Muses & Musings by Edward M. Lerner

Author:Edward M. Lerner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction
ISBN: 978-1-61242-441-5
Publisher: Phoenix Pick
Published: 2019-08-22T00:00:00+00:00

Too Deep Thought

The anticipation was unprecedented. All the greatest minds of the era had assembled, the leading lights of government and industry, of academia and theology, of philosophy and the arts. Myriads more—uncounted, but doubtless numbering in the billions—looked on worldwide via tablets and TVs, phones and computers. Everywhere, they hungered for … revelation.

The man who had called this gathering, he who had announced a solution to the enigmas of the ages, was uniformly admired and respected. He was: twice a Nobelist in Physics; holder of three doctorates and a dozen times as many honorary ones; winner of a MacArthur genius grant and a Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy; the recipient of more accolades and prizes than it would ever be worthwhile to tabulate. Were a more succinct description desired, “modern-day Albert Einstein, Alan Turing, and Søren Kierkegaard, combined in one person” would suffice.

At the appointed hour ceiling lights dimmed and massive brass doors swung shut. Camera crews made their final checks of focus and sound level. In a packed ballroom more often associated with presidential inaugural galas than with intellectual inquiry, a thousand speculative whispers gave way in mere seconds to an expectant, almost reverent, hush.

To thunderous applause, the celebrated thinker appeared at a side entrance. He made his way to the front of the hall to stand behind an unadorned wooden lectern beside a simple whiteboard. On the wall behind him, his magnified image filled a giant display.

Needing no introduction, assured of his audience’s rapt attention, with neither preamble nor hesitation, he launched into his eagerly awaited address. “Throughout recorded history and, archeologists have inferred, likely for far longer, people have asked a few big questions. How did the world begin? Why are we here? Why do we suffer? What is our purpose? How and when will it all end? And we have imagined answers aplenty … none of them wholly satisfying.

“For most of that time,” and he turned to jot Tradition on the whiteboard, “the explanations were supernatural, one type or another of Creation myth. A supreme Power, or Powers, made everything and everyone. But along with the perceived capacity to create a universe, people came to attribute two more characteristics to that Power. The first was motive: that the universe, and therefore ourselves, exists for a purpose. The second was rationality: that suffering isn’t randomly inflicted upon us, that even evil has its explanation.

“Many religious traditions teach that evil occurs, and bad things happen to good people, because if the Creator had made us without the potential to do wrong, we would have no free will with which to choose that which is right. But others point out that the Power who created us must know full well who among us will do wrong. It would seem, at best, an abdication of responsibility to allow One’s own wrongdoing creations to afflict the innocent. Moreover, in some religious traditions, evildoers face an afterlife of eternal punishment. Why would an all-knowing and benevolent Power create a person

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