Rekindled

It had been some time since I had a serious look in my PHYS305 textbook. I had told myself that that was it, we were through, because I could not put up with any more intellectual abuse. Today I spent a good, solid three hours with it, whereupon all is forgiven, and we're back together again, I with deeper love and appreciation, and it offering more than I was ready to accept three years ago.

Coincidentally, I had been accosted by some Jehovah's witnesses and given a flyer which asked if I would like to know the Truth. I couldn't help but smile: if only the poor old ladies knew what a irreparably degenerate atheist I am and will likely always be! Nonetheless, it made me think.

"Energy, Information, Life." Thus runs the subtitle of my favourite science textbook. What is life, really? Dad and I have had numerous discussions over this topic, and like pretty much all of our conversations, they ended in the mere command "Go to bed, it's late" issued to me, while the commandant himself continued parlance with Mr. Daniels or the Beefeater. Putting aside the scientifically challenging (and rather irrelevant) topics of mind, consciousness, volition, etc., I asked myself what are the physical parameters of life? A standard enough question for a life-science student, but the physics part of it, that order and complexity that appear daunting to mankind, how would we explain that? Must life necessitate a Creator?

The text has an interesting "excursion" (Sec. 1.3) that inspired me like it would have done in days of old, when I was still naive and full of wonder. --That life can be deciphered and reduced to neat physical laws! Is not this far more attractive than Creationism on the organismal level? Imagine a nature that not only put us into being, but did so in such a way that, if we worked hard enough, we can eventually understand the process by which we ourselves came about. Is it not much more awe-inspiring than a genesis rooted in congealing out of the mind of some whimsical and all-powerful being outside of what we can even comprehend as reality? God works in mysterious ways. --But why? Why can't He tell us His rules? What is He afraid of? And why are we incapable of figuring them out? --Or are we not allowed? Principles of nature are freely accessible to us and have enriched our lives considerably during our quest to uncover them. No, I will not accede to supernatural causes.

I looked up from my book and breathed in a good lungful of air, with as much sorrow as pride. I come from a long line of human beings whose fascination lies in uncovering the most intimate aspects of science: the physical laws of life, how the rules that govern inanimate objects from atoms to the universe underscore the highest, possibly most intelligent and complex form of being as we know. It is an ambitious endeavour, one from which I have informally withdrawn due to a foreseeable lack of contributions to the movement. ...Pity. In the fleeting moments of confidence, I want to charge at it again. I wish to wield all my strength and penetrate the forbidding exterior of mathematics and bask in the embracing warmth of a phenomenon explained. But the rigor soon dissipates, and I am left alone again, dejected and confused, wondering how I got to this step and what to integrate next.

Biophysics will always be my first love, the one that filled my heart with an indescribable joy, even as I struggled with where it might lead me and leave me. Though it is no longer an option to spend my life with this particular interest, I allow myself to revisit it from time to time, and to relish in the experience that for a few years, I, too, have delved into the mysteries of life.