God doesn't know the ultimate purpose. If He knows, existence would be pointless.
If the end of the universe were present in its beginning - if we are merely in the middle of the deterministic unfolding of a set of initial conditions - then the universe would be a pointless exercise. If we're at our destination, why make the journey? If we know the answer, why ask the question? That is why the future is - and must be - profoundly hidden, even from Him. Otherwise, existence would have no meaning.
The physical argument is that no part of the universe can calculate things faster than the universe itself. The universe is "predicting the future" as fast as it can. The universe is one vast, irreducible, ongoing computation, which is working toward a state that He doesn't know and cannot know. The purpose of existence is to reach that final state. But that final state is a mystery to Him, as it must be, for if He knew the answer, what would be the point of it all?
By computation He meant thinking. All of existence, everything that happens - a falling leaf, a wave upon the beach, the collapse of a star - it is all just Him, thinking.
We inhabit a world scaled midway between the Planck length and the diameter of the universe. Our brain was exquisitely fine-tuned to manipulate our world - not to comprehend its fundamental reality. We evolved to throw rocks, not quarks. As a result of our evolution, we see the world in fundamentally erroneous ways. For example, we believe ourselves to occupy a three-dimensional space in which separate objects trace smoothly predictable arcs marked by something we call time. This is what we call reality.
Natural selection has given us the illusion that we understand fundamental reality. But we do not. How could we? Do beetles understand fundamental reality? Do chimpanzees? We are an animal like they. We evolved like they did, we reproduce like they, we have the same basic neutral structures. We differ from the chimpanzee by a mere two hundred genes. How could that minuscule difference enable us to comprehend the universe when the chimpanzee cannot even comprehend a a grain of sand?
We evolved to see the world as being made up of discrete objects. That is not so. From the first moment of creation, all was entangled. What we call space and time are merely emergent properties of a deeper underlying reality. In that reality, there is no separateness. There is no time. There is no space. All is one.
We think of ourselves as an "individual person," with a unique and separate mind. We think we are born and we think we die. All our life we feel separate and alone. Sometimes desperately so. We fear death because we fear the loss of individuality. All this is illusion. Me, he, she, those things around us living or not, the stars and galaxies, the empty space in between - these are not distinct, separate objects. All is fundamentally entangled. Birth and death, pain and suffering, love and hate, good and evil, are all illusive. They are atavism of the evolutionary process. They do not exist in reality.
The universe exists because it is simpler than nothing. That is also why He exists. The universe cannot be simpler as it is. This is the physical law from which all others flow. "Nothing" cannot exist. It is immediate paradox. The universe is the state closest to nothing. The universe we see is an emergent property of its simplicity.
Religion arose as an effort to explicate the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable, make bearable the unbearable. Belief in a higher power became the most powerful innovation in late human evolution. Tribes with religion had an advantage over those without. They had direction and purpose, motivation and a mission. The survival value of religion was so spectacular that the thirst for belief became embedded in the human genome. What religion tried, science has finally achieved. Science now has a way to explain the inexplicable, control the uncontrollable. We no longer need "revealed" religion. The human race has finally grown up. Religion is as essential to human survival as food and water. If we try to replace religion with science, we will fail. Science is religion. The one, true religion. Instead of offering a book of truth, science offers a method of truth. Science is a search for truth, not the revelation of truth. It is a means, not a dogma. It is a journey, not a destination.
We will know the truth. And the truth shall make us free.
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