the view from the

center of the universe

Magazine Reprint Series
by Elizabeth Debold
Issue 40
May - July 2008
2008 What Is Enlightenment? Press
www.wie.org
PO Box 2360, Lenox, MA 01240 USA
800.376.3210
63 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
The View from the
Center of the
Universe
I
n the last few decades, the cultural conversation about
science and religion has become less a scholarly debate
and increasingly like a barroom brawl. Atheists and
theists are wrangling on the radio, in print, and on every
possible bandwidth. The prize is a big one: Who are we?
Where do we come from? Our core identity as humans is at
stake. Are we Gods children, or are we random accidents in
an indifferent universe? In other words, does our existence
matter to something larger than ourselves?
In the midst of this polemical slugfest, something quite
remarkable is emerging from a growing chorus of scientists
whose love for and appreciation of our creative cosmos may
eventually lead beyond this polarization. The Hubble and
other space probes have brought us stunningly gorgeous
An Interview with
Joel R. Primack & Nancy Ellen Abrams
By Elizabeth Debold
feature
63 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
MayJuly 2008 64
The View from the
Center of the
Universe
65 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
thE viEw from thE cEntEr of thE univErsE
pictures that inspire wonder at what
we are a part of: incandescent nebu-
lae that are the cradles of stars and
glowing supernovae that forge the
elements from which we are formed.
The universe is far more vast, explo-
sively creative, eerily beautiful, and
mysterious than anyone could ever
have imagined. The scale of what we
are in the midst ofthe vast dark
expanses of space, the infnitesimally
small distances traced by subatomic
particles, and the stretch of space-
time that extends back for billions
of light-yearsis nothing less than
awesome. As astronomer Carl Sagan
once said: A religion that stressed
the magnifcence of the universe as
revealed by modern science might be
able to draw forth reserves of rever-
ence and awe hardly tapped by tradi-
tional faiths. Sooner or later, such a
religion will emerge.
But for such a religion to bind
itself to the human heart, it has to tell
us how to relate to this overwhelming
picture that science shows us. Where
do we ft in? Are we merely passive
witnesses to the unfolding drama of
the distant stars? Most materialist
scientists demur at this point, believ-
ing, as Sagan did, that although the
universe can be central to us, we are
not central to it.
Thats why we were more than a
little intrigued when Joel Primack and
Nancy Ellen Abrams tour de force of
contemporary cosmology, The View
from the Center of the Universe, landed
in our offce some time ago. These
authors are saying that human beings
actually are central to the cosmos
and that the latest research in sci-
ence can show us how. They dont
mean that we are at the geographical
center of the cosmos but that we are
central along a variety of fascinat-
ing dimensions that we are only just
beginning to be aware of.
This dynamic husband-and-wife
team is uniquely qualifed to awaken
us to a new view of the cosmos.
Primack, a noted physicist, was one
of the principal originators of Cold
Dark Matter theory, which is part of
the accepted understanding about
how structures form in the universe.
Dark matter is invisible stuff that,
according to the theory, flls most
of the cosmos and exerts a gravita-
tional pull on the matter we do see.
In 1988, Primack was made a Fellow
of the American Physical Society and
has recently served on a National
Academy of Science committee to
defne the next phase of research that
NASA should undertake. Abrams is a
philosopher, historian of science, law-
yer, policy analyst, and songwriter.
She has consulted globally on how
nations can make intelligent policy
decisions in areas where scientifc
research is crucial but controversial.
But it is her interest in the boundary
between myth and science that has
led to such a fruitful partnership with
Primack. For the last decade, the two
have co-taught a popular course at
the University of California at Santa
Cruz called Cosmology and Culture,
which was the basis for their book.
Primack and Abrams aspire to
change culture through this new cos-
mology. They are on a heroic quest to
create a new, scientifcally accurate
creation story that will inspire us
to leap beyond the confict and divi-
sion that threatens this planet. If
we intend to navigate Earths coming
transition . . . with sanity and justice,
we will need to inspire high creativity,
intense commitment, and immense
stores of enthusiasm and raw hope,
they write. To perform what look
like miracles, humans need big and
inspiring ideas.
Abrams and Primack assert that
their work can give rise to a new spiri-
tuality. According to their defnition,
to be spiritual means experiencing
our connection to the cosmos through
scientifc understanding. Yet the sheer
awe at the miracle of existence that
these two committed materialists tap
into and convey breaks the boundaries
of science and leads us beyond. While
they would never use the word God
themselves, the majesty of their vision
brings us in touch with the kind of
wonder that humans throughout his-
tory have always associated with the
timeless realm of the transcendent.
MayJuly 2008 66
A nEw thEory of thE cosmos
What IS EnlIghtEnMEnt: In your work, you explain that, for the
frst time in history, we are developing a picture of the universe that
might actually be true. What are we learning about the cosmos?
nancy EllEn abRaMS: Let me frst step back a little to say
what were trying to do. Every culture we know of has always
assumed that theyre at the center of the universe. What does
that mean? It means they understood something very deep
about themselves, but they never understood anything very
deep about the universe. They just looked out, saw the stars,
and interpreted them in accordance with what worked for their
culture. They didnt have any knowledge of what was beyond
the visible stars. They put themselves at the center of the uni-
verse because thats what works for human beings. In every
culture, this is the basis for understanding how reality is put
together, how we ft in.
Now for the last four hundred years, since the time of
Newton and Galileo, people have not been able to do that. In the
Newtonian view, Earth is just a random planet of a random star
in a place that is nothing special. So we couldnt see ourselves as
central to the universe anymore. Though we still have religions
that go back to much earlier pictures of the universe, they have
been, to a great extent, in confict with Newtonian science.
For several centuries, weve had this confict between what
science has told us about our place in the universe and the need
of human beings to explain our world in a way that makes us
central and, therefore, makes us matter.
JoEl PRIMack: But now were beginning to have a theory that
makes sense of what science has observed about the cosmos,
so we can ask the question that people are really interested
in: What does this all mean for us?
WIE: What is this new theory? How did it come about?
PRIMack: Cosmology was for centuries the laughingstock of
science. It was the feld in which the ratio of fact to theory was
practically zero. There were lots and lots of theories and hardly
any information that would enable us to validate those theories.
This has been true throughout almost all of the twentieth cen-
tury, up until the mid-1990s. Then a huge amount of new data
started to come in through our wonderful new instruments
not just the famous Hubble Space Telescope but, for example,
the Hipparcos satellite. It isnt as well known, but it allowed us
to reliably age date the oldest stars. As the data came in, we real-
ized that many of our assumptions had been wrong. For one
thing, the distance of the oldest stars and therefore their age
had been overestimated; it turns out that they are about twelve
billion years old, not sixteen billion years as we had thought.
And in 1997 and 1998, two independent teams unexpectedly
discovered that the universe has been expanding faster and
faster for about the last fve billion years. This led us to theorize
that there must be something we cannot see that is making the
universe expand so quickly. We call this dark energy, which
is a property of space itself, a repulsion of space by space that
speeds up the expansion of the universe. We have inferred from
this and lots of other evidence that the universe is composed
mostly of invisible stuff: dark energy and dark matter.
WIE: If dark matter is invisible, how do we know that most of the
universe is made of it?
PRIMack: People realized as early as the 1930s that the visible
matter could not possibly be all there is. The galaxies rotate
much too fast to be held together by the gravitational attraction
of the matter that we are able to see. Many discoveries, by Fritz
Zwicky, Vera Rubin, Mort Roberts, and others, have convinced
us that most of the matter in galaxies and clusters of galaxies
is invisible. Thats the stuff we call dark matter.
Ive been working on dark matter for quite some time. Im
a coauthor of the basic paper, published in 1984, that pro-
posed the Cold Dark Matter theory. We had very little data
to support it until the 1990s. Now as the data comes in, the
detailed predictions of the Cold Dark Matter theory are being
confrmed again and again. Theres no data thats inconsis-
tent with this theory on the large scale of the universe.* All
the data confrm what the theory predicted about things like
the big bang radiation, the distribution of galaxies, galaxy for-
mation, and so on. The predictions of the theory were usually
made well in advance of observation, and the observations as
theyre coming in keep confrming the predictions in tremen-
dous detail.
The universe is more vast,
explosively creative, eerily
beautiful, and mysterious than
anyone could ever have imagined.
* Not all cosmologists would agree with Primacks statement. For a variety
of views on dark matter and dark energy, see page 80.
thE viEw from thE cEntEr of thE univErsE
67 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
This is the frst time that cosmology has been in this kind
of situation. Its normal for a fairly advanced science, where it
can make predictions and the predictions usually come true.
But in cosmology this is absolutely revolutionary. Every few
months we get major new observations, and these observa-
tions keep confrming the predictions. This is what gives us
scientists confdence that we just might be on the right track.
WIE: What is dark matter? And how does it work?
PRIMack: First of all, theres nothing very mysterious about
how dark matter worksit works just like ordinary gravity.
The mysterious thing is that most of the mass in the uni-
verse is this invisible stuff. Dark matter is our friend. Dark
matter starts in the very early universe with very slight dif-
ferences in density from one spot to another spot. Theyre so
slight that theyre like the difference between the surface of
a soccer ball and a bacterium on that soccer ball. Its a very,
very slight difference. We think that those differences were
caused by phenomena that occurred on a quantum scale in
the very earliest stages of the big bang, the period that we call
cosmic infation.
But anyway, gravity has the effect that it tremendously
amplifes small differences in density. A region thats slightly
denser than its surroundings expands more slowly. A region
thats slightly less dense than its surroundings expands
slightly faster. While the dark matter in those regions that are
a little denser than average does expand with the expansion of
the universe, it happens more slowly so that it eventually gets
signifcantly denser than its surroundings. And the part that
becomes denser than its surroundings collapses a little bit
and becomes a lump of dark matter that stops expanding. The
universe continues to expand around it, but that dark matter
lump stops. Within that region, ordinary matter can fall to
the center of the dark matter. As it falls in, it can rotate faster
and faster, like an ice skater pulling in her arms. Physicists
call this conservation of angular momentum. It makes the
galaxies rotate. Thats how we get these beautiful spiral galax-
ies that are obviously rotating. Since the universe has been
expanding for billions of years, those regions that start out
slightly denser become galaxiesor clusters of galaxies on a
bigger scale. Those regions that start out slightly less dense
than average become voids, regions where the universe doesnt
seem to have any galaxies.
Dark energy is causing the expansion to go faster and
faster on a large scale. And dark matter is preventing galax-
ies from expanding. Its protecting the galaxies against the
tremendously destructive force of the dark energy that pulls
things apart. Thats why I like to say that dark matter is our
friend. Dark matter keeps our galaxy and all the other galax-
ies together.
WIE: Is there a correlation between what youre calling dark energy
and the original creative impulse that initiated the big bang?
PRIMack: We think so. But thats one of the big mysteries,
because we dont really know what dark energy is. We are
pretty sure that in the very earliest stages of the big bang, the
universe was expanding extremely rapidlythis is cosmic
infation, which I mentioned earlier. Its not like ordinary
expansion but is an exponential expansion where in a given
amount of time the size of a given region doubles, and then,
in the same amount of time, it doubles over and over. Now the
universe is starting to do this again under the infuence of
dark energy. So we think that there may very well be a connec-
tion between the tremendously strong dark energy that may
have been driving cosmic infation at the very beginning of
the universe and the dark energy thats operating today.
WIE: So while the dark energy is causing the universe to expand,
the dark matter pulls the star dust in the universe together to create
the stars and the galaxies. Is that right?
PRIMack: Thats right. The dark matter lumps are holding
everything together. The special thing about ordinary atoms,
as opposed to dark matter, is that when they bang into each
other, which naturally happens once in a while, they radiate
away some of their energy and thus fall into the center of a
dark matter lump. The very frst stars were created this way
out of hydrogen and helium, which came from the big bang.
Clouds of atoms fall together, get very dense, and thus become
stars. At the end of their lives, a tiny fraction of their mass
becomes star dustparticles of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen,
and other heavier elements. Then in the next generation, the
heavier elements can form into planets that circle the stars.
We actually see this process going on now. Thousands of
planetary systems are actually forming. We can see this with
our space telescopes. So were quite sure that this is in fact
what happens. This is probably how our own planetary sys-
tem formed around a late-generation star. This only happens
Dark matter is our friend. Its
what holds all of the galaxies
in the universe together.
MayJuly 2008 68
The Invisible
Texture of the
Universe
This extraordinary image shows
the projected distribution of dark
matter in a 3-billion-light-year
cross-section of the universe. Each
level of magnifcation gives us a
closer look at the cosmic web of
dark matter flaments (blue), which
string together billions of small and
large galaxy clusters (yellow).
3

b
i
l
l
i
o
n

l
i
g
h
t
-
y
e
a
r
s
15 million light-years
75 million light-years
300 million light-years
M
i
l
l
e
n
n
i
u
m

R
u
n
,

V
o
l
k
e
r

S
p
r
i
n
g
e
l
,

e
t

a
l
.

M
a
x
-
P
l
a
n
c
k

I
n
s
t
i
t
u
t
e

f
o
r

A
s
t
r
o
p
h
y
s
i
c
s
,

2
0
0
4
This cosmic cluster is made up of more than a thousand galaxies,
each of which contains hundreds of millions of stars.
thE viEw from thE cEntEr of thE univErsE
69 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
in the middle of giant dark matter halos, which are spherical
blobs of dark matter. When you think about a galaxy, you
see these beautiful spirals, but you should imagine that
on a scale ten times bigger than the galaxies that we see,
there are these giant dark matter lumps that are actually
holding the galaxies together against the destructive force
of the dark energy thats pulling things apart on bigger
scale. Nancy has a beautiful way of describing this with a
nautical analogy.
abRaMS: Sometimes in my talks I explain it in this way because
it brings it all a little closer to home: Imagine that the entire
universe is an ocean. The ocean is dark energy, which flls the
entire universe. On that ocean, there sail billions of ghostly
ships made of dark matter. At the tops of the tallest masts of
only the largest ships are tiny little beacons of light. Those bea-
cons of light are what we see when we look out at the stars and
galaxies in the universe. We cant see the ships and we cant see
the ocean. But we know theyre there through theory, through
Joels theory specifcally, the theory of cold dark matter.
Because we have this theory and this new picture of the
universe, we can know that those invisible things are there and
that those little bits of light are not just hanging there. They are
the beacons on the ships, which represent the galaxies that we
actually see.
At thE cEntEr of thE cosmos
WIE: In this new scientifc picture that you are presentingwhat
you sometimes call the Double Dark theory, which includes dark
energy and dark matteryou say that we are cosmically central
and that were living at a pivotal time. This cosmic centrality is what
you mean by the view from the center of the universe. Can you
explain some of the key ways that we human beings are central to
the cosmos?
PRIMack: Let me give you a brief list. First, were made of the
rarest stuff in the universe. Atoms only make up less than
fve percent of the stuff of the universe. Dark matter has at
least fve times more mass than all the ordinary matter that we
know. The rest is dark energy. At least seventy percent of the
mass-energy of the universe is this dark energy stuff, which
is really mysterious.
So it turns out that atoms are relatively rare. And almost
all of the mass of atoms consists of hydrogen and helium. All
the heavy elementscarbon, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus,
sulfur, iron, and all the way up to uraniumthese are made
in stars and in supernovae, when stars explode at the end of
their lives. As I said before, these heavier elements are spewed
out as star dust.
We are made of these heavy elements. People like to call it
CHON, which stands for carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitro-
genthe most common elements in living organisms. Of
course, you cant make living creatures without a fair amount
of the other heavier elements too. All of those were made in
stars and have been collected together into very special places,
like our planet Earth. Thats what we are made of. All of the
heavier elements put together represent only one-hundredth
of one percent of whats in the universe. Were the rarest stuff
in the universe.
abRaMS: To show how important our place is in the universe,
we have created what we call the Cosmic Density Pyramid.
Its based on the pyramid on the back of the dollar bill. The
base of it is thirteen rows of bricks, and then theres a foat-
ing capstone with an eye in the middle of it. Everyone knows
this symbol. It was put on the back of the dollar bill to rep-
resent something completely differentthe thirteen original
colonies with the Eye of Providence looking favorably on this
venture of a new country. But the pyramid was an even older
symbol when the U.S. government started using it. We have
taken this symbol and reinterpreted it. The age of the symbol
refects the fact that symbols like this really work for human
beings. People like them; they resonate with them. But our
interpretation makes them realistic and accurate.
Weve reinterpreted the pyramid to represent all of the vis-
ible matter in the universe. The heavy base of the pyramid is
just hydrogen and helium, which is what the stars are made
of. Thats almost all the atoms in the universe. Even though
theyre very, very light, they still weigh far more than all the star
dust, which is what that tiny foating capstone is made of. The
eye in the capstone represents intelligent lifethe portion of
the star dust that is able to see this whole thing, refect on it, to
fnd some meaning in it. That eye is far out of proportion to the
All of the heavier elements
represent only one-hundredth
of one percent of what exists.
Were made of the rarest stuff
in the universe.
MayJuly 2008 70
Hydrogen & Helium 0.5%
Invisible Atoms 4%
All Other Visible Matter 0.01%
Cold Dark Matter 25%
Dark Energy 70%
Imagine that the entire
universe is an ocean of dark
energy. On that ocean, there
sail billions of ghostly ships
made of dark matter . . .
nancy Ellen Abrams
MayJuly 2008 71
amount of star dust that exists. If we did represent intelligent
life in scale with everything else, it would be almost invisible, a
little tiny point at the top. But that eye is really the most impor-
tant part of the pyramid. Its us.
Then weve expanded this picture from the back of the dol-
lar bill to be much, much bigger. Below ground, theres an
immense hidden dark pyramid, which represents the invisible
atoms, dark matter, and dark energy.
So even though we are tiny, tiny, tinywere up at the very
topmost point of the pyramidwe are supported by everything
below us. We could not exist without the huge amount of dark
matter thats below the surface or without the dark energy that
is responsible for keeping this whole universe growing.
PRIMack: Were also in the middle of all possible size scales.
The human size scale is almost exactly in the middle between
the smallest possible size, something physicists call a Planck
length, and the entire visible universe, the largest thing we
can see. This must be true of all intelligent life.
WIE: Why do you say that?
PRIMack: Well, all atoms are about the same size, and you
need to have an awful lot of atoms to have the complexity of
the human mind, which is the most complicated thing weve
ever discovered in the universe. You cant have that kind of
complexity if youre as small as, lets say, an ant. You have to be
pretty big; you have to have a lot of atoms.
You might think that bigger is betterthat if humans are
smart, then a creature the size of a mountain would be even
smarter. But large creatures like dinosaurs or whales are so big
that theres a noticeable delay from when information is sent
out from their brains and when it gets to their tails. Its cru-
cial that information be transmitted quickly. You cant think
faster than information can be transmitted. The way thinking
is done, both in brains and also in supercomputers, is that the
really intense processing is done in small regions where the
data can be transferred back and forth very rapidly. If you want
to build a big supercomputer, you hook together a lot of chips.
But all the hard work is being done in the chips. What that
means is that if theres a large thinking organism, its going to
be basically a community of smaller minds. The thinking will
be done by the smaller minds. The speed of communication
ultimately the speed of light, which is the fastest that data can
be transmittedlimits the size to about that of a human.
To summarize, were made of the rarest stuff in the uni-
verse. Were on the midsize scale where things are really inter-
esting. Were a lot smaller than galaxies and the universe.
Were a lot bigger than the really small size scale of atoms and
the interiors of atoms.
abRaMS: We decided to give a name to this middle range of
size scales that humans are a part of. We chose the name
Midgard. We wanted to give it a name because it is so special.
Its the range of size scales that we have intuitive understand-
ing offrom about the size of an ant up to about the size of
the sun. For most people, that range is reality, even though it
actually is not reality; its only a tiny patch of it. We picked the
name Midgard because in Norse mythology it is the realm of
civilization and stabilitythe human world in the middle of
the world sea. Off to one side is the realm of the giants, and off
to the other is the realm of the gods.
Now this is, of course, metaphorical. Nobody should ever
imagine that were trying to take this literally, but metaphori-
cally, its really quite a good description of the size scales in the
universe. Outside this midrange of size scales, there really is
the land of the giantsgiants of galaxies and superclusters of
galaxies on the cosmic horizon. These are things that we can
really only think about; we cant ever experience them directly.
The same is true in the small realm. We are totally dependent
on the very small realm of individual living cells and the much
smaller realm of atomic particles and so forth. Those were here
frst. They are what we are made of. In that sense they are, as
we like to call them in our book, the wee gods. We really are
sandwiched in between these two other realms.
For most of human history, no one knew about these two
realms. They only knew about Midgard. Its only with the advent
of great scientifc instruments and theories, like quantum the-
ory, that we have actually been able to say, This is really what
the universe is like on these other size scales. This has only
happened in the last century. We now know about the realm of
the wee gods and the realm of the giants. We know about this
through science.
PRIMack: Let me continue with the ways humans are central
by jumping to time. It turns out that we live at the midpoint of
cosmic time. We live very close to the time when the universe
is switching over from slowing down its expansion to speeding
up its expansion. This is the best time for observation of the
distant universe. As the universes expansion speeds up, the
distant galaxies are disappearing from our sight. We scientists
Human beings are central
to the cosmosand the
latest research in science
can show us how.
thE viEw from thE cEntEr of thE univErsE
72 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
like to say that this is the best possible time to observe the dis-
tant universe, so fund us quick!
Actually, of course, this will remain true for millions of
years, but its something that were just beginning to appreci-
ate. We live at the midpoint of our solar systems life. It began
about four and a half billion years ago; it will end in fve or six
billion years when the sun turns into a red giant star and then
ultimately a white dwarf.
Were also living in the middle of the best time for Earth. Earth
only got an oxygen-rich atmosphere about half a billion years ago
thanks to microorganisms. The sun is steadily heating up, which
is what midsize stars like the sun always do as they age. In about
half a billion years, the sun will become so hot that, quite apart
from global warming due to greenhouse gasses, it will evaporate
all the oceans, and Earth will lose its water. The hydrogen will be
separated from the oxygen at the top of the atmosphere, the hydro-
gen will be lost, and Earth will become a dune planet.
Incidentally, this fate could be averted, or at least postponed,
if our distant descendants fgure out how to move Earth farther
away from the sun. My astronomical colleagues just fgured out
how to do this in principle. It involves reorienting the orbits of
some large comets. This isnt something that we need to worry
about right away, because were talking about many hundreds
of millions of years in the future. But this shows that were in
the middle of the best period of our planet.
Were also at the end of the exponential expansion of humans
on Earth. During the last century, humanity increased its num-
bers by a factor of four. The size of the human population dou-
bled not once, but twice, over the last hundred years, which is
the frst time in the history of humanity that ever happened. It
can never happen again. In fact, there are strong doubts that
Earth could handle a doubling of the current human popula-
tion. So weve reached the end of this rapid increase of our pop-
ulationand were obviously reaching the end of the even more
rapid increase of our impact on the planet.
Thus, were living at a very special moment from all of
these different perspectives: from cosmic to the solar system
to Earth to human. This brings us to a total of six different
ways that were in a central position in the universe, starting
with being made of the rarest stuff, plus the fact that were in
the middle of all size scales, and then the four different ways
that were living in a central moment in time.
Let me just mention one more: Were at the center of the
observable universe. Now thats nothing special, because any
A spherical representation of cosmic time
This diagram shows us how, from the perspective of time, were at the
center of the universe. As Abrams reminds us, When we look up at
the night sky, we are not just looking out into spacewere looking
back in time. The image of a distant galaxy that we see through a
telescope is actually the light that this cosmic form emitted billions of
years ago. In the fgure, each concentric sphere, moving outward from
today, represents an earlier epoch in the evolution of the universe.
The farther away from us a sphere is, the farther back in time are the
galaxies and other objects that we observe in that sphere, until we
reach the outermost layer, which represents the background radiation
generated by the big bang itself.
1. YOU ARE HERE! (Today)
2. Our Sun Forms (4.5 Billion years ago)
3. Big Galaxies Form
4. Bright Galaxies Form
6. Cosmic Background radiation
(400,000 years after the big bang)
7. Cosmic Horizon (big bang)
MayJuly 2008 73
observer is at the center of their observable universe. We all see a
spherical universe around us, and in that sense, the old medieval
cosmology with Earth at the center of a set of crystalline spheres
was right. But the way we understand this now is that were at
the center of spheres of time. We dont just look out in space; we
look back in time. Looking out, we see the galaxies as they were
longer and longer ago. The same would likely be true of other
intelligent creatures in other places in the universethey would
see themselves at the center of the observable universe too. But
were realizing these things for the frst time.
WIE: In your book, you call this perspective the cosmic spheres of
time. Nancy, youve said that we are in a special place in the uni-
verse in relation to these cosmic spheres of time. Our special place
arises from the relationship between space, time, light, and con-
sciousness. You also note that without consciousness, there is no
visible universe. Could you say more about what you meant by this
and how it relates to our centrality?
abRaMS: The visible universe is what we see. Its what were
conscious of. Theres something out there, and we humans
have to interpret what it is. Now that we actually have a serious
scientifc theory and a lot of data to support it, were in a posi-
tion to tie our need to give a meaning to the universe to what
we actually know about the universe. This is whats really so
extraordinary about this point in time for us.
Astonishingly, in this new picture, in all the ways Joel
mentioned, we actually are central. Were just not central in
the way people assumed, which was a geographic centrality.
That is obviously not true. There is no geographic center to
an expanding universe. But nevertheless, were central in all
these really interesting, subtle, and very meaningful ways that,
of course, no one could even conceptualize before we had mod-
ern cosmology.
So were in an extraordinary position from the point of view
of human meaning because were now at a place where we can
satisfy this deep need to understand ourselves as central to the
universe. We can make it scientifcally rigorous and accurate
at the same time. Thats what has never been possible before.
Thats what we really need to develop now.
Its not obvious how to do this. Weve given an interpre-
tation in our book of one way to look at it, but this is really
going to require the whole cultureartists and writers and
so forthto collaborate with it. We need to interpret this new
picture of the universe in ways that are meaningful to us, that
inspire us, and that really light our fre.
k harvardeducated aeurosureoa
revea|s h|s exper|eaces~|a aad out of
the operat|a room~w|th appar|t|oas,
aae|s, aad afterdeath surv|va|, aad
shares the |essoas he |earaed.
"ham||toa's vo|ce soars."
Pub||sbers Wee||y
"k||aa ham||toa |s a aatura| storyte||er."
L|rda K|e|r, R.N., Producer, rey's Aratoy ard N|p/Iuc|
foreWord by ArdreW We||, N.D.
K?<J:8CG<C8E;K?<JFLC8ccXeA%?Xd`ckfe#D%;%#=8:J
Iarcber/Peru|r, a eber of Peru|r roup (USA)
WWW.peru|r.co
nnn%jZXcg\cXe[k_\jflc%Zfd
thE viEw from thE cEntEr of thE univErsE
74 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
consciousnEss in thE cosmos
WIE: As you have been explaining, the cold dark matter theory tells
us that most of the universe is invisible. Youve said that without
consciousness, we couldnt see anything. What is the role of con-
sciousness in the universe?
abRaMS: The frst thing that I think people dont realize is
that everything we say about the universe is really about our
understanding of the universe. We dont really have any way of
knowing anything out there, except through our own minds.
PRIMack: All we see is light. We make the interpretation that
there are stars out there rather than tiny holes in the dome of
the sky through which the light of heaven shines. The idea
that those are distant stars was a discovery, as was the realiza-
tion that those stars themselves have a life and a death and
that the really distant things are galaxies and quasars. All of
these are discoveries. Theyre not the least bit obvious. We
basically construct the universe as we discover more things to
interpret. Now we have the ability with our satellites above the
atmosphere to see parts of the spectrum of radiation that could
never be seen by our senses: gamma rays, x-rays, ultraviolet,
infrared, and even radio waves.
We depend on a combination of fancy technology and theo-
retical interpretation to make sense of this universe. If that
isnt human consciousness, I dont know what is.
abRaMS: Consciousness is what makes all this real for us.
Everything that we are doing is for us. Everything we say about
the universe, even the word universe, is a human construct.
We couldnt possibly know anything without using our own
abilities to metaphorically create meaning.
WIE: I believe you have said that human beings are the perfect size
in the cosmos. Does this relate to our capacity for consciousness?
abRaMS: I dont know that we said were perfectbut we are
the right size to have complex thoughts. Whether you consider
that perfect or not is really a matter of taste. There are actu-
ally a lot of people out there today, environmentalists particu-
larly, who think that Earth would be better off without human
beings. The animals would survive, and the planet would be
greener. All of the bad things that were doing wouldnt be
happening. I personally think that thats a terrible misunder-
standing of our entire species and what our potential is. Were
not perfect by a long shot, and we make terrible mistakes. But
we are able to do something that nothing out there that we
have ever encountered anywhere in the whole universe can do.
We may be the frst. It may just be that Earth is the planet that
is going to have to support this astonishing experiment, for
better or for worse.
The experiment of intelligent life is giving the universe
its own way of looking at itself. All of us togetherwe and
any intelligent aliens that might be out therewe are the con-
sciousness of the universe. We are the way the universe refects
on itself, and without us, the universe is utterly meaningless
and will forever be meaningless. A beautiful planet could be
here with animals and plants, but the whole thing would be
meaningless. Those environmentalists who imagine this
planet from their point of view as a pristine beautiful Eden are
giving the planet meaning. Without us, no ones going to be
imagining that.
PRIMack: On the other hand, we also have the ability to think
through the implications of our actions. One of the things that
we learn from cosmology is the enormous time scale before us
and into the future. We are the product of 13.7 billion years of
cosmic evolution. Our planet has billions of years to go before
the solar system is destroyed by the sun turning into a red
giant star and then a white dwarf. There will be many thou-
sands of billions of years of evolution in the future of the galax-
ies. In fact, our own galaxy will get brighter and brighter for
approximately six trillion years. The future before us and our
descendants, if were smart enough to have any, is immense.
What we do in this brief period at the end of the human infa-
tionary expansion on Earth can make a tremendous difference
in the long run. Weve just begun to appreciate this, but its
not too late to have the results come out in good ways rather
than bad.
WIE: So this is another way that we are living at a pivotal time on
this planet?
abRaMS: Were living at a pivotal time only if you understand
how big time actually is. Were always living at a pivotal time
from some sort of political point of view: Is it going to be the
Democrats or Republicans? Is the Iraq War going to end or is
it going to go on another ten years? Those are pivotal events on
some size scale. But the size scale were talking about is far,
far larger. In the very distant future, the Milky Way is going
We are the way the universe
refects on itself. Without
us, the universe is utterly
meaningless.
MayJuly 2008 75
to merge with the Andromeda galaxy. In fact, our local group
of thirty-some galaxies is going to come together and merge.
During that period of time, the rest of the universe is going
to be expanding so fast that we are hardly going to be able to
see any other galaxies at all. Thus in the very distant future,
our visible universe may really consist of only one huge galaxy,
which Joel and I like to call Milky Andromeda.
If the human race has gone on to solve these little short-
term problems that we are facing now, and has continued to
evolve in order to colonize the Milky Way, then we will, in
effect, have colonized the entire visible universe. Thats future
number one.
Now lets assume, because we dont know about them,
that there arent any intelligent aliens. Lets assume that the
fate of the universe is up to us. So future number two is that
the Republican Party continues to debate whether Jesus and
the devil were brothers or not and people are completely dis-
tracted from seeing whats happening as Earth warms up. We
dont cut back on our use of resources because of greed and
short-term views. We have huge wars, plagues, and so forth,
and the human race is reduced again to where it was thou-
sands of years ago. We have to start all over again, or maybe
we are totally wiped out.
In that case, future number one is completely wiped off the
possibility charts. This is what we mean by a pivotal moment,
because we, right now, are the people who are going to be deter-
mining which of those two immensely different futures could
actually come about. Unless you can see cosmic time, unless
you can see a really long time into the future and realize how
important our existence may be, you cant possibly appreciate
future number one as a possibility.
WIE: Ive heard you say very eloquently that our time seems ordi-
nary to us but its going to be mythic to future generations if we act
responsibly.
abRaMS: Either way its going to be mythic. Either way.
PRIMack: Our descendants will never forgive us if we mess
up Earth.
abRaMS: If we dont save itbecause were already messing
it up. We have a huge responsibility. Were acting as though
Earth is just hereas if we found it and it belongs to us. But
we are here because of billions of years of other animals fght-
ing and struggling so that their children could grow up and
A brilliant synthesis of science
and wisdom from the worlds
greatest spiritual traditions, both
ancient and modern, translated
into practical tools for anyone
who is seeking more depth and
meaning in their life. I highly
recommend this book.
DEEPAK CHOPRA, author of
Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment
$16.95 / ISBN: 978-1572245334
$24.95 / ISBN: 978-1572245396
New Book!
Copublished by:
We Live in an Exciting Time of Transformation
thE viEw from thE cEntEr of thE univErsE
76 What Is Enlightenment? www.wie.org
SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE is
Cindy Wigglesworth denes Spiritual Intelligence as the ability
to behave with Compassion and Wisdom, while maintaining
inner and outer Peace, regardless of the circumstances.
This language transcends religions and makes everyone
comfortable. This skill set is proven to work in organizations as
well as for individuals.
To learn practical tools to shift from ego self to Higher Self take
a Spiritual Intelligence Assessment or become a certied coach.
Contact Cindy at [email protected] or go to
www.consciouspursuits.com.
reproduce. All of life is a struggle. We are benefting from the
struggles of our ancestors going all the way back to that frst
cell. We were not handed this Earth. Thats why some of these
religious myths are so terribly destructive. Oh, God handed it
to us and said to us, Okay, its up to you now, take care of it.
No, it wasnt handed to us. We have arisen out of it. Were part
of this enormous fow, and we have every obligation to pass it
on to our children and to our very, very distant descendants
who can take over the whole galaxy.
A cosmocEntric viEw on BEing humAn
WIE: Part of what youre alluding to is a point that you make in
your book about how our moral and ethical frameworks are not
appropriate to the scale of time and the consequences that were
actually working within.
abRaMS: Thats right. We have to realize that all human beings
are essentially the same, if you look at it from a cosmic point of
view. We are completely preoccupied today with very, very triv-
ial differences. The Shiites versus the Sunnis. The Mormons
versus the Evangelicals. Blacks versus whites. These are silly,
trivial differences. Yet our entire culture is completely preoc-
cupied with these trivial differences between human beings
and is not seeing that, as human beings, we have this immense
potential. But we really need to see ourselves as one.
Another thing that we say in the book is that there is an us
versus them, but its not my civilization versus your civilization
or my race versus your race. Us versus them is intelligent life ver-
sus the laws of physics. Thats what we really have to deal with.
WIE: What do you mean by that?
abRaMS: Its not between us; its between all of us humans
and nature. Thats what we really have to negotiate with; thats
what we really have to take seriously. We need to identify our-
selves with a much larger group. We need to identify ourselves
with intelligent life and not with some tiny little ethnic group.
As long as we identify ourselves with tiny little ethnic groups,
we cannot see how precious this incredible experiment is on
planet Earth. All we see are the little differences. When you
appreciate your place in the real universe, these little things
really subside in importance, and we can fnd the unifying ele-
ments that could really save our planet.
WIE: It gives a lot of dignity to being human.
MayJuly 2008 77
abRaMS: Yes, we have to see the dignity in it. All of us humans
are bunched up on one planet, so we look extremely common
to ourselves. Humans are incredibly precious. There are so
few intelligent beings in this immense universe. Just because
we happen to be bunched up on Earth, doesnt make us any
less precious.
WIE: When you say that its between human beings and nature,
are you saying that human beings are separate from nature?
abRaMS: No, were talking about human beings realizing
that we have to live in harmony with nature. We have to pay
attention to nature. We have to learn to understand her ways.
Thats science.
WIE: Earlier you spoke about Midgard, the midsize realm of cre-
ation that is between the infnitely small and the unimaginably
large. In a talk that you gave to NASA, you said that the only way
we can know these larger cosmic realms and the subatomic realms
is through science, and the only way we can experience them is
spiritually. What do you mean when you say that we have the
capacity to experience these realms spiritually?
abRaMS: Basically, what were saying is that you cannot experi-
ence these things directly. You can learn about them and know
about them intellectually. Scientists do this. We are trying to
fnd what our place is in this universehow do we understand
our place in the expanding, double dark universe? Throughout
all of history, people have needed to experience their place in
the universe because it gave them grounding, made them feel
that their lives were real and that they mattered. It was the basis
of their various religions. We still are the same kind of peo-
ple. We really do need meaning. And we need meaning that
is grounded in the best picture of reality available to us in our
time. Now, for the frst time, we have a new picture of reality,
and our meaning has to be grounded in that.
We can experience the entire universe spiritually if we real-
ize that, by Joels and my defnition, what spiritual means is
experiencing our connection to the cosmos. That is all it means;
it has nothing to do with anything supernatural. The universe
itself is so much grander than anyone imagined. If we even
attempt to feel that were part of it, that is a spiritual action.
WIE: Because the enormity of it utterly shatters any notion of self
that would merely be personal, ethnic, or cultural?
abRaMS: I dont think it shatters it. I think it greatly expands
it. We can now realize that we are cosmic beings in a very
defnable sense. We have a place in this cosmos, and we could
have a huge effect on the cosmos, if we play our cards right.
WIE: How do we make meaning from this new view of the cosmos?
As you say in your book, we have the choice to fnd meaning in our
extraordinary place in the cosmos or to continue with the modern-
ist, Newtonian, existential view that were insignifcant specks in
the middle of this vast, meaningless universe.
PRIMack: We give a number of examples in our book of apply-
ing ideas from modern physics and cosmology to human
affairs. Take the concept of emergence. We love to teach our
students what we call phase transitions. Thats what hap-
pens when, for example, ice melts and turns into water or
water evaporates and turns into water vapor. These are com-
plete changes of basic physical phenomena, and they simply
dont make any sense on the scale of an individual atom or
molecule. You cant talk about a molecule of water being fro-
zen, liquid, or vapor. It only makes sense when you talk about
large numbers of molecules interacting with one another.
abRaMS: There is a very simple way of putting this in human
terms. Something similar to a phase transition happens
when human beings are in groups. For instance, individuals
who may be very nice on their own, when they are with too
many other people who all think one way, can become fanat-
ics. Theres this strange thing called group think that hap-
pens to us, and there are some evolutionary explanations for
why this happens. People in these groups are extremely differ-
ent than they would be as individuals.
PRIMack: Of course, an example of emergence that we humans
are particularly interested in is the phenomenon of human
consciousness. Its a deep mystery how this wet organ in our
skulls, our brain, somehow creates the experience of being
conscious beings. This is a deep question of neuropsychology
that great progress is being made on, but its such a tough
question that its going to take a lot of further understanding
before we get there. Clearly, something like emergence must
be happening. Consciousness is not just individual interac-
tions between neurons or the individual things that happen
in neurons. Its some kind of very complicated collective phe-
nomenon that happens through the interaction of billions
of neurons, just as phase transition describes what happens
You never fnd meaning
without looking at the big
picture. And cosmology is
the biggest picture we have.
MayJuly 2008 79
through the interaction of billions of atoms or molecules.
Were trying to illustrate the idea that physics and cosmol-
ogy can be an important new source of metaphors. Once you
have the idea of metaphorical thinking, you can apply that
to very different realms, including human experience and
human interaction. Thats a way that we can fnd meaning.
Basically, the bottom line is that you never fnd meaning
without looking at the big picture. You cant understand what
a little piece of a picture means until you see the big picture;
you see how the little piece fts in. Cosmology is the biggest
picture we have. It can help us fnd meaning by letting us see
ourselves as part of a grand story.
abRaMS: Id like to say one more thing about the question
of meaning. Every culture has had some kind of meaning-
ful story, a story that meant something for them. But what is
meaningful changes with the times and with changes in the
political and economic and social situations. Today we have
far too many people looking for meaning in stories that were
useful to their ancestors in earlier times, which cannot create
a coherent picture of reality today. The big challenge today is
to fnd the kind of meaning that our ancestors may have found
in their stories in a way that is coherent with what we actually
know now.
Science has to be the bottom line. We need to take the best
science of our day and build our meaning on that. Because
what were looking for is not just meaning to make us feel
good so we can stay home. Its meaning so that we can have an
accurate map of reality to save this planet.
We have to build on the best picture of our time and then
give that adequate meaning so it motivates us and brings us
together, so that when we do work together, we are working in
harmony with nature.
We have not changed as human beings. We need meaning
today just as much as we ever needed it. We also desperately
need science because we arent going to succeed without it.
The huge challenge is to pull those two things together so that
we have meaning and it is accurate.
WIE: In the last chapter of your book, you write: If we take on the
cosmic responsibility, we get the cosmic opportunitythat rarest
of opportunities for the kind of transcendent cultural leap possible
only at the dawn of a new picture of the universe.
Could you say some fnal words on that?
PRIMack: There have been only a few real changes to our cos-
mic picture. First, the fat Earth was the standard picture of
the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and the Old Testament
Hebrews. This changed to the picture of a spherical Earth in
the middle of a spherical universe. Thats the Greek view,
which was standard throughout the Middle Ages. Then there
was the transformation from that to the Newtonian picture,
which led to this curious situation where, for the last three
or four hundred years, most people in the West never even
thought about the universe without a certain discomfort.
Now we have the transition to the double dark universe
thats based on dark matter and dark energy, where quantum
mechanics and relativity are also important. This is a strik-
ingly different picture from any of the earlier ones. Evolution
is also key. The universe changes fundamentally in time and
on different size scales. These are characteristic features of
our latest picture of the universe. Now that were beginning to
understand how this picture fts together, this challenges us to
reconceptualize everything. Thats a fantastic opportunity for
our particular moment in time, and people have not had such
an opportunity for many centuries.
Part of the point of our book is to give people the back-
ground to start thinking about it and creating new art and lit-
erature, and so forth. Weve attempted to show some of the
ways that this can be done. If were successful, people will go
far beyond what we propose.
abRaMS: The amazing thing is we have this opportunity right
when the world is falling apart. There are a lot of people who
are scared of these ideas. Theyre scared partly because they
feel they cant understand the science. We have to understand
how the universe works and make our spirituality as real as
possible. The whole idea of trying to spend your life under-
standing your spiritual connection to the universe but not hav-
ing any interest in how the universe actually works seems to
me absolutely bizarre. We need to be coherent beings. Thats
how its going to matter.
Far too many people are
looking for meaning in
stories that were useful to
their ancestors, but which
cant create a coherent
picture of reality today.
Listen to the full interview at
wie.org/View