The Counterintuitive Universe: The Failures of Human Perception

Human perception is remarkably fallible. As tiny creatures on a comparably tiny planet in a vast universe, there is much about our surroundings that would go unnoticed or misunderstood if we relied on personal perceptions alone to make conclusions about the universe. We might conclude that 10,000 years is a really long time, because we humans have only a tiny fraction of that time to be on the planet. We might conclude that a light year is a really far distance, since it would take us over 38,000 years at the speed of our fastest vehicle, to traverse it. We might think that the Earth is angry at us when we get hit with a devastating hurricane or earthquake, since such seemingly wrathful behavior is usually the product of anger when caused by human beings. Yet, we know that all of these perceptions, as intuitive as they may be, are false. 10,000 years is a long time compared to the lifespan of a single human being, but a blink of an eye compared to the age of our universe. A light year would be a tremendous distance for a space shuttle to travel, but is only ¼ the distance to our nearest neighboring star. Humans get angry and cause destruction, but the Earth’s weather and seismic activities are the results of complex systems, not an emotional creature upset at something.

The bottom line is, when it comes to the ground truth, our personal perception frequently fails us.

After thousands of years we, as a species, developed methods of testing and verification that try to remove the fallibility of human perception. We call that method science. I say try to remove, because it would be impossible to remove all human experience from science – the testing is still ultimately done by humans, and the conclusions drawn by humans. It follows that we always have to leave the door open that we could be wrong. But the difference between science and non-science (nonsense) is that science strives to remove the fallibility of humanity from the equation as much as possible. Science admits that our intuition, what we see when we look only down the ends of our noses, could be wrong, and is willing to consider counterintuitive ideas – ideas that run contrary to our personal experiences. Non-science, on the other hand, ignores that fallibility – and often embraces it. It argues from a position of not what is most likely true based on evidence, but what seems to be true based on a glance down the end of its nose.

One example of how non-science frequently embraces the fallibility of human perception is the battle over evolution. Rarely are arguments against evolution evidence based; rather, opponents frequently argue that evolution could not have happened, because the theory doesn’t fit into our narrow experiences. One creationist website I visited argued that evolution was false because if one were to put all the parts for a Cadillac into a garage and leave it there for a million years, the parts would never become a Cadillac, thus proving that humans could also not have evolved from lesser forms. The perception about Cadillac parts is obviously true: hunks of metal don’t spontaneously become buildings, bridges or cars. Someone has to deliberately plan them and put them together. If we were discussing the Theory of Automotive Evolution, this would be a valid point.

However, while we won’t see a car spontaneously form from a pile of metal, if we could observe the Earth over billions of years, we would see mountains form as tectonic plates shift, and islands form as volcanoes erupt. If we could watch the universe over the same period, we might see stars and planets form from the dust in nebulas. As with the making of a Cadillac, none of these cases are spontaneous: they are driven by the laws of physics. The Cadillac parts themselves would not become a car or a person -- the chemical composition of iron isn’t suited for that -- but would change drastically over time, and eventually cease to be car parts. If you tried the Cadillac experiment with other chemicals, like carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, water, hydrogen sulfide and phosphate, and put them onto the Earth 4 billion years ago, over the ensuing billions of years you would get a different reaction: perhaps, us. This is counterintuitive for creatures like us, who are on the Earth for such a short time. We don’t get to see life evolve before our eyes, as we can see a car being put together. We don’t get to see the mountains forming, as we might see a skyscraper built. Evolution occurs slowly over billions of years. It is, without a doubt, counterintuitive -- to a creature that lives a little over 70 years on average.

The Big Bang Theory is much the same. The idea that a large explosion could result in an "orderly" universe as exists today doesn’t fit with our personal experience. In our lives, explosions are destructive. We use explosions to take down buildings, not to build them. We use explosions to kill people, not to save lives. The idea that explosions cause chaos, not order, is intuitive to our human experience. Yet, the Hawaiian Islands were created by large volcanic explosions millions of years ago, as were large swaths of the ocean floor. Volcanic eruptions can also enrich soil over long periods of time giving us land to plant crops, and we can use the heat from underground volcanoes for energy. Had we been alive at the time the Hawaiian Islands were being formed, we likely would have thought of those eruptions as chaotic, and destructive. Millions of years later, however, we can stand on the beach, sip a cocktail and watch the sunset, completely unaware of the violence that produced the ground beneath our feet. Like evolution, The Big Bang, the mother of all explosions, is counterintuitive – to a creature that lives a little over 70 years on average.

It would be impossible to ignore the religious aspect of these arguments. Most if not all of the opposition to evolution and the Big Bang Theory is religious in nature. The irony is that evolution and the Big Bang only present a major problem to religion when the same fallacious reasoning used to argue against them is applied to God himself. Presumably an omniscient, omnipotent being would have had little trouble using the Big Bang and evolution to produce life. The incredible complexity of the universe and the billions of years it took to create intelligent beings would seem fitting for a timeless creature of infinite power. When God is reduced to the level of human experience, however, this becomes a problem. Rather than a creature whose wisdom and foresight are incomprehensible to humans, God is reduced to nothing more than an architect, sitting at a desk chewing on the eraser of his pencil, mulling over blueprints for the world. When that happens, objections to scientific theories boil down to one simple argument: God couldn’t have made the universe as it is, because we wouldn’t have made the world that way.

So in the end, it doesn’t come down to God. It comes down to us. The universe is large, complex, and confusing. But we can decipher it, at least somewhat, as long as we look at it beyond the ends of our noses. The same goes for God. Chances are, neither are much like we see them.