Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe by Brian Greene

Particles and Consciousness

“Somewhere between the first prokaryotic cells four billion years ago and the human brain’s billion neurons entangled in a network of one hundred trillion synaptic connections, the ability emerged to think and feel, to love and hate, to fear and yearn, to sacrifice and revere, to imagine and create—newfound capacities that would ignite spectacular achievement as well as untold destruction…” (115).

“Quantum physics… has explained the behavior of fundamental particles and, among much else, the biochemical processes underlying life…, a path we anticipate leading to an explanation of how large collections of particles can coalesce to yield life and generate mind…” (116-17).

“Entropy helps us tell the story of randomness and organization within large collections of particles, whether they’re wafting from your oven or coalescing into stars. Evolution helps us tell the story of chance and selection as collections of molecules—living or not—replicate, mutate, and gradually become better adapted to their environment…” (118).

“[We] are a swarm of interacting particles… (125). Although we still lack a complete understanding of life’s origin, there is nearly universal scientific consensus that no magical spark is required. Particles configured into a hierarchy of structures—atoms, molecules, organelles, cells, tissues, and so on—are all that’s necessary. The evidence strongly favors the existing framework of physics, chemistry, and biology as being fully sufficient for explaining life…” (131).

“[We] are nothing but constellations of particles whose behavior is fully governed by physical law. Our choices are the result of our particles coursing one way or another through our brains. Our actions are the result of our particles moving this way or that through our bodies. And all particle motion—whether in a brain, a body, or a baseball—is controlled by physics and so is fully dictated by mathematical decree… Indeed, following this chain even further back, the big bang is the ultimate source of all particles, and their behavior over cosmic history has been dictated by the nonnegotiable and insensate law of physics, which determine the structure and function of everything that exists… We are no more than playthings knocked to and fro by the dispassionate rules of the cosmos…” (147).

“To be free requires that we are not marionettes whose strings are pulled by physical law… (149). Our choices seem free because we do not witness nature’s laws acting in their most fundamental guise; our senses do not reveal the operation of nature’s laws in the world of particles… (150). Human freedom is about being released from the bondage of an impoverished range of response that has long constrained the behavior of the inanimate world. The notion of freedom does not require free will…” (152).

“[However], the way my particles are arranged into an intricate chemical and biological network including genes, proteins, cells, neurons, synaptic connections, and so on—responds in a manner unique to me. You and I speak differently, act differently, respond differently, and think differently because our particles are arranged differently…” (156).

“We do make choices. We do come to decisions. We do undertake actions. And those actions do have implications. All of this is real… [Nonetheless], we need to set aside the notion that our choices and decisions and actions have their ultimate origin within each of us, that they emerge from deliberations that stand beyond the reach of physical law. We need to recognize that although the sensation of free will is real, the capacity to exert free will—the capacity for the human mind to transcend the laws that control physical progression—is not…” (158).

Language and Story

“Our actions result from a complex amalgam of biological, historical, social cultural, and all manner of chance influences that are imprinted on our particle arrangement…” (172).

“Through [story telling] we explore the range of human behavior, from societal expectation to heinous transgression. We witness the breadth of human motivation, from lofty ambition to reprehensible brutality. We encounter the scope of human disposition from triumphant victory to heartrending loss… With math we commune with other realities; with story we commune with other minds…” (179).

“Stories… illuminate the richness of our ineluctably circumscribed and thoroughly subjective existence… We gain a deeper sense of our common humanity and a more nuanced understanding of how to survive as a social species… The storytelling impulse is a human universal… We seek patterns; we invent patterns, and we imagine patterns… It is an ongoing process that is central to how we arrange our lives and make sense of existence…” (181).

Brains and Belief

“Is there any basis for believing in an invisible, all powerful being who created the universe, listens and responds to prayers, keeps track of what we say and do, and doles out rewards and punishments?... (210) My confidence in quantum mechanics is high because the theory accurately predicts features of the world, such as the electron’s magnetic dipole moment, with a precision beyond the ninth decimal place, while my confidence in the existence of God is low because of the paucity of rigorous supporting data. Confidence, as these examples illustrate, emerges from dispassionate, essentially algorithmic judgment of evidence. Indeed, when physicists analyze data and announce a result, they quantify their confidence using well established mathematical procedures…” (211).

“Myth did not supplicate for belief. It did not elicit a crisis of faith that through painstaking deliberation was resolved by its beholders. Myth provided a poetic schema, a metaphorical mind-set, which became inseparable from the reality it illuminated… (215). A religious assertion interpreted as a literal claim about the world that contravenes established scientific law is false…” (216).

“The human mind thus relentlessly interprets an objective reality by producing a subjective one… Religious practice has held a people’s attention and in various combinations provided the structure of ritual, informed their sense of place in the world, guided their moral sensibility, inspired the creation of artistic works, offered participation in a larger-than-life narrative, promised that death is not the end, and, of course, also intimidated with harsh penalties, emboldened some to violent battle, justified the enslaving and killing of transgressors, and so on…” (217-18).

The Nobility of Being

“Some 13.8 billion years ago, within ferociously swelling space, the energy contained in a tiny but ordered cloud of inflaton field disintegrated, shutting off repulsive gravity, filling space with a bath of particles, and seeding the synthesis of the simplest atomic nuclei. Where quantum uncertainty rendered the density of the bath slightly higher, the gravitational pull was slightly stronger, enticing particles to fall together in ever-growing clumps, forming stars, planets, moons and other heavenly bodies. Fusion within the stars, as well as rare but powerful stellar collisions, melded simple nuclei into more complex atomic species, which, upon raining down on at least one planet in the making, were coaxed by molecular Darwinism to assemble into arrangements capable of self-replication. Random variations of the arrangements that happened to abet molecular fecundity spread widely. And among these molecular pathways for extracting, storing, and dispensing information and energy—the rudimentary processes of life—which, through the long haul of Darwinian evolution, became increasingly refined. In time, complex, self-directed, living things emerged… Through the force of selection, evolution takes a hand in shaping life’s behavioral repertoire, favoring activities that advance survival and reproduction. Among these, ultimately, is thought…” (313-14).

“Add in language, and one such self-aware species rises above the needs of the moment to see itself as part of an unfolding from past to future. With that, winning the battle is no longer the only concern. We are no longer satisfied to merely survive. We want to know why survival is significant. We seek context. We search for relevance. We assign value. We judge behavior. We pursue meaning. And we develop explanations of how the universe came to be and how it might end… Stories prepare the mind for responding to the unexpected; art develops imagination and innovation; music sharpens sensitivity to pattern; religion binds adherents into strong coalitions… They reveal a pervasive longing to be part of something larger, something lasting. Value and meaning, decidedly absent from the bedrock of reality, become intrinsic to a restless urge that elevates us above indifferent nature…” (314-15).

“Yet the fact that we will all die, and the fact that the human species will die, and the fact that life and mind, at least in this universe, are virtually certain to die are expected, run-of-the-mill, long-term outcomes of physical law. The only novelty is that we notice…” (316).

“We are ephemeral. We are evanescent. Yet our moment is rare and extraordinary, a recognition that allows us to make life’s impermanence and the scarcity of self-reflective awareness the basis for value and a foundation for gratitude… How utterly wondrous it is that a small collection of the universe’s particles can rise up, examine themselves and the reality they inhabit, determine just how transitory they are, and with a flitting burst of activity create beauty, establish connection, and illuminate mystery…” (322-23).

“Whereas most life, miraculous in its own right, is tethered to the immediate, we can step outside of time. We can think about the past; we can imagine the future. We can take in the universe; we can process it. We can explore it with mind and body, with reason and emotion. From our lonely corner of the cosmos we have used creativity and imagination to shape words and images and structures and sounds to express our longings and frustrations, our confusions and revelations, our failures and triumphs. We have used ingenuity and perseverance to touch the very limits of outer and inner space, determining fundamental laws that govern how stars shine and light travels, how time elapses and space expands—laws that allow us to peer back to the briefest moment after the universe began and then shift our gaze and contemplate its end…” (324-25).  

“As we hurtle toward a cold and barren cosmos, we must accept that there is no grand design. Particles are not endowed with purpose. There is no final answer hovering in the depths of space awaiting discovery. Instead, certain special collections of particles can think and feel and reflect, and within these subjective worlds they can create purpose. And so in our quest to fathom the human condition, the only direction to look is inward…: the human species contemplating itself, grasping what it needs to carry on, and telling a story that reverberates into the darkness, a story carved of sound and etched into silence, a story that at its best, stirs the soul” (325-26).

Greene, Brian. Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe. New York: Alfred A. Knoff, 2020.

“Brian Greene is a professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and is renowned for his groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory.”