology: the spirit of the times had changed. Therefore, there is no God in his mechanics - but there is predestination, and with it all the mechanics based on it. How does Laplace imagine this predetermination? Let us imagine a mind, writes Laplace, that knows exactly the coordinates and velocities of all the particles that make up the Universe at some point in time. Let this mind have enormous computational abilities and can quickly solve mechanical equations. For him there will be nothing uncertain, nothing hidden: both the future and the past will be open before his eyes. [The latter follows from the reversibility of the equations of mechanics: we can calculate the trajectory both “forward” and “backward”].
It is obvious that this mind (later called Laplace's demon) is the God of Maupertuis and Leibniz in disguise. It's still needed for mechanics. But he was demoted: firstly, he is no longer the creator of the Universe, but only the Great Calculator. Secondly, now its actual existence is no longer needed - a virtual one is enough. That is, it is enough to assume that Maybe there is someone who has the gift of omniscience.
In other words, Laplace's philosophy is an attempt to introduce the eye of God without God. Just as secular humanism is an attempt to introduce a Christian ethic without Christ, modern right-wing American ideology is an attempt to introduce an anti-Christian ethic with Christ.
So now I can answer my teacher’s question: the principle of least action follows from the dogma of God’s omniscience.
This could have been the end of it, but a_shen asked me to talk about Laplace's understanding of probability theory. I studied this less than his understanding of mechanics, so I will speak briefly.
Many young mathematicians who became acquainted with Kolmogorov's axiomatics and think that they know what probability is do not even suspect what a headache it caused the classics. Probability describes uncertainty - but what kind of uncertainty can there be in a world where God knows everything? The God of Maupertuis and Leibniz - or the demon of Laplace - cannot speak the language of probability theory. “God doesn’t play dice,” Einstein would later say. God knows in advance how each throw will end. Therefore, probability cannot describe the real world.
Laplace gracefully avoided this contradiction. Probability does not describe the real world - it describes our ignorance of this world. As our knowledge of the world increases, it gives way to confidence. Hence the approach to calculating probabilities, which may seem strange to us. Laplace begins with a priori probabilities, which he recommends choosing in the simplest way - as in the famous joke about a dinosaur (“What is the probability of meeting a dinosaur on the street?” “50% - either you will or not”). Then, based on our experience - whether we met a dinosaur or not - we recalculate the probabilities in accordance with Bayes' theorem. If we repeat this process long enough, we will arrive at the correct answer regardless of the priors.
It is important to understand that this probability is very different from probability as we understand it. This is just a certain number from a practical recipe - and not at all a fundamental characteristic of the world, like ours. We say the same words (and write the same equations) as Laplace - but behind them there is a different vision of the world.
Actually, the same can be said about many other concepts of science. At a superficial glance, the path of science seems to be a consistent path of progress, where the new generation develops the ideas of the past. In fact, everything is much more complicated: the new generation is rethinking and reinterpreting these ideas, discarding what seemed most important to their authors. The famous phrase of Borges from the “Library of Babel” is applicable to science: N number of possible languages use the same stock of words, in some the word "library" admits the correct definition of "a comprehensive and permanent system of hexagonal galleries", but at the same time "library" means "bread," or "pyramid," or some other a different subject, and the six words that define it have a different meaning. You, reading these lines, are you sure that you understand my language?
In simple words
Today is my birthday 264
anniversary of the birth of one of the greatest mathematicians, physicists and astronomers Pierre-Simon Laplace. 
Pierre-Simon Laplace(French Pierre-Simon de Laplace; March 23, 1749 - March 5, 1827) - an outstanding French mathematician, physicist and astronomer; known for his work in the field of celestial mechanics, differential equations, one of the creators of probability theory. Laplace's merits in the field of pure and applied mathematics and especially in astronomy are enormous: he improved almost all departments of these sciences. He was a member of the French Geographical Society.
Biography
Born into a peasant family in Beaumont-en-Auge, in the Norman department of Calvados. He studied at the Benedictine school, from which he emerged, however, as a convinced atheist. Wealthy neighbors helped the talented boy enter the University of Caen (Normandy).
The memoir “Sur le calcul intégral aux différences infiniment petites et aux différences finies” (1766) that he sent to Turin and published there attracted the attention of scientists, and Laplace was invited to Paris. There he sent D'Alembert a memoir about the general principles of mechanics. He immediately appreciated the young man and helped him get a job as a mathematics teacher at the Military Academy.
Having settled his everyday affairs, Laplace immediately began to attack the “main problem of celestial mechanics”: the study of the stability of the Solar system. At the same time, he published important works on the theory of determinants, probability theory, mathematical physics, etc.
1773: using mathematical analysis masterfully, Laplace proved that the orbits of the planets are stable, and their average distance from the Sun does not change due to mutual influence (although it experiences periodic fluctuations). Even Newton and Euler were not sure about this. However, it later turned out that Laplace did not take into account tidal friction, which slows down the rotation, and other important factors.
For this work, 24-year-old Laplace was elected member (adjunct) of the Paris Academy of Sciences.
1778: married Charlotte de Courty. They had a son, the future General Laplace, and a daughter.
1785: Laplace becomes a full member of the Paris Academy of Sciences. In the same year, during one of the exams, Laplace highly evaluates the knowledge of the 17-year-old applicant Bonaparte. Subsequently, their relationship was invariably warm.
During the revolutionary years, Laplace took a leading part in the work of the commission for the introduction of the metric system, headed the Bureau of Longitudes (the name of the French Astronomical Institute) and lectured at the Normal School. At all stages of the turbulent political life of the then France, Laplace never came into conflict with the authorities, who almost invariably showered him with honors. Laplace's common origin not only protected him from the repressions of the revolution, but also allowed him to occupy high positions. Although he did not have any political principles (however, perhaps that is why).
1795: Laplace lectures on the theory of probability at the Ecole Normale, where he was invited as professor of mathematics, along with Lagrange, by decree of the National Convention.
1796: “Exposition of the System of the World” - a popular essay on the results later published in Celestial Mechanics, without formulas and vividly presented.
1799: the first two volumes of Laplace’s main work, the classic “Celestial Mechanics,” were published (by the way, it was Laplace who coined this term). The monograph describes the movement of the planets, their forms of rotation, and tides. Work on the monograph lasted 26 years: volume III was published in 1802, volume IV in 1805, volume V in 1823-1825. The presentation style was too concise; the author replaced many statements with the words “it’s easy to see that...”. However, the depth of analysis and richness of content made this work a reference book for astronomers of the 19th century.
In Celestial Mechanics, Laplace summed up both his own research in this area and the work of his predecessors, starting with Newton. He gave a comprehensive analysis of the known movements of the bodies of the Solar System on the basis of the law of universal gravitation and proved its stability in the sense of the practical invariability of the average distances of the planets from the Sun and the insignificance of fluctuations in the remaining elements of their orbits.
Along with the mass of special results concerning the movements of individual planets, satellites and comets, the figure of the planets, the theory of tides, etc., the most important was the general conclusion that refuted the opinion (which Newton also shared) that maintaining the present appearance of the solar system requires the intervention of some some extraneous supernatural forces.
In one of the notes to this book, Laplace casually outlined the famous hypothesis about the origin of the solar system from a gaseous nebula, previously expressed by Kant.
Napoleon awarded Laplace the title of Count of the Empire and every conceivable order and position. He even tried it as Minister of the Interior, but after 6 weeks he chose to admit his mistake. Laplace introduced into management, as Napoleon later put it, “the spirit of the infinitely small,” that is, pettiness. Laplace changed the title of count, given to him during the years of the empire, shortly after the Bourbon restoration to the title of marquis and member of the house of peers.
1812: the grandiose “Analytical Theory of Probability”, in which Laplace also summarized all his and others’ results.
1814: “An Essay on the Philosophy of the Theory of Probability” (popular exposition), the second and fourth editions of which served as an introduction to the second and third editions of the “Analytic Theory of Probability.” “An Experience in the Philosophy of Probability Theory” was published in Russian translation in 1908 and republished in 1999.
Contemporaries noted Laplace's goodwill towards young scientists and his constant readiness to help.
Laplace died on March 5, 1827, on his own estate near Paris, at the age of 78.
Named in honor of the scientist:
- crater on the Moon;
- asteroid 4628 Laplace;
- numerous concepts and theorems in mathematics.
Laplace was one of the outstanding figures of French Freemasonry. He was Honorary Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France.
Separately, I would like to refer to one more thing. In the book by E. T. Bell “Creators of Mathematics. Predecessors of Modern Mathematics” a chapter with the title is dedicated to Laplace:
FROM PEASANT TO SNOB
And with this content:
Poor like Lincoln, proud like Lucifer. A dry welcome and warm cordiality. Laplace effectively attacks the solar system. Mécanique celeste. Self-esteem. What others thought of him. "Potential" foundations of physics. Laplace and the French Revolution. Closeness to Napoleon. The political realism of Laplace is higher than the political realism of Napoleon.
You can read this chapter here: From Peasant to Snob
There is a link to the full book on our bookshelf:
Scientific activity
Mathematics
When solving applied problems, Laplace developed methods of mathematical physics that are widely used in our time. Particularly important results relate to potential theory and special functions. The Laplace transform and the Laplace equation are named after him.
He advanced linear algebra far; in particular, Laplace gave an expansion of the determinant in minors.
Laplace expanded and systematized the mathematical foundation of probability theory and introduced generating functions. The first book of "Analytic Theory of Probability" is devoted to mathematical foundations; Probability theory proper begins in the second book, as applied to discrete random variables. There is also a proof of the limit theorems of Moivre-Laplace and applications to the mathematical processing of observations, population statistics and the “moral sciences”.
Laplace also developed the theory of errors and approximations by the method of least squares.
You can read about astronomy and physics on Wikipedia.
Here's what's associated with the name Laplace:
- Laplace - Runge - Lenz vector
- Laplace's Demon
- Biot-Savart-Laplace law
- Laplace's cosmogonic hypothesis
- Local theorem of Moivre-Laplace
- Laplace method
- Laplace operator
- Laplace plane
- Laplace transform
- Laplace distribution
- Laplace's algebraic theorem
- Laplace's equation
- Laplace number
Laplace's Demon- a thought experiment proposed in 1814 by the French mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace, as well as the main character of this experiment - a fictional intelligent being capable of perceiving at any given moment the position and speed of every particle in the Universe, recognizing its evolution both in the future and and in the past. Laplace invented this creature to clearly demonstrate the degree of our ignorance and the need for a statistical description of some real processes in the world around us.
The problem of Laplace's demon is not related to the question of whether a deterministic prediction of the course of events is possible in reality, in practice (de facto), but whether it is possible in principle, theoretically (de jure). This is precisely the possibility contained in the mechanistic description with its characteristic dualism based on the dynamic law and initial conditions. The fact that the development of a dynamical system is governed by a deterministic law (although in practice our ignorance of the initial states excludes any possibility of deterministic predictions) allows us to “distinguish” the objective truth about the system, as it would appear to Laplace’s demon, from the empirical limitations caused by our ignorance.
In the context of classical dynamics, a deterministic description may be unattainable in practice, yet it remains the limit to which a succession of increasingly precise descriptions must converge.
Original wording
Laplace was a strong proponent of causal determinism, the essence of which can be expressed in this passage from Essai philosophique sur les probabilités:
“We can regard the present state of the Universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. A mind that, at any given moment in time, knew all the forces that set nature in motion, and the position of all the bodies of which it consists, if it were also vast enough to subject these data to analysis, would be able to embrace in a single law the movement of the greatest bodies of the Universe and the smallest atom; for such a mind nothing would be unclear and the future would exist in its eyes just like the past.”
This mind is often called Laplace's Demon. It is worth noting, however, that the description of the hypothetical mind as a demon belongs not to Laplace, but to his later biographers: Laplace saw himself as a scientist, and believing that humanity could achieve a better scientific understanding of the world, he realized that if this happened, all Huge computing power will also be required to make such calculations at one specific moment. Although Laplace saw humanity's future practical problems in achieving this highest degree of knowledge and computing technology, the later ideas of quantum mechanics (the Uncertainty Principle), which were adopted by philosophers in defense of the existence of free will, also leave open the theoretical possibility of disproving the existence of such "mind".
Modern views
According to the provisions of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle makes it impossible to simultaneously accurately determine all the parameters of a particle, in particular, its coordinates and speed. Based on this, Laplace's demon is impossible by construction.
Picture of the Demon from here: philosophical-bestiary.narod2.ru/demon_laplasa....
This page also contains a description of the demon.
In the section on the question, Laplace once said about God, “I have no need of this hypothesis.” Do you think that this statement of Laplace is ser asked by the author capable the best answer is The logic of judgment says nothing about the existence/non-existence of God. In the same way, Newtonian mechanics did not need a theory about the quantum level of the universe. However, this does not prove that modern quantum physics is studying “nothing”.
P.S. By the way, some other outstanding physicists, such as Max Planck, for example, needed the God hypothesis...
Oleg Nagorny
Oracle
(71221)
science is one of the forms of reflection on the strangeness of existence... But different forms of reflection pose different questions, are surprised by different aspects of existence, and therefore often really represent different things that are not mutually exclusive...
Answer from User deleted[expert]
He cited OKAMA'S RAZOR
for example: Current travels along the shortest path
hence the conclusion: It is more likely that the current will travel along a long path than God will exist
something like that
more precisely, the Universe is constant and God does not play any role in its creation
Answer from Flush[guru]
But Einstein believed in God
Answer from Andrei-belka[guru]
“I am not at all interested in a person who does not believe in God” - F. Dostoevsky said this. And Lavoisier argued that stones (meteorites) cannot fall from the sky, because they are not there. And also the character from the film “Beware of the Car,” how he answered Detochkin’s question: does he believe in God? Do you remember?
“If God has given you a limited number of years, how can you laugh in his face...” - Jonathan Kelerman.
Answer from folder[guru]
Where is the existence/non-existence of God?
He only said that to describe the picture of the world this hypothesis is completely unnecessary.
One can only continue it: and all religion is, at best, unnecessary ballast...
Answer from Max Plankoff[guru]
As “serious” as our filkin “knowledge” about matter.
Answer from Be quieter[guru]
Osho said - “God cannot be a hypothesis, he either unconditionally exists - or he absolutely does not.”
Answer from Kolyan[guru]
I think that God definitely didn’t need him...
Answer from Angel Devil[guru]
A scientist does not need any faith other than faith in the truth. A religious person will never be able to achieve success in science, since religion will slow him down. So, religion is CONTRAINDICATED FOR A REAL scientist!
Answer from DeTka[guru]
such a weak phrase, isn’t it funny to you, sir? It’s lazy for me to type quotes in which the greatest scientists talk about the existence of God, but they are really convincing.
Anatoly Wasserman
I didn't need this hypothesis
I'm an atheist. And I am firmly convinced: the life of the Universe has never been interfered with by outside forces capable of changing or violating the laws of its existence and development without being influenced in return. The gaps in our knowledge that allow us to attribute some role to the supernatural will sooner or later disappear.
I consider all existing religions to be sacrilege. Stealing sacred objects. With the exception of Buddhism, in the classical version it does not resort to the concept of the supernatural at all (many see it as an extreme expression of materialism). These religions declare the norms of social life, developed by many thousands of years of human experience, to be the product of some extra-human intelligence. That is, they replace reasonable behavior with blind submission.
Norms that require obedience are most often reasonable. Experience, polished by tough (and sometimes cruel) natural selection, is generally quite reliable: safety rules are written in the blood of their violators.
Nobel Prize winner in economics Friedrich August von Hayek wrote in his book “Detrimental Conceit”: humanity is constantly testing new options for social order - just as nature is testing new options for the structure of organisms and their communities. Those that are more stable and viable reproduce faster. The prosperity of a society is evidence of the effectiveness of the rules governing its life and development.
The complexity of these rules often exceeds the ability to comprehend them. Meanwhile, stability of life is one of the necessary conditions for the implementation of the plans of an individual person. There are often no rational arguments in favor of the need for this stability: as the ancient Greek sophists showed, every single element of the structure of society can be logically challenged. So, in order to avoid general denial and its consequences, familiar to us from Russian nihilism and the revolutionary teachings that grew out of it, we have to strengthen the foundations, relying on some higher authority. This is the legal, ethical and everyday aspects of religion.
Evolution of religion
The rules, tested by time and sanctified by faith, nevertheless need to be understood in order to know which of them is applicable in which circumstances. Sticking your finger into an electrical outlet is dangerous for a three-year-old child. But sometimes you need an electrician.
For the sake of the efficiency of evolution, it is impossible to stop even at the most successful option at the moment. For example, dinosaurs and other large reptiles, perfectly adapted to life on the warm Earth, turned out to be powerless in the face of climate change, which most likely occurred as a result of a direct meteorite hitting the Earth. So humanity will have to develop space and nuclear research, even if today some consider it unprofitable, and some consider it contrary to its superstitions: we need to protect ourselves better than dinosaurs from the vicissitudes of fate.
But if humanity must develop, then religion must also develop. (It is curious that the current mass movement in defense of ecology has many features of religion. Due to some circumstances, environmentalists can be considered a totalitarian sect).
Jesus, who preached a new teaching to the Jews, would hardly have been delighted with the persecutor of Christians, Saul, who became a zealous Christian Paul and brought the light of the new faith to everyone except the Jews. Paul most likely would not have approved of the position of Nicholas, the bishop of the city of Myra in the Eastern Roman province of Lycia, who achieved national status for the new faith. Nicholas would undoubtedly have been outraged by the decision of Peter I, who replaced the Russian Patriarchate with a synod - an administrative institution directly subordinate to the emperor.
And let those who are deeper immersed in church dogma than I am judge about changes in the actual doctrine. Let me just remind you: the latest dogmas of the Catholic branch of Christianity - about the infallibility of the official statements of the Pope on matters of faith and about the immaculate conception of the Mother of God herself - were adopted at the Vatican Council of 1870. That is, fifteen and a half centuries after the Council of Nicaea, which established the foundations of this religion. And in Orthodoxy, non-possessors argued with the Josephites back in the 15th century, and the ritual was last significantly changed in the 17th century...
Fundamental reaction
There are few ways to adapt religion to the outside world. And they are doubtful from the point of view of religion itself. If any innovations do not correspond to the ancient canons, these innovations are subject to destruction.
Today, Islamic fundamentalists are the most prominent. But Christian fundamentalists determined the face of the world to an incomparably greater extent. Today's fundamentalists, grouped mainly around the Republican Party in the United States and similar political movements in other countries, are also ready to destroy everything that does not coincide with their beliefs: just remember the persecution of cloning! There are fundamentalists in Judaism, and the most zealous of them deny Israel’s right to exist: they say that only the Moshiach, God’s anointed, has the right to revive the Jewish kingdom in the Holy Land.
And Hinduism, with its countless gods embodying all sorts of forces of nature and society, or the Japanese Shinto faith, which sees the divine essence in any object*, are completely fundamentalistic from a European point of view. Although, of course, they do not demand the destruction of competing religions: polytheists, by and large, do not care how many gods they believe. For example, the Roman army considered evocation (conscription) to be one of the obligatory stages of crossing borders and besieging cities: local gods were invited to come over to the side of Rome. They were guaranteed due respect from both the citizens of the Roman state and the other gods operating in it. They also promised to observe rituals in their honor, with the exception of those completely incompatible with the Roman humanistic tradition. Human sacrifices were prohibited, but as compensation, the gods could watch gladiator fights.
* At the end of the 19th century, when Japan was mastering overseas economic and cultural achievements, journalists formed the custom of ceremoniously burying issues of newspapers banned by censorship. Formally, a newspaper, like everything that exists, has a kami - a soul. Therefore, if she is not released into the world, she can be considered killed. The funeral resulted in demonstrations of many thousands, until the government decided to allow only the closest relatives of the deceased - editorial staff - to attend the funeral. The matter ended with the abolition of censorship - after which the press, naturally, became much more loyal to the authorities: the confrontation itself provokes the intensity of disputes.
To the credit of Rome, it must be admitted that agreements with the gods, concluded even in such a unilateral manner, were very strictly observed until the reign of Christianity.
Cogs of a big machine
Both fundamentalists and progressives are unanimous on the main thing: it is necessary to determine the order of life of society on a religious basis. People should not so much understand the reasons for the emergence of norms and customs as obey them. Ideally, blindly.
Blind submission not only makes inevitable changes in life dangerous for deeply and sincerely believers, but also makes a person feel like a meaningless instrument in the hands of a force alien and incomprehensible to him.
True, many people are happy with this role.
Thus, devout Jews “take change much more easily than doubters and secularists. They do not consider changes dangerous precisely because they see behind them God’s desire to do - including with their own hands - something important and necessary, impossible without these changes and/or what they themselves will learn as a result of the changes. Therefore, they feel like employees of the Big Boss, having their share in the Big Business. They may at times not understand the Boss's ideas - that's why he is bigger and smarter. But their share in the case can only increase from his actions. Faith works to ensure that this “company” will never go bankrupt and will continue to grow rich.”
Alas, I cannot share the quoted belief of my playmate “What? Where? When?" and “Brain Ring” by Irina Morozovskaya. I never wanted (although life sometimes forced me) to be a boss, because I myself was never a good subordinate. I have never agreed to do a job if I didn’t understand its meaning. For many years now I have been an independent worker: I cooperate with many customers, but only when their wishes are clear to me and their positions are acceptable.
Who needs it
However, my doubts could be ignored if faith were at least necessary in some way. For the sake of - as doctors put it - operations for life-saving reasons, one can neglect generally accepted rules.
The only problem is whether humanity has not just a need for faith, but a vital need to maintain it. Needs - even the most pressing ones - can be neglected. Thus, the need for drugs* is undoubtedly present among many citizens, but society usually does not encourage it. Moreover, even if the need cannot be completely abolished, most often they find different ways to satisfy it, and among them you can choose the least harmful ones for both the person and society as a whole.
* Novalis’s expression “Religion is the opium of the people” is usually interpreted as recognition of the narcotic role of faith. Meanwhile, in the time of the famous romantic - as in the time of Marx, from whose quote we know this formula - opium was used not as a drug in the modern sense, but as an effective and relatively inexpensive painkiller. Religion actually helps with many psychological problems. For example, the role of confessors in Christianity is quite reminiscent of the activities of modern psychoanalysts.
The need for religion is far from obvious. At least for me personally.
The need for religion is even less obvious. And, as far as I can tell, current attempts to prove the opposite are, to put it mildly, unconvincing.
Laplace's argument
At the French Academy of Sciences, the famous mathematician and part-time commander Napoleon Bonaparte* congratulated his colleague, mathematician and part-time astronomer Pierre Simon de Laplace, on the publication of the second - final - volume of “Celestial Mechanics”. Having expertly analyzed and praised this fundamental work, Bonaparte at the same time expressed some surprise: in both volumes - each the size of the current Great Encyclopedic Dictionary - there was no place for even a single mention of God. Laplace’s answer went down in history: “Your Majesty, I did not need this hypothesis.”
True, Laplace did not at all deny any possibility of God. In particular, he is responsible for the description of the highest degree of determinism (the so-called demon**). Since the laws of Newtonian mechanics are so precise and comprehensive that Laplace, on their basis, was able to describe the movement of celestial bodies with an accuracy corresponding to all astronomical observations of that time, then a hypothetical mind, capable of simultaneously knowing the positions, directions and speeds of movement of all particles in the Universe, would be able to pre-calculate all further events throughout the world for all time. And from here it is one step to the possibility of intervention in all these events. Knowing how to accurately calculate any consequences of moving even a single atom, you can push this atom at the right moment so that the further chain of events will sooner or later lead to any significant consequences. In Isaac Asimov's novel The End of Eternity, a vast organization with the ability to travel through time (and therefore called Eternity) continually calculates the minimum necessary actions - MNE - to prevent unwanted paths of human development, and then sends technicians into the past to carry out the MNE. True, the accuracy of Eternity’s calculations is far from absolute. Therefore, to achieve a result, you have to move not an atom, but, for example, a box of spare parts for a personal aircraft. And most importantly, all EOMs have one global consequence: humanity, without experiencing severe pressure from wars, epidemics and other disasters, eventually found itself under irresistible pressure from other civilizations. Eventually, one of Eternity's employees undertakes the MNV necessary to destroy the organization itself.
* Napoleon became an academician after solving several rather complex problems. In particular, he proposed a simple way to construct a square using one ruler (with two notches) - without a compass. The task, at first glance elementary, actually concerns many fundamental problems of geometry, as well as its connections with algebra. In particular, the solution proposed by Bonaparte was a significant step towards proving the possibility, using only a compass or only a ruler with two serifs, to make any constructions that can be done with a compass and a sans-serif ruler. And this, in turn, is important for establishing a correspondence between constructions with compasses and rulers and solving equations of the first and second degrees.
** In the ancient tradition, a demon is not an evil spirit, as in the Christian tradition. This is simply something spiritual that does not have a stable material embodiment of Laplace.
Quantum mechanics has proven: the movement of sufficiently small particles is fundamentally unpredictable, and this unpredictability is not associated with the influence of other particles, but has an internal nature. Therefore, even complete omniscience of the current state of the entire Universe does not allow us to foresee any significant future. And it is possible to predict the consequences of any events - including one’s own actions - only with a fair amount of error.
But Laplace’s answer to Bonaparte is still relevant today.
The conversation between the artilleryman and the astronomer, however, did not end there. The mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange, who was present, noted: “Oh, this is a wonderful hypothesis; it explains a lot.”
And he was not original in this. It is convenient to motivate any events, processes and patterns with the all-encompassing will of God. Lomonosov, decades before Lagrange, sarcastically noted: it is easy to become a scientist by learning three words “God created this” and putting them in place of all causes.
But precisely because of this convenience, the God hypothesis is unproductive. And Laplace replied: “This hypothesis, Your Majesty, really explains everything, but does not allow us to predict anything; As a scientist, it is my responsibility to provide you with work that allows you to predict.”
The practical power of science is determined precisely by its ability to foresee - on the basis of previously established patterns. Lomonosov’s younger contemporary, one of the co-authors of the first French Encyclopedia, Claude Adrian Helvetius, expressed this with a remarkable formula: “Knowledge of some principles easily compensates for ignorance of some facts.”
Of course, predictions are far from the only thing we expect from science. For example, the geocentric description of the solar system proposed by Ptolemy, with the proper number of epicycles - interconnectedly moving circles - predicts the movement of the planets almost as accurately as the heliocentric method, which existed long before Ptolemy, and through the efforts of Newton and Einstein, reduced to the manifestation of some general laws. Heliocentrism is more reliable than geocentrism, because it requires fewer arbitrary assumptions - such as the characteristics of epicycles. Therefore, even such conservative structures as official churches eventually abandoned geocentrism.
Science both predicts specific phenomena and explains the laws that give rise to these phenomena. Moreover, the predictions must follow fully from the explanations. The fewer laws, the more general they are, the simpler each of them, the more effective science is. Among the key scientific principles is the following: “What can be explained by means of less should not be expressed by means of more” (one should not invent additional concepts to explain what can be explained in the simplest way). This is the so-called Occam's razor.
But in any case, the correctness of predictions is an integral (since practical) requirement put forward to science. Based on faith, reliable predictions are given no more often than erroneous ones. Religion counts the “razor” among its undoubted achievements: Ockham was a medieval theologian. But for every such successful step of reason inspired by faith, there are thousands of reasonings like counting the number of angels that fit on the point of a needle.
And Occam's razor itself is double-edged. While the world can be explained without the help of religion, it cuts off religion from the world.
The world is comprehensible
The possibility of explaining the world in itself is far from obvious.
Man is just a modest part of the Universe. His consciousness is limited by personal experience, the volume of his brain, and many habits and prejudices. Therefore, a person is able to directly know only a very small part of the Universe. And there is no obvious guarantee that the laws of this part apply to the entire Universe.
Moreover, there is no guarantee that we will correctly define at least these laws. Science constantly revises its provisions. Back in the 1930s, the mathematician Kurt Gödel proved that such revision is inevitable from time to time. No consistent system of axioms large enough to include even ordinary arithmetic can be complete. Within the framework of this system, it is inevitably possible to formulate statements that cannot be either proven or refuted by means of this system. To understand such statements, it is necessary to introduce additional axioms.
Still, the science works. And quite successfully. Our ideas about the world are sufficient to not only navigate it, but also independently create a lot of things that did not previously exist, but operate successfully in the most complex and difficult to predict external conditions.
Religion easily explains the comprehensibility of the world. Almighty God is able to put reliable - albeit not exhaustive - information about all of his creations into the mind of one of them. He may even conceive of this creation as a repository of such information - an analogue of current flash cards, easily connected to many different devices.
But there is a simpler explanation. Our brain is part of the Universe. The laws by which it operates are part of the laws of the Universe. Accordingly, there should be no direct contradictions between the mind and the rest of the Universe. The comprehensibility of the world is evidence of the unity not of the plan according to which it was designed, but of the laws according to which it works.
Moreover, this unity indirectly indicates the absence of a single designer. Any technical design is replete with elements that were created specifically to solve specific problems and have no explanation outside of these tasks. Natural structures do not have such elements. For example, no matter how narrowly specialized some part of the organism is, it is always possible to trace its origin from initial forms that have a fairly general purpose.
We are not created. We have arisen.
Effective mathematics
Galileo also said: the book of nature is written in the language of mathematics. In those days it was more than surprising. How can rules established on the basis of simple drawings and calculations apply to the swing of pendulums and the rotation of planets?
The range of subjects studied by science has increased since then. The mathematical apparatus used to describe them is so sophisticated that most of it did not exist at all under Galileo. Mathematics grew out of observations of real objects - albeit relatively simple ones. If the whole world is subject to the same laws, then on the basis of such observations it is possible to establish at least the simplest of them. The further development of mathematics inevitably covers those areas in which more complex laws of the same unified nature lie. Sooner or later, different paths of research - mathematical, physical, biological - again intersect with each other. Stanislav Lem in “Sum of Technologies” notes: mathematicians try to cover all possible structures. It is precisely thanks to such omnivorousness that the stock of mathematical models sooner or later accumulates those that are suitable for reality - whatever this reality may be.
The commonality of mathematics and nature makes it possible, in particular, to build virtual realities - mathematical constructions that accurately model some natural phenomena. Moreover, David Deutsch in his book “The Structure of Reality” showed that although it is impossible to build a single mathematical construction (that is, a computer) capable of simulating any conceivable reality, no matter how fantastic, it is possible to create a single mathematical construction that represents any physically possible reality.
In a word, mathematics is the language of nature itself. And it can be applied to the world without the idea of God.
General development
For many centuries, a non-religious explanation of the world seemed highly unlikely. As science developed, the situation changed, and new arguments of a non-religious nature appeared. However, every now and then new phenomena were discovered, and each one needed a description. Can a single natural cause explain the existence of the sparrow and the ostrich, the elephant and the giraffe, the chalk cliffs of Dover and the granite of the Himalayas?
As information accumulated, the motley mosaic of the scientific picture of the world formed more and more densely, and patterns of those very principles appeared in it, which, according to Helvetius, compensate us for ignorance of the facts. The main principle explaining the observed diversity of the world has become development. It entered science back in the Middle Ages in relation to the enlargement of the body parts of the embryo that, according to the scientists of that time, were present to it from the moment of conception.
However, in the original germ cell there are no ready-made body parts at all. They are formed later and in a much more cunning way. Likewise, in nature there are no initially prepared chalk rocks. Over millions of years they grow from tiny mollusks and algae in calcareous shells. There is no need for a Noah’s Ark with stocks of various living creatures: all the diversity of species we observe is generated by random changes (mutations) of hereditary material and the subsequent selection of the most successful combinations of these changes in relation to external conditions, which are also continuously changing under the influence of almighty time.
In geology, the idea of development was established relatively quickly: the layered structures that have been observed for centuries on almost any river cliff are very obvious. But in biology the situation is still more complicated. Scientists quickly accepted the evidence presented in Darwin's fundamental works, and since then they have argued only about the specific mechanisms of variability, heredity and selection. But the broader (and less enlightened) masses have still not fully come to terms with the striking contradiction between the stories about the creation of the animal world and the harmonious scientific picture.
To be fair, the picture itself is complex enough that understanding it requires some effort. In particular, in Darwin's time the study of heredity was just beginning. Darwin, it seems, never became acquainted with the works of Gregor Mendel, who first discovered the discreteness of heritable characteristics. Therefore, until the end of my life I wondered: why are new variants of forms not diluted with old ones to the point of complete indistinguishability?
The modern theory of biological evolution has long ago solved all the problems faced by the first generations of researchers of the Darwinian concept*. This, however, does not mean its completion. In science, every answer raises new questions. But a presentation of current current trends, vigorously discussed by biologists, is beyond the scope of this article.
* For example, the question of the internal laws of hereditary structures, which gave rise to the idea of nomogenesis - regular development, was studied by Nikolai Vavilov in the 1920s in the law of homological series. Related genetic materials contain many of the same links and therefore produce similar expressions: for example, wheat, rye and oats have very similar sets of varieties. But this is evidence not of the unity of the designer’s plans, but of a common origin.
Alas, the scientific achievements of recent decades are always little accessible to the general public. School textbooks traditionally present only that information about which no one breaks spears. Therefore, in particular, biological evolution is still presented there practically according to “The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” of 1859. And inquisitive schoolchildren sometimes have questions that tormented Darwin and his first opponents. But the answer to these questions cannot be found in textbooks. Not everyone is accustomed to reading even popular summaries of the latest scientific achievements. In the USSR, such statements were published not only in magazines, but also in the book series “Eureka” and “Library of the Magazine “Kvant””. Unfortunately, their publication was interrupted for a long time during the reorganization of the publishing industry (for example, “Eureka” moved from “Young Guard” to “Amphora”) - although old issues are available in many libraries. But the magazines “Knowledge is Power”, “Science and Life”, “Chemistry and Life” are still published and are available to everyone.
Creationism is quite popular in the USA: they say that the scientific explanation of the origin of species is just a hypothesis, and therefore in school it is necessary to present the biblical description of their creation - creatio - on an equal footing with it. At first glance, the demand for equality seems fair: until you think about whether there is evidence for creation that is even remotely similar in meaningfulness and reliability to Darwin's evidence? Does creation have implications comparable in significance to those of genetic research? Is it possible to present science and... fantasy on equal terms?
Modern Russia knows creationism mainly thanks to the efforts of two little-known PR people - Anton Vuyma and Kirill Schreiber. In order to gain popularity, they, on behalf of Schreiber's daughter Maria, filed a lawsuit against the Russian education system, demanding that biblical creation be taught in schools along with other theories of the origin of life in the Universe. The fate of the girl, who at the age of fifteen was embroiled in a scandal by her own father, where she is forced to play the role of a stupid, uneducated and capricious young lady, does not seem to bother anyone.
For people seriously familiar with the topic, there is no doubt that all the wealth of forms of the modern world - from stars to our hair - is fully explained by the laws of nature.
Nature does not require divine intervention.
Watchmaker's place
For a long time it was believed that even if the current state and development of the world can be explained without mentioning God, then at least to understand the very existence of the world one cannot do without divine creation. Newton's world seemed like something like a complex clock, whose countless gears, cunningly clinging to each other, produce incredibly graceful movements - but all this grace was invented in advance by the almighty watchmaker and embedded in the finest mechanism he built.
Newtonian mechanics did not determine when the universal clock began to tick. It seemed that planets and stars could move in stable orbits indefinitely. And if there is no obvious starting point - the Creator - why not consider that it never existed?
True... Saturn has several rings with distinct gaps between them, rather than one continuous ring. Orbits where the orbital periods are multiples of each other are unstable to the mutual attraction of the satellites orbiting along them. Therefore, each large satellite of Saturn clears several narrow strips of small stones that form rings. And since such stripping is possible, we can assume that the ring was once solid and only subsequently fell apart. Therefore, the Saturn system may not be infinitely ancient.
Tidal waves generated by the mutual attraction of celestial bodies move not only water in the earth's oceans and ammonia and hydrogen in the atmosphere of large planets, but even the planetary solids! A fair amount of energy is wasted on this. There is nowhere to take it from except from the rotation of the stars, planets, and satellites themselves. Therefore, for example, the Earth's day is lengthening, and the Moon is moving further and further from the Earth (the higher the orbit, the slower the movement along it). In hundreds of millions of years, the Moon will move away from us to the same distance as the Sun, and the Earth will rotate around the Sun and its own axis at the same speed, that is, it will be directed towards the Sun along the same meridian (where something unthinkable by today’s standards will reign). heat).
The initial speeds of the Earth and the Moon are not infinite. Their movement did not begin infinitely long ago: about four billion years ago. In the 1930s, clear evidence was found of the existence of a reference point for the age of the entire Universe. Galaxies are constantly moving further and further away. It seems that once upon a time (according to the latest data, about twenty billion years ago) they began their run from one point. Its discoverers called this beginning the Big Bang - the Big Bang. True, many billions of years passed from the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies. And the four billion years of the existence of the Earth and the two billion years of evolution of the biosphere also do not fit well with the biblical six days of creation and four to five thousand years of pre-Gospel history. But theologians have long eliminated such discrepancies by referring to the allegorical language of the Holy Scriptures: they say, God, dictating the details of his works and plans to the ancient prophets, was forced to put up with the limitations of their knowledge.
When the Big Bang phenomenon was first discovered, it was considered indisputable proof of the existence of God. Soviet ideologists - they were sarcastically called “priests of the Marxist parish” - even tried on this basis to abolish a fair part of modern physics. They were, however, interrupted in a timely manner, offering to choose between ideological purity and a nuclear bomb: even to explain the general principles of its operation - not to mention the calculations of specific structures - one cannot do without either the theory of relativity or quantum mechanics.
The combination of two key physical theories, born at the dawn of the twentieth century, made it possible by the mid-1960s to clearly describe all the processes that occurred more than 10-43 seconds after the Big Bang. But even such a modest period of inexplicable events is sufficient for a common statement: it was in these moments, imperceptible to us, that the almighty God laid the foundations for all processes that are developing to this day.
Anthropic principle
It should be noted: the foundations of the Universe are laid very skillfully. The basic quantities that determine the form of all physical laws (the so-called fundamental constants) are surprisingly finely balanced. A change in the speed of light or the gravitational constant by a few percent would be enough for the resulting world to turn out to be not just strange and uncomfortable for us, but generally unsuitable for the emergence of intelligence or even not allowing the existence of life at all. In any case, life in a form understandable to us. It is difficult to imagine what life would look like in a world where elementary particles cannot merge into atoms. Stars, planets, or even macroscopic bodies could be impossible.
The dimension of our world is also successful. In four-dimensional space, stable planetary orbits are impossible - a system similar to our Solar system could not exist long enough for the development of life. In two-dimensional (flat) space, unstable orbits are impossible: for example, an atom cannot be ionized, which reduces the possibilities of chemistry and excludes biochemistry.
Research indicating consistency in the characteristics of the world has greatly impressed the scientific community. Moreover, several new patterns were soon discovered. This made it possible to formulate a new scientific position - the anthropic principle: the world is precisely such that intelligence is possible in it.
Who created the world for the sake of reason in it? The answer seemed obvious.
Boiling Universes
In the 1970s, Soviet physicists David Kirzhnits and Andrei Linde showed that quantum fluctuations in the physical vacuum create in it an energy potential sufficient for the continuous emergence of new universes.
The development of these ideas (mainly through the efforts of Alexei Starobinsky and Erast Gliner) comprehensively explains both the very root cause of the Big Bang and the mechanism for the development of processes in those very 10-43 seconds, which previously remained unclear. The last physical loophole for God has closed.
At the same time, the anthropic principle became clear. In different universes arising from the primary vacuum, fundamental constants and other physical laws (perhaps even the dimension of space-time) can be arbitrarily different. Nature is constantly trying out new mutations of the worlds - just as in our world it is constantly trying out new mutations of genes. Sooner or later, worlds accumulate where life in general and intelligence in particular are possible. The anthropic principle does not point to the intelligence of the creator, but to the limitless diversity of worlds.
Multiverse
Not only are the worlds born from a single vacuum numerous. The vacuums themselves, apparently, are also countless.
The reason for quantum randomness, which causes everything to move along not entirely predictable trajectories, generating entire universes from the vacuum, has not yet been comprehended. And for several decades now, Hugh Everett’s hypothesis has been looking more and more convincing: an infinite number of worlds coexist in parallel, each movement of each particle occurs in all these worlds simultaneously and along all possible trajectories.
Translated from Latin universum - Universe. The particle uni means one. The Universe was originally thought of as something that embraces everything that exists, and therefore is unique. Everett proposed a picture of a world where universes are multiple. Accordingly, in the name uni is replaced by multi: many.
This picture allows, in particular, to determine the probability of any event as the ratio of the number of universes where it occurred to the total number of universes. Both of these numbers are infinite. But mathematics, back in the 18th century, learned to deal with infinity relations. And at the beginning of the 20th century, a theory of sets was formed that was able to distinguish between infinities that are not reducible to each other. The mathematical apparatus suitable for Everett's theory has long been ready.
The laws that determine this relationship have been studied in detail in quantum mechanics, but only now are they acquiring a simple and clear meaning.
At the same time, the multiverse makes many paradoxes associated with the concept of time irrelevant. Within the framework of the multiverse concept, such a concept does not exist at all. The multiverse includes all worlds - including those that differ as if some of them developed from others. The comparison of such worlds leads to the idea of time.
Serious exploration of Everett's concept is just beginning. In particular, it is not yet clear to what extent and by what mechanisms countless parallel worlds can influence each other. Ideas about such influence still remain the subject of science fiction novels. The physical picture is not drawn even in the most general terms.
Enough for the wise
It is still impossible to predict sufficiently long-term consequences of the multiverse. But one thing is already clear. As David Deutsch showed in The Structure of Reality, evolution, the multiverse with its corollary quantum mechanics, the intelligibility of the world and the effectiveness of mathematics mutually explain each other. The inevitable gaps in each of these four concepts are filled by bringing in the other three. If we take all of them into account at the same time, there seems to be no room for faith at all in the scientific picture of the world.
Of course, sooner or later there will be phenomena that do not fit into Deutsch’s structure. But there is not the slightest reason to believe that to describe these phenomena it will be necessary to resort to something that does not fit into the idea of the natural. A reasonable person will always have enough non-religious explanations.
True, some of them themselves are quite strange. For example, outside the scope of this article is solipsism - the belief that only the bearer of this belief exists, and the rest of the world appears to him. Some considerations allowing one to reject this extreme are given by the same Deutsch.
However, these technical subtleties do not change the main thing. Atheism is often called simply disbelief in the existence of God and on this basis is declared to be a belief in his non-existence - that is, just a type of religion. As can be seen from all of the above, atheism is no more a faith than, for example, confidence in one’s own existence.
Since the time of Laplace, humanity has had no more reason to need a hypothesis about God. And, apparently, it will not increase.
It's better to break up with the sun
Where do the rules that define our lives come from? Do good deeds and avoid remorse. But who can say which deeds are considered good?
Classical atheism has long succumbed to such questions. But for religion there were no difficulties: God (or gods, if there are many of them in a given faith) is the source of the whole world, including the laws by which people must act.
In different eras and in different countries there were many not only the gods themselves, but also the laws prescribed by them. However, theologians were able to explain this strangeness for several reasons at once: the falsity of some beliefs (but, of course, not those beliefs that those theologians themselves adhered to), and the fact that religions were forced to adapt to the narrowness of the human worldview in other eras, and many, many others .
Meanwhile, humanity gradually studied the laws of evolution. According to these laws, different territorial, national and social groups of people continuously experience in practice all possible options for the structure of society and modes of behavior within it - just as nature continuously experiences different options for the organization of living beings and their communities. Those who are better suited internally and better suited to external conditions survive better and reproduce more intensively, eventually displacing those who are less adapted. The stability of the prosperity of a society directly depends on how well this society chooses its mode of activity. The best justification for this, in my opinion, was given by Nobel Prize winner in economics Friedrich August von Hayek in his book “Detrimental Conceit.”
True, the reasons for the effectiveness of the social structure and functioning even today - with a more complete knowledge of the social sciences and historical patterns - are not always clear. In ancient times, the very phenomenon of society was considered a miracle. And always, as now, there were enough people who wanted to violate the established norms of the social order in the hope of personal success. In order for the social organism to survive in these difficult conditions and exist according to clearly defined rules, these rules had to be created with reference to supernatural authority.
Today, science has not yet learned to predict the paths evolution will take. Moreover, serious reasons have accumulated to believe that the accuracy of such predictions is fundamentally limited. Thus, the first programming language, Fortran (Formula Translation), invented in 1954, was quite primitive. More advanced developments emerged a couple of years later. But over the years, the scientists for whom the tool was intended managed to write so many subroutines that translating them into other languages was much less profitable than continuing to write in this one. Until now, a Fortran compiler is made for any new generation of processors. True, relatively few people use them on personal computers. But the most powerful supersystems spend sometimes up to 9/10ths of computer time executing programs written in Fortran.
In areas less dynamic than computers, “commercial immortality” even more so happens at almost every step. For example, the main contribution to the development of the current Russian rifle casing was made back in 1889 by designer Veltishchev. The cartridge case was created for a single-shot rifle. It was adopted for service in 1891 along with the Mosin repeating rifle (like most gunsmiths, Mosin borrowed many essential features of his development from the Nagan rifle that was tested in parallel - and Nagan, when debugging his system, learned a lot from Mosin). Then the technology for producing the cartridge case was brought to such perfection, and so many cartridges were stamped with it that new systems are still being developed for it - even despite the fact that the essential features of its design, optimal for a single-shot rifle of an ordinary infantryman, make it extremely difficult for magazine and belt systems to work feed, increasing fire accuracy and meeting many other modern requirements. And for new weapons - like a single Kalashnikov machine gun or a Dragunov sniper rifle - the production of cartridges continues.
And there is no end in sight to this vicious circle.
But science has at least substantiated the risks associated with the reconstruction of society. She gave a new explanation, not based on the highest supernatural authority, of the unconscious mass craving for stability.
God and the gods were forced out of yet another sphere of thought.
Reduction and simplification
The mass consciousness has difficulty understanding the discourse about evolution. Even now, after several centuries of scientific discussions about geological and biological evolution. Humanity has been accustomed to the idea of the existence of supernatural forces and reliance on these forces for thousands of years. It wasn't so easy to give it up.
As Voltaire said, if God did not exist, he would have to be invented. Therefore, even the most enlightened analysts are tempted to create the most concise and simple explanation of existence that anyone, even a not particularly educated person, could apply.
Brevity and simplicity work for the time being. For example, graduates of most Western universities get into work mode noticeably faster than their colleagues who were educated according to the methods familiar to us since Soviet times: even during their training, they receive clear instructions on the procedure for action in circumstances that they will inevitably encounter in practice.
The only trouble is that specific recipes work in specific conditions. A paramedic can, without a doctor's order, give an aspirin tablet to anyone who complains of a headache. But what if the pain is caused by a mini-stroke? Aspirin, which has a noticeable effect on blood clotting, can, depending on the nature of the stroke, either alleviate or worsen the patient’s condition. And, in any case, it will not eliminate the cause of the pain, but will only complicate the diagnosis. What if a person suffers not only from a headache, but also from a stomach ulcer?
Similarly, Western ordinary engineers need to regularly undergo retraining courses - when almost any new product appears. In the course of classical training, an engineer first of all receives a complete understanding of all kinds of general laws, on the basis of which specific solutions and methods are created.
The method of independent courses in selected disciplines, popular in the United States and now an essential part of the Bologna process, inevitably leaves significant gaps in basic knowledge. The need to compensate for them with specific recipes, in turn, takes much more time than is needed to assimilate the corresponding base, and thereby further reduces its volume. The vicious circle closes.
The explanation of social order through God suffers from the same problem. It offers specific recipes without understanding the laws behind them and without even realizing the very fact of the existence of these laws. Therefore, the slightest change in external conditions confronts the believer with a difficult choice: continue to observe the old rules, risking leaving life, or accept new rules, risking leaving God.
A textbook example of a bad choice is the Old New Year.
The Russian (as well as some other local) Orthodox Church still lives according to the calendar developed in the first century BC by the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes and put into effect by Gaius Julius Caesar when he was Rome's greatest bridge builder*. But this calendar, created on the basis of astronomical observations of rather low accuracy, considered the year to be equal to 365 + 1/4 days. In reality, the year is somewhat shorter.
* The power of Rome relied heavily on engineering. Roman roads, designed for efficient trade and rapid movement of armies, are still in use today. Canals and aqueducts today supply the Eternal City with fresh water, as in Caesar's days. It is not surprising that the high priest bore the proud title of pontifex maximus - the largest bridge builder. By the way, the Pope also inherited this title.
Caesar, adopting the calendar, set the beginning of the year on January 1, when the main Roman elected leaders traditionally took office (before him, the year began on March 1), and combined this date itself with the winter solstice. But after his death, the priests were confused for several years between the old and new calendars, so that by the year of the official birth of Jesus Christ, the solstice, which coincided with the official date of his birth, already fell on December 25th.
The Council of Nicaea in 322-323, among other things, established that the vernal equinox falls on March 21st. This is necessary to calculate the date of Easter celebration: the Jewish calendar, from where this event came to Christianity, is synchronized not only with the Sun, but also with the Moon. And Christians who celebrate Easter on the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring need to clearly know which full moon is the first full moon of spring. And from the time of Jesus to the Council, the error of the calendar shifted precisely this date to the equinox.
In subsequent centuries, the error accumulated, and the accuracy of astronomical calculations and observations, including the determination of the moments of the solstices and equinoxes, grew. In addition, the real seasons are connected with the real position of the Earth relative to the Sun, so that the discrepancy between ancient calendar signs and the weather was clear even to completely uneducated peasants. Many journalists still haven't realized this. Signs accumulated in the early Middle Ages are published in magazines and newspapers with reference to the church - Julian - calendar, which leads to obvious errors in everyday weather and harvest forecasts.
Eventually, the Italian astronomer Luigi Lillio developed a new calendar in which years divisible by a hundred, but not by four hundred, are considered simple years rather than leap years. The error of this calendar is about one day in four thousand years. The need for its correction will become obvious in a dozen or two millennia. The head of the Roman Catholic Church, Gregory XIII, signed a decree introducing this calendar into circulation. At the same time, it was necessary to remove ten days from the calendar account in order to bring March 21st to the moment of the vernal equinox, as commanded by the Council of Nicaea.
Other movements of Christianity, not subordinate to the pope, pondered for a long time whether they should follow the calendar reform. Eventually, most Christians came around to the idea of the secular nature of the calendar and accepted it as a more effective tool than the Julian one.
The leaders of the Orthodox churches considered it unacceptable to throw out days (that is, skipping - even one-time - annual celebrations in honor of quite a few saints), and complicating the calculation of Easter, and the possibility of the Christian Easter coinciding with the Jewish Passover, and many other theological and technical complications arising from any change in the count of days. The seventh apostolic canon prescribes: “If anyone - a bishop, or a presbyter, or a deacon - celebrates the holy day of Easter before the vernal equinox with the Jews: let him be deposed from the sacred rank.” But Orthodox religious teachers, referring to this requirement, forget: according to the Gregorian calendar, as well as the Julian calendar, Easter occurs only after the astronomical spring equinox, while the rule only prohibits the combination of two conditions - not only coinciding with Passover, but also ahead of the equinox. It turns out that, according to logic and astronomy, the transition to a new style does not threaten anyone with losing their position.
The calendar reform was accepted by a minority of patriarchates. In 1923, the Patriarch of Constantinople (and after him ten more local churches) adopted the New Julian system, which coincided with the Gregorian system until 2800. The Moscow Patriarchate still remains in the hopelessly outdated Julian style, forcing its followers to celebrate all Christian holidays in isolation from most of the world of the same faith (the gap is already thirteen days!), and to celebrate Christmas after the general New Year.
Many Eastern Rite churches, including the one that spiritually nourishes our country, refuse to comply with the only Nicene injunction that allows for independent - astronomical - verification. Thus, they are deprived - and, most importantly, they deprive their adherents - of the right to the title of Orthodox - correct believers, that is, observing all the requirements of the apostles and ecumenical councils. The Herostratus phrase, attributed to the Patriarch of Constantinople Jeremiah, who at the end of 1583 rejected the clarification of the calendar, has gone down in history: “It is better to separate from the Sun than to converge with the Pope.”
You have to choose
Religion does not always give false instructions in everything. If something like this really happened, it would be much easier for us to live. The Prophet Muhammad is credited with advice: man, listen to the advice of a woman - and do the opposite. Replace the woman in this phrase with faith - and use religion as a compass, where the end of the arrow, aimed at the south and not the north, is painted in the usual blue color.
In reality, everything is much more complicated. Among Christian churches, there are churches that focus on accurate astronomy, and there are also those that use astronomy that is significantly outdated. That is, even orientation towards the religious canon does not free us from at least one choice: which canon?
Here we are faced with an unexpected complexity in an area that seems to be very distant from faith - in mathematics.
Gödel's theorems
Any reasoning is based on initial assumptions. They, in turn, need to be justified, and the chain of justification cannot be endless. At some stage, you have to choose initial positions that are accepted without evidence.
The idea of relying on unproven assumptions was first clearly formulated by the ancient Greeks. Therefore, they are still called throughout the world by the Greek word “axiom” - valuable, worthy. And the consequences logically deduced from them are again called the Greek word “theorem” - spoken by God.
Choosing a system of axioms is not easy. If some theorems derived from them clearly contradict experience, then one has to decide: either the axioms are incorrect, or experience is interpreted inaccurately. True, one can develop an axiomatics without testing it by experience - in the hope that in some new field of knowledge there will be an application for it: this is how pure mathematics usually works. But experience often indicates non-trivial directions of work - this is how applied mathematics develops - and therefore it is advisable to consult it more often.
In addition, some axioms are interchangeable: if you choose one of them, then the other can be proven on its basis. And we need to decide which set of axioms is more convenient for proof. Euclid, in whose works the idea of axiomatics was first carried out quite strictly, formulated one of his axioms - the postulate of parallel lines - in a pointedly clumsy manner: it seems that he suspected that it could in fact be proven, and with such a formulation he aimed later research at it. True, the matter turned out to be even more interesting: as it turned out already in the 19th century, this is indeed an axiom, and rejection of it gives rise to other geometries, and within the framework of Euclidean axiomatics it is possible to construct models of these geometries - which means they are all equally reliable.
The question of the reliability of axiomatics also arises without connection with experience. If it is possible to simultaneously derive both a statement and its negation, then such a contradictory system is clearly useless: what has already been proven can be immediately refuted. If in a system it is possible to construct a statement that, within its own framework, is unprovable but also irrefutable, then such an incomplete system is only of limited use: to clarify the fate of such a statement, new axioms will have to be introduced into the system.
Naturally, one of the goals of mathematicians for a long time was to check the consistency of the system of axioms that they used. The completeness of the system is also desirable: you don’t want to stumble every time, like Euclid, on statements that are obviously impossible to cope with.
The search for proof of the consistency and completeness of mathematical axiomatics took a long time, persistently and very inventively. But in 1931, the German mathematician Kurt Gödel proved two theorems that were radically different from all previous ideas about the foundations of mathematics as a logical structure.
By the first theorem, any theory large enough to include arithmetic is either incomplete or inconsistent. According to the second theorem, if a theory including arithmetic is consistent, then it cannot be proven by its means.
Arithmetic is very important here. And not only for technical reasons: Gödel constructed specific examples of unprovable and irrefutable statements using precisely arithmetic tools. The content side of the matter is much more important - the connection with reality. Thus, formal logic does not obey Gödel's theorems. Any statement formulated within its framework can be unambiguously proven by its own means or just as unambiguously refuted. In particular, the statement about its consistency is strictly proven by logic itself. But the means of logic are so poor that even arithmetic operations cannot be determined by these means - which means that formal logic is insufficient to describe the real world.
Incomplete Science
Science that deals with the real world is, on the whole, immeasurably richer not only than formal logic, but also arithmetic and mathematics in general. This means, according to Gödel, it is obviously incomplete. However, science does not pretend to be complete.
By the end of the 19th century, the famous physicist Philippe Jolly told one of his students that studying physics was futile: all the basic laws had already been comprehended, so that future generations were left with only technical fuss with their application to specific circumstances. The student - ironically - was Max Planck, who soon proved the quantum nature of radiation, which began a new physical revolution that continues to this day.
This experience has long convinced scientists: the euphoria over new comprehensive theories is transitory. Sooner or later, science goes beyond the limits of what is known, and it is necessary to introduce new ideas - new axioms.
One of the first to formulate this was the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Eratosthenes: the larger the sphere of our knowledge, the larger the surface of its contact with the unknown. True, the image used by Eratosthenes also has an optimistic component. The ratio of volume and surface area of a sphere is proportional to its radius. That is, as knowledge grows, it becomes easier for us to remain among what is already open and less and less often we have to deal with the incomprehensible. Science helps us get rid of everyday unknowns.
Of course, science is not limited to axioms. You can compare theoretical assumptions with experience and replace theoretical evidence with such verification. It was in this way that it was established, for example, that the surface of the Earth is described using not Euclidean, but Riemannian geometry - that is, it is not flat, but approximately spherical. Now astronomical observations clarify the axiomatics of the geometry of our entire Universe.
But still, the possibilities of the experiment are not unlimited. And its interpretations are ambiguous. Einstein pointed out: only theory determines what exactly we saw in the experiment and what we understood from it. So scientific knowledge - not only experiment, but also the creation on its basis of new axioms and even axiomatic systems - will most likely continue indefinitely. The world is just as impossible to fully comprehend through scientific methods as it is through religious methods.
The incompleteness of science allows, according to Gödel, hope: science as a whole is consistent. Even if its specific branches contain contradictions, then these contradictions are dialectical, removed by the further course of development.
Duns Scotus against contradictions
The development of some branches of science has already been completed. For example, the above-mentioned formal logic. One of her achievements will be useful to us. The English Franciscan monk and theologian John Duns Scotus (1265 - 1308) said: from any false statement one can strictly logically deduce any statement - both false and true. In this case, it does not matter at all whether these statements are meaningfully connected: according to the classic example, if two and two are five, then there are witches. Within the framework of formal logic, the law of Duns Scotus is undeniable.
From Gödel's first theorem it is clear: if a system is complete, it is inconsistent. From Duns Scotus' law it is clear: if at least one pair of contradictory statements can be deduced in a system, then any statement, no matter how meaningless, can be deduced. Thus, from a practical point of view, a contradictory axiomatics is quite equivalent to a deliberately false statement.
Root cause
Now let's return from mathematics to religion. Of course, religion is not reduced to axioms. Repeated theological attempts to fully formalize it have invariably failed. But nevertheless, religion includes some - and sometimes quite clearly formulated - axiomatics.
Within the framework of the Mosaic tradition (it includes Judaism, Christianity, Islam and several minor movements), among the key axioms is the uniqueness and omnipotence of God. The axiom of God as the root cause of all things is also important: it was God who, according to his plan and discretion, created the entire world and controls it: directly - through direct intervention - or indirectly - with the help of the laws he created.
In polytheistic religions, the situation is more complicated: different aspects of life are controlled by specialized gods. In some beliefs, the gods who created the world have long been removed from business or even died, and everyday life is carried out not by the “founders of the company,” but by their heirs or even hired employees. And in subjective idealism - for example, in Buddhism - the root cause of the world and its current management are not at all connected with the holy spirit.
But even in such complex and intricate systems, the key idea that unites any religion remains unchanged: the assumption of a force external to the entire world, which created it, capable of influencing it without being subject to any reciprocal influence. But how this force is structured inside is not so important.
The hypothesis of the existence of such a force, in particular, explains everything for which no other explanation can be found.
Of course, science has learned a lot from theology. And its global goal - studying the structure of the world - was initially quite religious: understanding the creator’s plan. But this is precisely why science is forced to abandon the use of the axiom of God. The temptation, having reached the limit of one’s knowledge, is too great to declare everything that lies beyond this limit to be the direct results of God’s inscrutable providence. But references to God do not explain exactly how God acted in each specific case, how his creation was structured, what his plan and providence were. It is not for nothing that they say: any serious scientist, regardless of his religion, is forced to be an atheist in his free time at work. Otherwise, it’s simply boring to work.
But even if the axiom of God is not applied in science, the intellectual activity of mankind is noticeably broader than science. And in this activity, the axiom of God - omnipotent and all-explaining - occupies an important place.
Complete + arithmetic = inconsistent
So, religion relies on an axiom that guarantees the explanation of everything. The existence of a god (or gods) eliminates the need for further explanations - that is, for replenishing the axiomatics. The axiomatics of religion are obviously complete. This means that according to Gödel’s first theorem, it is contradictory.
By the way, I note: atheism is often called one of the varieties of religion. But he does not at all pretend to provide a complete explanation of the world, based on some predetermined set of basic principles*. The qualitative difference between atheism and any religion in particular is that its system of axioms is incomplete. And this gives us the right to hope for its consistency.
* Even Laplace, the singer of comprehensive determinism, pointed out: only a supernatural being could comprehend the simultaneous positions and velocities of all particles in the Universe - and thereby predict all further events.
Gödel's theorems require arithmetic. Until recently, it was believed that religion is incompatible with arithmetic, because it violates, for example, the law of identity. Thus, in Christianity, God is one and at the same time exists in three persons.
Violation of the law of identity is in itself sufficient to recognize religion as logically contradictory. But the Trinity has nothing to do with it. The creator of control systems for rockets and spacecraft, a researcher of religion (a deeply religious believer in adulthood), academician Boris Viktorovich Rauschenbach showed: the internal structure of the Trinity corresponds to a well-known mathematical object - a vector in a three-dimensional coordinate system. Depending on the chosen system, one of the vector projections may appear larger: who worships the Father, who communicates with the Son, on whom the Holy Spirit descends. But in all manifestations all three coordinates/hypostases are present. There is no contradiction between mathematics and the dogma of the Trinity.
By the way, the same Rauschenbach found other manifestations of mathematics in religion. Thus, the reverse perspective of ancient icons, strange in the eyes of a modern person, not only corresponds to some psychophysiological features of the perception of space at short distances, but also hints that the picture is being painted from the point of view of God.
Other apparent contradictions between religion and mathematics (and physics) have not been explored as deeply. Therefore, I cannot say unequivocally that they also do not interfere with the application of Gödel’s calculations to religion. But in the holy scriptures themselves there are enough examples of their agreement with arithmetic. Which is not surprising.
Religion claims to describe the real world, but it is entirely arithmetic.
Thus, in chapter 24 of the Second Book of Samuel, David organizes a census of the subject population. According to David's instructions, his envoys successively move from city to city, count the inhabitants there, and finally present the total result (quite impressive for that time) to the king. Obviously, sequential counting of residents by city is a completely arithmetic operation.
David himself, having received the result, considered his act sinful. God agreed with him, offered three punishments to choose from, and, in agreement with David, arranged a three-day epidemic for seventy thousand victims. Is it because the omnipotent and omniscient God foresaw: the use of arithmetic will make it possible in the future to prove the inconsistency of the very belief in him?
The New Testament is no stranger to arithmetic. In the “Revelation” of the Apostle John it is said: “Let him who has understanding count the number of the beast.” Undoubted arithmetic with inevitable axioms.
In the original versions of the “Apocalypse” there were two meanings for the number: 616 and 666. The fact is that the name “Nero” can also be spelled “Nero”. In the first case, the sum of the numerical values of the corresponding Greek letters gives 666, in the second 616. John considered the Emperor Nero, a zealous persecutor of Christians, to be the Antichrist.
Perceived need
The completeness of the religious description of the world is also often disputed. For example, if a person is endowed with free will (in the Mosaic religions, free will is considered one of the most important differences between humans and animals, which act only out of necessity), how can we unambiguously predict existence and development?
Nevertheless, human free will does not at all contradict the determinism (complete certainty) of the world. Omniscience supposedly allows God to foresee all our actions, and human freedom lies only in his ability to comprehend the reasons for these actions. It is not for nothing that Marx called freedom a conscious necessity.
Moreover: even if the behavior of an individual person is not just free, but arbitrary or random, this does not yet prove the arbitrariness and randomness of the world as a whole. Each microparticle moves randomly, but the behavior of a sufficiently large number of such particles is predictable according to the laws of quantum mechanics with an accuracy quite sufficient for any reasonable needs.
Each person buys things (all other things being equal), guided by his own arbitrary desires. But economics does a good job of describing (over fairly large periods of time) the behavior of the entire world economy. And at least all this does not contradict God’s plan.
God is unprovable
People have been looking for irrefutable evidence of the existence of God for a long time.
But they realized the futility of the search quite early. The dominant position among theologians has become that the fundamental absence of such evidence is associated with free will, given by God to man. They say that everyone has the right to independently - without God's direct instructions - decide whether to go to God or remain in darkness.
Philosophers are more persistent than theologians. For example, Immanuel Kant criticized and refuted the five most convincing and harmonious proofs of the existence of God put forward before him. But this did not prevent him, in turn, from creating a sixth proof - alas, which was also soon refuted.
Mathematics allows us to look at things a little differently. The consistency of an axiomatics means: within its framework it is impossible to derive a pair of statements that contradict each other. The God hypothesis makes any axiomatics complete. According to Gödel's first theorem, completeness guarantees inconsistency. Consequently, the God hypothesis cannot be derived from any consistent system of axioms. She herself is an axiom and can only be taken on faith.
A prominent figure in early Christianity, Tertullian went down in history with the words credo quia absurdum est - I believe, because it is absurd. The theological meaning of the statement “The Son of God was crucified - we are not ashamed of this, for it is shameful. The Son of God died - we fully believe this, because it is absurd. The buried one has risen - this is true, for this is impossible” - is not entirely clear to me (and it confuses theologians: it is not for nothing that Tertullian, although for different reasoning, was recognized as a heretic). But in an everyday sense, I agree with him: ideas about God obviously lead, if not to obvious absurdities, then to irremovable contradictions. And therefore they cannot be proven - they can only be believed.
Axiomatics and culture
Many (including me) perceive religion not as a logical, and especially not as an axiomatic structure. Religion is not so much a system based on a formal technology of description as a cultural phenomenon. Like... modernism, the High Renaissance or the tea ceremony.
But religion is qualitatively different from other cultural phenomena in at least one respect - it strives to oblige.
The Renaissance does not try to prescribe anything to a person beyond its limits: a “Renaissance man” is simply (as shown in the American film of the same name) comprehensively developed, striving to embrace all the achievements of mankind. The tea ceremony teaches modesty and the perception of beauty, but does not at all require that outside the tea room the proud samurai be as modest and receptive to beauty as within its walls.
Religion, referring to divine authority, claims to control all aspects of human and human activity. And in this sense it goes beyond the limits of a purely cultural phenomenon.
Almost every religion at its inception resembles what is now commonly called totalitarian sects. And only as it develops and gets used to the real world does it learn to compromise.
The most popular forms of religion today do not claim total control of all spheres of life. But a look at their history convinces: this is not so much an inherent property of them, but rather the result of centuries of experience in identifying the contradictions generated by such claims.
True, these days these contradictions are not nearly as obvious as in the era of the emergence of Christianity or Islam. Therefore, current warnings against religious totalitarianism often resemble an old joke: a man walks along Nevsky Prospect and every five steps he snaps his fingers above his head. A certain fellow traveler, observing this spectacle for quite a long time, finally cannot stand it, catches up with him and asks:
If it's not a secret, what exactly are you doing?
I drive away the crocodiles.
But there are no crocodiles on Nevsky!
That's why it doesn't.
Indeed, there are many reasons why there is a desire to limit the ambitions of religion, as often as any other ambitions. In societies where religion claims to be totalitarian, many problems arise and develop much faster than in societies with a different role for religion. And this is already enough for the emergence of anti-religious sentiments.
Mathematics and religion are initially different subject areas. To the extent that religion does not interfere with what happens outside the temple, it cannot be considered a complete system. But if she interferes in the real world, then all its laws apply to her - including Gödel’s.
Gödel's theorems do not apply to religion only if it itself is unreal.
One axiom
The assumption of the existence of God is precisely an axiom. No one has yet succeeded in making it a theorem—deriving it from some set of statements that describe the observable world. And it looks like it won't succeed. After all, this assumption obviously (according to Gödel) makes the entire system contradictory. The real world does not contain logical contradictions: sooner or later everything has an explanation.
When choosing an axiomatics, it is important how beautiful it is, how technically convenient it is, and how consistent it is with the observed data. It is not for me to judge the elegance of God's axiom. As a support for reasoning, it is extremely convenient: in a contradictory system, any statement can be derived with equal ease. Hence the undoubted correspondence with any facts.
So, having introduced the axiom of God, we can no longer worry about all the other pillars of our reasoning: God is the guarantee of total correspondence.
The deception that exalts us
Alas, I cannot, like the Creator in the days of Creation, say: “And He saw that it was good.”
In a logical sense, a contradictory system is no different from a false statement. But this in itself is not new: any atheist, including me, is as sure of the falsity of religion as of his own existence. And, besides, falsity in itself is not always unconditionally bad. It’s not for nothing that Our Everything said:
The fairy tale is a lie, but there is a hint in it:
A lesson to good fellows.
And he assured:
The darkness of low truths is dearer to us
A deception that exalts us.
If good fellows learn the proper lessons from religious fairy tales, if their deception elevates us, does it really matter that there are no base truths in them?
For your money - any whim
The only trouble is that religious lessons are extremely varied - sometimes even ugly. And her deceptions not only elevate.
The remarkable English writer (and deeply religious Catholic) Chesterton at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries created a series of stories in which criminal mysteries were solved by a modest Catholic priest with the emphatically ordinary surname Brown. In the story “Broken Sword” the priest is angry:
Sir Arthur St. Clare, as I have already mentioned, was one of those who “read his bible.” That says it all. When will people finally understand that it is useless to read only your own Bible and not read other people's Bibles? A typesetter reads his bible to find typos; a Mormon reads his bible and finds polygamy; A follower of “Christian Science” * reads his bible and discovers that our arms and legs are only appearances.
* American hypnotist Phineas Parkhurst Quimby (1802-1866) believed: it is necessary to treat not by an effect on the body, but - following the example of Christ - by a spiritual influence. His patient Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910) created a sect that relied only on preaching and prayer for treatment. For obvious physiological reasons, the number of her followers is not growing quickly (according to indirect estimates, currently about a quarter of a million people). But the Christian Science Monitor she published became a serious and influential publication.
This leads to the obvious conclusion of the priest:
St. Clare was an old Anglo-Indian soldier of the Protestant variety. Think about what this might mean and, for God's sake, drop the hypocrisy! This may mean that he was a dissolute man, lived under the tropical sun among the dregs of Eastern society and, not spiritually guided by anyone, indiscriminately absorbed the teachings of the Eastern book. Without a doubt, he read the Old Testament more readily than the New. Without a doubt, he found in the Old Testament everything he wanted to find: lust, violence, betrayal. I dare say he was honest in the conventional sense of the word. But what good is it if a man is honest in his worship of dishonesty?
The consequences are tragic.
In each of the mysterious sultry countries where this man happened to visit, he started a harem, tortured witnesses, and accumulated dirty gold. Of course, he would say with an open mind that he was doing this for the glory of God. I will express my innermost convictions if I ask: what gentleman? Each such act opens new doors leading from circle to circle of hell. The trouble is not that the criminal becomes more and more unbridled, but that he becomes meaner and meaner. St. Clair soon became entangled in bribery and blackmail, and needed more and more gold. By the time of the Battle of the Black River, he had already fallen so low that his place was only in the last circle of Dante's hell.
The course of events described by Chesterton looks like a perversion based on the general’s personal problems. But from the point of view of Gödel's theorems it is trivial. If a religion includes complete - and therefore contradictory - axiomatics, then one can, strictly following its requirements, draw any conclusions - even if directly opposite to each other. Including in the sphere of morality.
Good bad evil
The title of the famous “spaghetti western” by Sergio Leone indicates that the confrontation between good and evil is not as obvious as we often believe. Even if we ignore the fact that all three main characters, to put it mildly, are equally far from the ideals of good. What is more important is that these ideals themselves, depending on the place and time, can be very far from our habits.
In the Soviet era, the term “Hottentot morality” was not very popular. It goes back to the legendary but real conversation of a Christian missionary with one of the representatives of the South African Hottentot tribe. To the question “What is bad?” The Hottentot replied: this is when my neighbor beats me, steals my cattle, and kidnaps my wife. To the question “What is good?” he answered: this is when I beat my neighbor, steal his cattle, and kidnap his wife.
Obvious to any of us, “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t want to do to yourself” is a requirement of a rather late stage of human development. In particular, this formulation was given by the Jewish teacher of the law Hillel already during the time of Roman rule. Yes, and it is fairly simplified: it requires many reservations related to differences in needs and tastes.
True, religious thinking explains the diversity of ethical systems in the simplest way. They say that the true God prescribes true ethics, and all other ways of life are dictated either by ignorance of these instructions, or by a completely unkind spirit. In short, there are two opinions: mine and the wrong one.
Alas, the same Gödel does not leave the slightest hope for such an idyll. After all, from religion as a complete - that is, contradictory - system, any statements in any field can be derived. Including ethical ones.
In other words, any conceivable and inconceivable system of norms of human behavior can with equal grounds claim divine origin. And many actually applied. For example, our current anti-slavery fighters refer to the same scripture from which slave owners drew their arguments a couple of centuries ago.
Of course, a particular ethical system may invoke divine authority. But such references, to put it mildly, are not very convincing. After all, the same authority can sanctify any other system.
If ethics is taught from an early age, when a person is not capable of critical thinking, reference to a higher authority will help to establish uncritical acceptance of a given set of rules. But then a person can be just as uncritical about any other set that refers to the same authority. After all, new links - by virtue of Gödel's first theorem - are no less legitimate than the previous ones.
The massive rejection of God and morality by students of gymnasiums and Sunday schools a century ago, manifested in the equally massive revolutionary persecution of everything sacred, was not generated by the fact that the schoolchildren suddenly realized: it is impossible to prove the necessity of morality by the presence of God. After all, Gödel’s theorems, which established this unprovability, were created fourteen years after the revolution! And the fabulous medieval amoralism of the highest Catholic clergy is even more so not motivated by mathematical considerations. But these facts themselves convince us: teaching religion in no way guarantees morality.
Gödel explains why such a guarantee is obviously impossible - regardless of the quality of teaching and the quality of the standards themselves. And humanity in general, and each person in particular, has to understand the rules of earthly behavior, without relying on a hint from heaven.
Do not trust, do not fear, do not ask
My reasoning is unlikely to convince sincere believers: their axiomatics seem to exclude logic (although the above seems intuitively obvious to me, just as God is obvious to them). But I consider it my duty to warn: no religion provides real grounds for any choice. You cannot ask God for not only direct help, but also a hint. All our decisions remain on our - and not the Lord's - conscience. And we must be afraid of our own limitations, and not of God’s infinity.