I S S U E O N E T H E B I G REALITY QU E ST ION S EXISTENCE GOD CONSCIOUSNESS LIFE TIME SELF SLEEP £9.99 0 1 DEATH 9 772054 638003 THE COLLECTION Big questions, bold answers ISSUE ONE ONE of the most profound moments Chapter 4 returns to personal experience, THE BIG in life is when, as a child, we first utter specifically the granite-hard problem of the QUESTIONS that small but powerful word, “why?” nature of consciousness, how something so This is arguably what defines us a species. incredible can be produced by 1500 grams or We are not so much Homo sapiens as Homo so of brain tissue, and why you cannot be sure NEW SCIENTIST THE COLLECTION curiosum. It is not hard to imagine our earliest that everybody else is not a zombie. Lacon House, 84 Theobald’s ancestor looking up at the stars, watching the Chapter 5 is dedicated to a phenomenon Road, London WC1X 8NS +44 (0)20 7611 1202 seasons change, or holding a newborn child that, as far as we know, is confined to a tiny [email protected] and wondering: why? corner of the universe: life itself. We know it Editor Graham Lawton Our curiosity knows no bounds and it has got going on Earth almost as soon as the Art editor Craig Mackie taken us a long way, from the savannahs of planet was habitable – but why did it take so Picture editor Adam Goff Subeditor Richard Lim east Africa to world domination and beyond. long to give rise to complex creatures? And Graphics Nigel Hawtin Most of this progress has come in the past does it have a future? Production editor Mick O’Hare Project manager Henry Gomm 300 years thanks to the invention of a In Chapter 6, we probe one of the Publisher John MacFarlane systematic way of asking questions and universe’s most puzzling dimensions: time. © 2014 Reed Business answering them. That method is called The everyday ticking of a clock might seem Information Ltd, England science, and it has produced the greatest the most natural thing in the world, but it New Scientist The Collection is published four times per year by knowledge bounty ever. masks a very peculiar phenomenon. Reed Business Information Ltd But we still yearn to know why. There is Chapter 7 focuses inwards again, ISSN 2054-6386 much that we don’t understand, and every dismantling the entity we call the self, which Printed in England by Polestar new discovery opens up new questions. seems so solid and enduring to each of us and (Bicester) and distributed by Marketforce UK Ltd This first issue of New Scientist: The yet doesn’t appear to actually exist. +44(0)20 3148 3333 Collection is dedicated to the wonders of In Chapter 8 we explore the familiar yet Display advertising +44(0)20 7611 1291 human curiosity. A compilation of classic strange world of sleep and dreaming – a place [email protected] articles published in New Scientist, it explores we visit every night but which nonetheless the profound questions we ask of ourselves remains eerie and elusive. and the universe around us. Finally, Chapter 9 faces up to the end. In Chapter 1 we ask perhaps the most There is perhaps no older question about fundamental question of all: what is reality? human life than why it must one day cease. Looking at the world around you, the answer But viewed the right way, death can both might seem obvious – until you dig deep, when fascinate and inspire. ■ reality reveals itself to be a slippery customer. Chapter 2 takes a more personal and Graham Lawton, Editor reflective turn, asking what the discoveries of modern science mean for our own existence, from the search for aliens to the bizarre possibility that you are a hologram. Chapter 3 casts a new perspective on one of the oldest answers in the book: that everything can be explained by the existence of an all-powerful supernatural being. We are now largely dissatisfied with that answer, but God continues to fascinate. The Big Questions | NewScientist The Collection | 1 2 CONTENTS THE COLLECTION Existence CONTRIBUTORS ISSUE ONE Sally Adee is a feature editor at New Scientist THE BIG 20 Why is there something rather than nothing? Anil Ananthaswamy is a consultant for New Scientist 22 Are we alone? iJsu dsitreinct Lo.r B oaf trhreet Tth rive Center for Human QUESTIONS 23 Am I a hologram? Development at Fuller Theological Seminary 24 Why is there a me? in Pasadena, California Stephen Battersby 26 Why is the universe just right? is a consultant for New Scientist 28 How do I know I exist? Celeste Biever is deputy news editor at New Scientist 29 Is there more than one me? Michael Bond 31 Will we die out? is a consultant for New Scientist Daniel Bor 32 What happens when we become obsolete? is a cognitive neuroscientist at the Sackler 33 Am I the same person I was yesterday? Centre for Consciousness Science at the 1 University of Sussex in Brighton, UK 34 How will it all end? Michael Brooks is a consultant for New Scientist Stephen Cave is a writer based in Berlin Marcus Chown is a consultant for New Scientist Stuart Clark is a consultant for New Scientist Kate Douglas is a feature editor at New Scientist Liam Drew Reality is a neurobiologist at University College London Liz Else is an associate editor at New Scientist Richard Fisher 7 Defining reality is deputy editor of BBC Future Jessa Gamble 8 The bedrock of it all is a writer based in Yellowknife in Canada’s 9 Is matter real? Northwest Territories Linda Geddes 10 Is everything made of numbers? is a feature editor at New Scientist 13 If information… then universe Amanda Gefter is a consultant for New Scientist 15 Does consciousness create reality? Mike Holderness 17 How do we know? 3 is a writer based in London Valerie Jamieson is chief features editor at New Scientist Shelly Kagan is a professor of philosophy at Yale University Nick Lane is a reader in evolutionary biochemistry at University College London Graham Lawton is deputy editor of New Scientist Michael Le Page God is a feature editor at New Scientist Robert N. McCauley is director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Culture at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia Ara Norenzayan 38 Born believers is associate professor of psychology at the 42 The idea that launched a thousand civilisations University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada David Robson 44 Natural religion, unnatural science is a feature editor at New Scientist 46 The god hypothesis Chris Sinha is a psychologist of language at Lund 48 Religion without god University in Sweden Victor J. Stenger is emeritus professor of physics at the University of Hawaii and adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder Dick Teresi is a writer based in Amherst, Massachusetts Richard Webb is deputy features editor at New Scientist Jan Westerhoff is a philosopher at the University of Oxford and the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies Caroline Williams is a science writer based in Surrey, UK Clare Wilson is a news reporter at New Scientist The articles in this collection were first Emma Young is a writer based in Sheffield, UK published in New Scientist between April 2010 and May 2013. They have been updated and revised. 2 | NewScientist: The Collection | The Big Questions 6 Time 78 The origin of time 79 Time’s arrow 81 Countdown to the theory of everything 82 The rhythms of life 85 The clock in your head 86 Personal time warps 87 A life without time 88 The dating game 89 Today… twice 90 Time travel 4 8 91 The ultimate clock 92 The end of time Consciousness Sleep 52 This is your brain on consciousness 107 In your dreams 55 Higher levels 110 The little sleep 57 The silent partner 114 Wonder of slumber 58 Why be conscious? 60 I, robot 7 Self 96 What are you? 99 When are you? 100 Where are you? 103 Why are you? 5 9 Life Death 63 Inevitable, fluke, or both? 117 Animals, early humans and mortality 68 The hot zone 120 Plight of the living dead 72 After the fall 122 The quest for immortality 124 Earthly remains 126 Don’t fear the reaper The Big Questions | NewScientist: The Collection | 3 Truly original. Just like the original. The new Porsche 911 Targa models. Breathtaking, by design. Discover more at porsche.co.uk/targa See the roof in action. Fuel consumption in l/100 km (mpg): urban 13.9-11.8 (20.3-23.9), extra urban 7.7-6.9 (36.7-40.9), combined 10.0-8.9 (28.2-32.5), CO emissions: 237-204 g/km. The mpg and CO figures quoted are sourced from official EU-regulated test results, are provided 2 2 for comparability purposes and may not reflect your actual driving experience. N HOPES DARRE 6 | NewScientist: The Collection | The Big Questions C H A P T E R O N E R E A L I T Y WHEN you woke up this morning, you found the world largely as you left it. You were still you; the room in which you awoke was the same one you went to sleep in. The outside world had not been rearranged. History was unchanged and the future remained unknowable. In other words, you woke up to reality. But what is reality? It’s surprisingly hard to say. Even defining it is difficult. Whatever reality is, it isn’t what it seems... DEFINING There are two definitions of reality that are much more successful. The first equates reality with a world without us, a world REALITY untouched by human desires and intentions. By this definition, a lot of things we usually regard as real – languages, wars, the financial crisis – are nothing of the sort. Still, it is the most solid one so far because it removes human subjectivity from the picture. The second equates reality with the most WHAT DO we actually mean by reality? By Jan Westerhoff fundamental things that everything else A straightforward answer is that it means depends on. In the material world, molecules everything that appears to our five senses – depend on their constituent atoms, atoms everything that we can see, smell, touch on electrons and a nucleus, which in turn and so forth. Yet this answer ignores such believe in something does not make it real. depends on protons and neutrons, and so problematic entities as electrons, the Another possible mark of reality we could on. In this hierarchy, every level depends on recession and the number 5, which we focus on is the resistance it puts up: as the the one below it, so we might define reality cannot sense but which are very real. It also science fiction writer Philip K. Dick put it, as made up of whatever entities stand at ignores phantom limbs and illusory smells. reality is that which, if you stop believing in the bottom of the chain of dependence, and Both can appear vividly real, but we would it, does not go away. Things we just make up thus depend on nothing else. like to say that these are not part of reality. yield to our wishes and desires, but reality is This definition is even more restrictive We could tweak the definition by equating stubborn. Just because I believe there is a than “the world without us” since things like reality with what appears to a sufficiently jam doughnut in front of me doesn’t mean Mount Everest would not count as part of large group of people, thereby ruling out there really is one. But again, this definition reality; reality is confined to the unknown subjective hallucinations. Unfortunately is problematic. Things that we do not want foundation on which the entire world there are also hallucinations experienced by to regard as real can be stubborn too, as depends. Even so, when we investigate large groups, such as a mass delusion anyone who has ever been trapped in a whether something is real or not, these known as koro, mainly observed in South- nightmare knows. And some things that are final two definitions are what we should East Asia, which involves the belief that real, such as stock markets, are not covered have in mind. ■ one’s genitals are shrinking back into one’s by this definition because if everyone body. Just because sufficiently many people stopped believing in them, they would cease to exist. The Big Questions | NewScientist: The Collection | 7 THE BEDROCK OF ALL IT the force binding them together, which is carried by particles called gluons. And that, essentially, is that. Electrons, quarks (mostly of the up and down variety) Our basic understanding of matter and energy is and gluons account for most of the ordinary impressive, but falls well short of a complete theory stuff around us. of reality, says Valerie Jamieson But not all. Other basic constituents of reality exist too – 17 in total, which neutrons – themselves built of quarks – together comprise the standard model of and electrons. Otherwise, though, atoms particle physics (see illustration, below). (and hence rocks) are mostly empty space. The model also accounts for the mirror IS ANYTHING real? The question seems to If an atom were scaled up so that its nucleus world of antimatter with a complementary invite only one answer: of course it is. If in was the size of the Earth, the distance to its set of antiparticles. doubt, try kicking a rock. closest electrons would be 2.5 times the Some pieces of the standard model Leaving aside the question of whether distance between the Earth and the sun. In are commonplace, such as photons of light your senses can be trusted, what are you between is nothing at all. If so much of reality and the various neutrinos streaming actually kicking? When it boils down to it, is built on emptiness, then what gives rocks through us from the sun and other sources. not a lot. Science needs remarkably few and other objects their form and bulk? Others, though, do not seem to be part of ingredients to account for a rock: a handful Physics has no problem answering this everyday reality, including the top and of different particles, the forces that govern question: electrons. Quantum rules dictate bottom quarks and the heavy, electron-like their interactions, plus some rules laid down that no two electrons can occupy the same tau particle. “On the face of it, they don’t by quantum mechanics. quantum state. The upshot of this is that, no play a role,” says Paul Davies of Arizona This seems like a solid take on reality, but it matter how hard you try, you cannot cram State University in Tempe. “Deep down, quickly starts to feel insubstantial. If you take two atoms together into the same space. though, they may all link up.” a rock apart, you’ll find that its basic “Electrons do all the work when it comes to That’s because the standard model is constituent is atoms – perhaps 1000 trillion the structure of matter we see all around us,” more than a roll call of particles. Its trillion of them, depending on the rock’s size. says physicist Sean Carroll at the California foundations lie in symmetry and group Atoms, of course, are composed of smaller Institute of Technology in Pasadena. theory, one example of the mysterious subatomic particles, namely protons and That’s not to say the nucleus is connections between reality and redundant. Most of the mass of an atom mathematics (see page 10). comes from protons and neutrons and The standard model is arguably even stranger for what it doesn’t include. It has nothing to say about the invisible dark The basic ingredients of reality matter than seems to make up most of the The 4% of the universe we know about...* ...and the 96% matter in the universe. Nor does it account we don’t for dark energy. These are serious UP CHARM TOP FORCE CARRIERS u c t PH(cid:97)OTON omissions when you consider that dark S DARK matter and dark energy together comprise K about 96 per cent of the universe. It is also R MATTER A DOWN STRANGE BOTTOM Electromagnetism totally unclear how the standard model U d s b WZ relates to phenomena that seem to be real, Q S such as time and gravity. N Weak nuclear So the standard model is at best a fuzzy O DARK OS GgLUON ENERGY anpopt raollx, iomf awtihoant, seenecmoms tpoa csosimngp rsisoem peh, ybsuitc al ELEeCTRON (cid:43)MUON T(cid:111)AU B reality, plus bits and pieces that do not. Most S N Strong nuclear physicists would agree that the standard O MASS GIVER model is in serious need of an overhaul. It EPT NE(cid:105)LEEUCTTRRIONNO N(cid:105)EMUUTORNIN O NE(cid:105)UTTARUI NO HIGHGS BOS0ON GRAVITY mbuaty i tb ies tfhare f broemst tmhoed wehl wolee hstaovrey .o f■ reality, L e (cid:43) (cid:111) * for simplicity antiparticles are not shown 8 | NewScientist: The Collection | The Big Questions