In my previous chapter I stated that the opponents of reason often begin their case by planting a seed of doubt that reality is not quite as we perceive it, that there is a greater truth hidden from us by our senses, our perception, and our reason. This isn't their only tactic, by any means, but it is a common one. I went on to say that unless some hint or subtle sign of this "greater truth" presented itself, unless there were some wrinkle in the veil of this supposed illusion, then I saw no point in questioning the reality I see before my eyes. How could I question it, even if I wanted to, unless I found some loose thread that I could tug at, or a slim crack that I could slip my fingers between and gain some fragile hold on this greater truth? I even went on to say that should such an opportunity present itself, then reason would still be our best tool for exploring the possibility. Well, it's time to put my money where my mouth is, because it just so happens that we have found a possible wrinkle in the veil.
In the world of quantum physics there is an experiment which has achieved legendary status. It is known as the Double Slit Experiment. It has been performed in a variety of ways, but I will proceed with my explanation on the basis of its most common, general details. A filtering screen is set up with two vertical slits cut out of it, and a backdrop of sort sort is set up behind this screen. If small particles of matter are shot at the filtering screen, then by the laws of probability, they will go through one slit or the other in equal measure and hit the backdrop at the corresponding spot. In this manner, they will reproduce the shape of the two slits on the backdrop. If waves, say of water, are projected at the filter screen, the slits will disrupt the single wavefront into separate wavefronts which interfere with one another. The resulting waves will impact the backdrop at different degrees of intensity corresponding with the interference points created by the slits. This will cause the pattern of the slits to be reproduced against the backdrop not just in one spot directly parallel to the slits, but also at multiple angles to the pair of slits. This creates an image of several slits against the backdrop, radiating outward like waves and gradually tapering off in intensity the further the angle from the original slits in the filter screen. This is called an interference pattern.
Physicists originally set up this apparatus because they wanted to know whether photons, which light is composed of, are particles or waves. If they were particles, there should be a single pair of slits projected against the backdrop. If they were waves, they would get the interference pattern. To their surprise, what they found was a combination of results. Individual photons acted as particles and impacted the backdrop at the single point, but as more and more photons were fired at the slits, their impacts accumulated against the backdrop in an interference pattern, suggesting waves. This was perplexing.
It gets stranger. Eventually physicists moved on to electrons, which they expected would behave like particles since they are one of the vital building blocks of the atoms which all matter is composed of. They again set things up to fire one electron at a time, and again they found the same interference pattern emerging. This suggested that the electron was actually going through both slits at once, and somehow interfering with itself. And this suggested that the same piece of matter could be in two places at once, which of course contradicts everything we think we know about matter.
It gets stranger still. These physicists, being scientists as they were, naturally wanted to probe deeper and find out exactly what was going on here. They figured that if they tracked the electron they could figure out exactly which slit it was actually going through. They figured that it had to only be going through one slit or the other. It seemed impossible for it to go through both. So they set up detectors next to the slits in the filter screen. Astonishingly enough though, once these detectors were in place and the experiment was performed again, a single pair of slits appeared on the backdrop, rather than an interference pattern. In other words, the mere act of observing the electron changed how it behaved. This seemed to contradict basic common sense, which would expect that inanimate physical matter would only react to direct physical interaction, not to the mere fact that it was being looked at.
So what is the human mind to do about this? The mysteries abound here, but they all add up to that loose piece of thread, that wrinkle in the veil, that crack in the impenetrable wall, that suggestion that reality is not quite as we complacently think it is. This is the big opportunity that the opponents of reason have been waiting for, their point of departure from which they can make their exodus from the rational world. Some whimsical Moses need only point the way with his staff and we'll all be free at last from the tyranny of reason.
Hyperbole aside, the opponents of reason actually do like to make great use of this experiment to prove their point. "See", they say, "This proves that reality can't be completely understood by reason, because this experiment completely defies reason." The problem is that this line of thought takes you no where. Declaring that the results of the Double Slit don't "make sense" is equivalent to saying that it's pointless to look for an explanation. The opponents of reason are content with this declaration. It's a call not for further investigation or exploration - that would just be reason trying to justify itself, trying to say, "No, there must be an answer." It's, instead, a call for acceptance. The whimsical Moses isn't leading his people through the opening. He's just going to plop down on a rock and point at it with his staff for the rest of his life, telling everyone who passes by, "See! Look! I told you there was a crack!"
When the advocates of reason say, "No, there must be an answer.", their opponents like to shake their head at the silly human follies of reason spinning their wheels. But this is precisely the attitude needed to take you through the opening in the veil, a spirit of exploration and inquisitiveness. "No, there must be an answer" doesn't mean that we don't accept the results of the Double Slit. It doesn't mean that we're in some kind denial about it. It means that the implications need to be explored, and it's these implications that provide the momentum to propel you into broader horizons of understanding and awareness. They are the breadcrumbs strewn along the path leading through the crack, and reason is the appetite collecting these breadcrumbs. It is the fingers tugging at the loose thread.
For instance, the Double Slit seems to imply that electrons, the building blocks of matter, are aware that they are being observed. Being reasonable does not mean declaring, "That's impossible!" That is not the declaration of a reasonable mind, but rather a closed one. Reason never declares evidence impossible when it is staring it in the face. The fact that it is evidence makes it by definition quite possible, and reason can not deny this. A reasonable mind adapts to new evidence, and considers the need to completely re-evaluate its concept of reality. The truly reasonable mind can never be stumped. The reasonable mind rises to the challenge. If something arises that contradicts the "rational" model of the universe, then it's the model that needs to be reconsidered, not reason. You return to the drawing board. You start over. You figured it out. You use reason to pursue the problem.
The reasonable mind considers this implication of the Double Slit and says, "Suppose it is possible, then what does that tell us about the universe? What does that tell us about matter?" The reasonable mind considers that there may be other possibilities besides the matter knowing it's being observed, but it doesn't completely discard the possibility. It keeps it on hand. It lays out any number of possibilities on the table. It entertains them. It explores their potentials and further implications. It investigates, and through this investigation it peers into the unlimited possibilities beyond the veil. Reason is the indispensable tool of this investigation. Investigation without reason is like listening to music without ears.
Suppose you pursued the issue strictly on the basis of whimsical, imaginary nonsense, supposing it's even possible to separate the imagination completely from reason. Some people have been known to hit upon the solution to problems in dreams, and I admit that there is something to be said for exploring a problem through random free association, rather than following a strict chain of logic. However, this is a matter of methodology, not actuality. Regardless of how you arrive at it, the solution itself will not stand in contradiction of reason. Newton may, according to legend, have been inspired to formulate his theory of gravity by a random apple striking him on the head, but gravity itself is as logical and reasonable as idea gets. Pointing out that the truth may occasionally be stumbled upon by illogical methods, speaks more to the efficient employment of the mind, rather than the reasonableness of the truth discovered. A blindfolded man tripping over a bag of money in the woods does not prove that bags of money are invisible, or even that being blindfolded is the best means of finding them. A wise truth-seeker will keeps their imagination with them as a trusty companion to their reason on their journey. The two may occasionally squabble on the road, but the truth-seeker will point them towards the same destination. A truth stumbled upon by imagination, needs to be verified, considered, and tested with reason, and the two need to work together to explore the further implications.
Consider the revolution of the planets. For thousands of years mankind subscribed to the geocentric theory, the idea that the Earth is the center of the universe, and that all of the other planets, the sun, the moon, and even the stars and the heavens themselves revolve around the Earth. This seemed to be the most obvious conclusion. Standing on Earth and looking out, it seemed to be the natural assumption that it was all moving and we were standing still. But then the crack appeared, the medieval equivalent of the Double Slit. It was called "retrograde motion." Tracking the course of the planets, astronomers noticed that they occasionally double back on their orbits, describing loops in the sky rather than a straight and steady course. I can only imagine how this threw those astronomers for their own loop. Like the possible implications of our electron in the Double Slit, these astronomers might have considered the implication that these planets were consciously self-aware, wandering the sky erratically of their own free will.
Then along came a man name Nicolas Copernicus. A reasonable man, no doubt. He didn't look at these erratic planets and say, "It's impossible!" He didn't plop down like our whimsical Moses and say, "Look, I told you things don't make sense." He sat down with reason, and no doubt with a heavy dose of imagination, both of them working in harmony and tandem, not in contradiction and discord. He ventured beyond the veil of the "reality" that everyone took for granted. He drove off the edge of that two-dimensional sheet of paper, and what he found there was...breath-taking. It completely changed our concept of the universe. And this new view was not a contradiction of reason, in fact, it was more reasonable than its predecessor. It was closer to the truth.
Fast forward a number of years, and we have two more reasonable men, Morley and Michelson, performing an experiment involving light. Their experiment revealed that light travels at a constant rate, regardless of its source, which seemed to contradict what we knew about motion. So along comes another man, Einstein, and he drove clear off the edge of the paper that Copernicus and Newton had printed, and from his new wider perspective he could see that in a sense the geocentric theory and the heliocentric theory were both right. The Earth is revolving in the universe, and the universe is revolving around Earth, depending on how you looked at it. He showed us things that we're still struggling to understand today. We're still coming to terms with the new model of reality he created, and someday someone will drive beyond that, and the process will go on.
In fact, the history of science is a continual expansion beyond the veil, a continual re-evaluation of our understanding of reality. And it pursues this expansion with reason, with testing, with hypothesis and experimentation. Like our reasonable mind, science will never be stumped. It might be thrown for a loop now and then. It might need to regroup and reconsider now and then, but it will always rise to the challenge. It is in the very spirit and nature of science to rise to that challenge. That exactly what science is and exactly what it does.
The opponents of reason complain that reason keeps us confined within a limited view of reality, and yet the field which involves our most practical application of reason to understanding reality is defined by the very fact that it continually probes and tests and redefines those limits. Meanwhile, the field which most tries to understand reality by means other than reason, religion, holds on to the same stale models of reality for thousands of years. Yes, the pot is looking very black in contrast to the kettle today.
Science and reason will always explore the implications of new evidence that seems to shake their foundations. They pursue the truth without fear or prejudice, without reservation or conceit. They harbor no concerns that the truth will ever contradict them, because they make it their very mission to face that truth without bias or agenda, and to bring their own nature's into closer alignment with it. They submit absolute allegiance to the truth, whatever it might be.
Religion, on the other hand, has plenty to be guarded about. They have an agenda, a faith, a preconceived notion of the truth....or as they would have it, a revealed truth. When new evidence is presented to them, they have to consider whether it contradicts their beliefs, which they have a vested interest in preserving. When 100 million year old fossils of dinosaurs show up, they are quick to bury them back in the ground, shouting, "The Earth was made in seven days, seven thousand years ago by a man with a long white beard. Now shut up and get that thing out of my sight!" This may not be a fair representation of all people of religious faith, not even all people of Christian faith, I'll admit, but it is characteristic of many of them. Some of them are more adaptable, adjusting their beliefs to accommodate new scientific evidence, but accommodating science is always a matter of granting latitude to the religious mind-set, and there's always a limit where they'll draw the line. Some are just more liberal about where that line is than others.
There's only so far that they'll stray from their core beliefs, only so far that they'll venture off the edge of the page. When a seam opens up in the veil, they typically aren't too compelled to explore beyond it. Instead they contract a seamstress to try to stitch it up and set their mind at ease. Their vested interest lies in telling the world that they already know what is beyond the veil, that it was revealed to them by a higher power or a means unfathomable to reason. So, you can imagine how embarrassing it would be for them to have the veil stripped away, and for everyone to find out that the world beyond it isn't anything like they said.
But I'm being unfair, right? Religion is searching for a different truth than science. Science is concerned with the crude material world, and religion is searching for a spiritual truth, something higher, something more sacred, more pure and profound. Well, we will explore this matter in the next chapter, and try to give it some careful consideration, and a few re-evaluations.
