Myth, science, and the creation story: Mr. g by Alan Lightman

“Rationality and logic can be spiritual.” — Alan Lightman, Mr. g

The antagonism between Western science and myth/religion has shaped human history and continues to obstruct the quest for a holistic understanding of existence.

In Myths to Live By, Joseph Campbell outlines the conflict and offers solutions to the modern dilemma. Science will provide new metaphors, he explains.

I wonder about the reconciliation of science and religion and what forms this might this take. This led me to Mr. g, a novel by Alan Lightman.

Lightman is a theoretical physicist who has served on the faculty at Harvard and MIT.  In his novel he combines science, theology, and moral philosophy to tell a creation story that is mythic, if not technically a myth.

Through the eyes of the cosmic creator Mr. g,  we witness the birth of the universe and the wonders of scientific evolution, from galaxies and stars to the emergence of life on a small planet.

I hope you enjoy this gloss of the book and are inspired to read it to

Transcript of Myth, science, and the creation story: Mr. g by Alan Lightman

Hello, and welcome to Myth Matters, storytelling and conversation about mythology and what myth can offer us today. I’m your host and personal mythologist Dr. Catherine Svehla. Wherever you may be in this wide, beautiful, crazy world of ours, you are part of this story circle. 

In the last episode I shared one of the oldest surviving creation stories. Now I want to give you a taste of a contemporary creation story. It’s a bit more playful then Marduk carving up Tiamat Babylonian style and it’s not exactly a “myth.” It’s a novel titled Mr. g written by Alan Lightman, a theoretical physicist who has been on the faculty at Harvard and MIT. I came across this novel while I was working on the Myths to Live By Skeleton Key Study Guide.

Before I explain further, since this event is coming right up– the free webinar about the Myths to Live By Skeleton Key Study Guide is this Saturday August 5, at 10:00 am Pacific time. The event is hosted by the Joseph Campbell Foundation. I’ll be there with some other folks from the JCF and invite you to join us. I’ll post a link to the event registration with the transcript of this episode or you can go to jcf.org. This is a free event but you need to register to get the zoom link.

Now, Campbell’s starting point in his book is the need to reconcile our myths with the science of our time. He introduces the topic with an amusing and important anecdote about a conversation he overhead. A school boy and his mother are talking about the kid’s day at school and the boy says  they learned about the origin of humankind. He mentions evolution. Mom counters with the story of Genesis. But the scientists have the bones, the boy says.

So, I was thinking about the differences between science and myth and the forms this reconciliation between science and religion or myth might take. I thought about my personal predilection for the poetic over the scientific and how my general reluctance to investigate science might limit my understanding.

The antagonism between Western science and myth, or science and religion, is an important piece of the history of myth in the culture of the European Enlightenment. Science—that  rational, empirical and fact-based, objective pursuit of  knowledge of the material world— is an imagined antidote and bulwark against superstition, irrational fantasies, and blind faith. Blind faith in what can’t be proven according to the methods of science. 

Believing in things that don’t deserve this devotion has caused a great deal of suffering, fear, and abuse. The Christian witch hunts, for example, and this type of thing occurs today. At the same time, the fantasy of objectivity has resulted in a great deal of cruelty and destruction in the name of science. The reductionism and denial of what can’t be seen or measured has fostered an alienation and disconnection from the world.

For centuries, the theologian and the scientist have harbored the same or very similar prejudices. Both sides, so to speak, have shaped human life for good and for ill. And the conflict between these two ways of understanding the world, the notion that we have to choose one or the other,  impedes the quest for a holistic understanding of existence.

So, I was curious about a creation story novel written by a theoretical physicist. Curious about his vision and curious about what his book might suggest about this necessary reconciliation, as a task that each of us needs to take up in these times. 

The spirit of the myths that we’ve examined in the past couple of episodes are somber and weighty and yet, creating is often envisioned as a dance or as play. I invite you into that open-heartedness as you take in Lightman’s story. I’ll sketch some of the plot and share some excerpts. Mr. g begins like this:

“As I remember, I had just woken up from a nap when I decided to create the universe. 

Not much was happening at that time. As a matter of fact, time didn’t exist. Nor space. When you looked out into the Void, you were really looking at nothing more than your own thought. And if you tried to picture wind, or stars or water, you could not give form or texture to your notions. 

 Those things did not exist.”

 This is the voice of Mr. g, who would probably be called “God” in other creation myths. There was a lot of indecision says Mr. g, because he could create anything he wanted. He often got anxious about how whatever he created might turn out and decided to go back to sleep. “But at a particular moment, I managed,” Mr. g says, “… If not exactly to sweep aside my doubts, at least to take a chance.”

The Void was empty although one could glimpse the faintest of features, like whispery draperies. And there was music. Mr. g considers a number of things that he could make, most of them quite abstract. He realizes that he wants to touch and feel, and he wants something new to interest him, to surprise him, and perhaps challenge him. In this way we note that he is not unlike other creators that we’ve met in other myths.

Mr. g however, is not completely alone in the void. His Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva are also there. The how and why of their presence is not explained. Like Mr. g, they simply “are.” Their presence adds relationship, that there is a relationship, to the absolute is-ness. Before the beginning, there was a Void, and there was singleness, and coupledom, and friendship, and kinship. Which I find interesting.

In the opening chapters, Lightman‘s creator and the image of the Void bear similarities to other creation myths, although Mr. g is gentler and more philosophical than some other God images. A reminder of the way our god images reflect us; our natures and our needs and interests.

The creation of something like universes involves a great many decisions. For example, the first thing that Mr. g needs to create is space. He eventually settles on three dimensions and thinks through the math of the first of his many, many universes. He alters the mathematics governing their growth and movement, and watches what happens. Many explode or contract into nothingness. Some he destroys. He learns from every experiment. 

A couple of other characters appear in the Void once Mr. g puts his creation experiments in motion. He is surprised when a stranger and his sidekick show up. These cosmic beings must be the result of his activities, somehow. Are these beings, who aren’t on easy, friendly terms with Mr. g and his aunt and uncle, unintended consequences of the act of creation– or necessary to it? Both, maybe?

The stranger poses questions about the limits of rationality. Now Mr.g, as I mentioned a moment ago, is using math and thinking to do his creating. In the Christian myth, we might identify this stranger as the devil. In other myths, we might label him as the opponent. Any way the Stranger is imagined, he is the irrational, the errant, the acausal that is active in the cosmic order, as we understand and measure it.

So, philosophical questions and potential moral dilemmas arise early for Mr. g, as the result of this stranger. In one of their first conversations, the stranger says “’These universes you’ve created,’ gesturing at the quivering spheres and ellipsoids flying about. ‘Many of them will end in tragedy. Or should I say, the animate matter you will fill them with, the intelligent beings, will twist and suffer and meet unhappy ends.’ He smiled. 

‘I have no intention of that,’ I said. ‘I would not allow that to happen.’ 

‘I’m sorry if what I’ve said disturbs you.’ 

‘I command you into nonexistence,’ I said. 

‘I’m afraid you cannot do that.’ As tall as he was, the stranger grew taller, as if he had been crouching.” 

With a grin and a bow, the stranger moves off then, into the Void. This visit with the stranger makes Mr.g angry and he smashes thousands of nascent universes.

Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva come to inspect the cosmos that Mr.g has created. The three of them inspect one universe in particular that Mr. g decides to call Aalam – 104729. Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva have suggested that he give these universes a bit of personality and this one, like the others, is empty. Aunt Penelope asks what’s next. Uncle Deva has a suggestion. Put some spirit into the thing, he says. And use feeling. Feeling and beauty and harmony. 

Well, Mr. g develops some organizing principles, like the laws of relativity and causality. “Rationality and logic aren’t mutually exclusive he thinks. And even though I’m going about this with math and laws and principles and all of that, there will always be a lot of mystery because no creature, will ever be able to penetrate beyond the First Event into the Void. They would always be wondering. So, they would have logic and spirit. “

Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva have more suggestions. Uncle Deva wants Mr. g to give his universe a soul. “’You need to make sure that everything in the universe is connected not just to other things, but to you. You are the maker, after all,’ he says. ‘I don’t feel that’s necessary, I said. ‘I know I’m the Maker. But there’s no reason for my creations need to know it.’” 

Aunt Penelope agrees with Uncle Deva. Mr. g says that he hasn’t decided whether or not he’ll make any living creatures, let alone any self-aware creatures, who might be aware of him. “What a waste! says uncle. To make such a beautiful universe filled with only inanimate matter? It would be boring. Boring I tell you. Am I the only one who thinks it would be boring?” Aunt Penelope agrees it would be boring. 

Mr. g admits it too.  “Yes, I said. It might be boring. “

“‘Then we are agreed, said Uncle. There will be animate matter with intelligence, and there will be an immortal soul in each living being, connecting it to you.’ “Wait a moment,” I said, “only we in the Void can be immortal,'” and he explains to aunt and uncle the way time works and the inevitability of decay. 

You see how one decision leads to a host of other decisions and the growing circle of ramifications here. And he’s only gotten started. Now, it’s time for energy to become matter. Lightman writes,

“At every point of space, the hillocks and basins of energy gushed forth with matter. Some of this matter instantly annihilated with antimatter to create energy again, which in turn spit forth new matter, so that there was a continual give and take between the two. Energy begat matter which begat energy which begat matter. It was a spectacle.” 

Now there is matter and energy. Mr.g watches the universe grow and cool. He reports, 

“The average energy of each particle diminished, and eventually some of the elementary particles began to coalesce with one another to make larger particles and masses. I could imagine, in the future, the formation of atoms and molecules, ripples of electromagnetic energy streaming through space, vast clouds of gas condensing under the gravitational force, spiral-shaped galaxies studded with bright balls of gas. Inside these spheres, roiling with nuclear reactions, new elements would be formed – carbon and oxygen, sulfur and magnesium. Great diffusions of neutrinos and light. And then titanic explosions, spewing more elements into space. And I could imagine vast disks of gas rotating around embryonic stars, elliptical orbits of comets, condensations of matter into rocky planets of silica and iron, or gaseous planets of hydrogen and helium, icy planets of frozen methane, molten planets of liquid sulfur, planets in retrograde motion, seething magnetic fields accelerating matter to maximal speeds, atmospheres of gaseous, sulfur dioxide, oceans and mountains and silicone lagoons. In no time it would all come to pass. And all of it dumb, inert matter.“ 

Stars and solar systems, planets with their moons, all of this emerges from the process that Mr. g has put into motion without, as he says, any further tinkering by me. So many things, so much matter, and yet there is a great amount of space. Mr.g observes, 

“Galaxies of stars and planets and other material filled only about one-tenth of 1 percent of the volume of space[…] Starting at one solar system, I often had to travel a distance equal to the size of ten thousand solar systems to get to the next solar system. If intelligent beings ever a rose on a planet in Aalam-104729, they would be separated by huge distances from other planets with life and probably never know of one another. And the separations would grow only larger with time, as the universe continued to expand.”

Lightman’s description of the creation of our universe as understood by science, all of the complex equations and data and theories shared as a story, in passages of cascading language and images, are simultaneously scientific and poetic, and breath-taking. 

He describes the appearance of hydrogen, helium, oxygen, and carbon, and the many molecules that form from these elements. The appearance of water. Billions and billions and billions of carbon and nitrogen-based molecules, water, and fragments of other elements. All of these bits and pieces jostling and colliding. “It was trillions of scientific experiments performed every atomic tick,” says Mr. g.” I could hardly wait to see what would happen.” 

And, at this point in my reading I must say, neither could I. 

With the arrival of molecules, cells begin to appear and these cells start to replicate. When Mr. g makes his next visit to Aalum- 104729, quite a lot has happened. Highly organized multicellular organisms are proliferating and he can see the rudiments of brains. Mr. g is a bit embarrassed at the growing complexity of these organisms, a complexity that does not require his intervention. 

“I could see the trend, he says. Eventually, the things would have some kind of recognition that they were independent entities, separate from the external world. They would perceive themselves from outside of themselves. In short, they would become aware of them selves. And then they would think. It was only a matter of time.”

“How mistaken I had been. To believe that I could purposefully decide whether to create animate matter or not. As was now apparent to me, animate matter was an inevitable consequence of the universe with the matter and energy, and a few initial parameters of the proper sort. If I wanted, I could destroy life. But I was only a spectator in its creation. I was surprised. I was moved. I was concerned. What was this thing that had been set in motion? […] Was it out of control, my control?’” 

Aunt Penelope and Uncle Deva have some ideas about the forms that this emerging life should take. But Mr. g says that bodies and minds developed like almost everything else in the universe, on their own by trial and error, resulting in a tremendous variety.

At almost exactly halfway, brains, and then the human brain, appear. Mr.g tells us, 

“Creatures with such brains rebuilt their environments. They made new materials and inanimate structures of their own design. Waterways. Tools. Machines. Cities. They developed advance, communication methods, such as encoding information and electromagnetic radiation, or storing it in silicone-based molecules and quantum clusters. They created devices to extract energy from their central star and from passing comments. They discovered mathematics. They performed experiments. They built instruments that could sense what their bodies could not. They developed theories of the physical universe. And they discovered many of the laws and principles that govern the universe, my laws and principles. These mere conglomerations of atoms and molecules discovered my laws. And the music they made! Such music, equal to what I have created from my mind, they produced by material instruments with vibrating strings and air flows in liquid compressions. When I heard their music, from one star system to the next, I realized that these brains were participating in the beauty of the cosmos, as Uncle Deva had described. They were aware of themselves, yes. They were thinking, yes. But they were more than thinking. They were feeling. They were feeling the connection of themselves to the galaxies and stars. They were grasping the beauty and depth of their existence, and then expressing that experience in musical harmonies and rhythms. And in paintings. In metaphors and words. In dance. In symbiotic transference. They imagine the cosmos beyond their own bodies. They imagined. But they could not imagine where all of it started. For all of their intelligence, there were limits to their imagination. They could not know things that were not of their essence. They could not know of the Void. But the mystery of such things, they did seem to feel, and it tingled in them and opened them up.” 

Consciousness arises on his own, but Mr. g decide to do some experiments to figure out how many cells it takes before this emerges. At 200 million he notes, something unusual is happening. Through Mr. g, Lightman then offers a succinct description of the development of religion and philosophy, laws and moral dilemmas, the concepts and institutions that humans have created to make order, live peaceably, and understand the mysteries that surround their–our– existence. The beauty and the struggle as witnessed by his tender and philosophical creator Mr. g. There is suffering as the Stranger predicted.

My first thought about Lightman’s creation story may be obvious. The world that science can reveal to us is incredible. Consider, for example, that all of the seemingly solid things around you, including your own body- are more than 99% empty space. Wow. You may not share my resistance to science so, I’ll simply say that the more science I read, especially in the area of biology, the more amazed I am to be here on this planet Earth.

In contemplating the Apollo 11 moon walk, Joseph Campbell writes, “The actual fact of the making and broadcasting of that trip has transformed, deepened, and extended human consciousness to a degree and in a manner that amount to the opening of a new spiritual era.” Campbell saw the union of myth and mathematics in that moon walk. Of what we can literally see and what we could create in our minds. Create in our minds because we are of  the cosmos. And in this he saw all of the imaginative potential in our species. How many of us grasp Campbell’s insight yet, today?

This why he believed that scientific knowledge will provide metaphors that can shape new myths. Metaphors and myths that usher in experiences of awe because they lead us to awareness of the mysteries around us and within us, and inspire us to go beyond our assumed limitations.

Images of the human that unite the outer mystery with the inner mystery of human being, and inspire our best potentials.

Many of us need to see the earth and the cosmos with fresh eyes, do we not? Isn’t this at the heart of our many quests for truth and aliveness and awakening, for some way to throw off the cynicism, lethargy, and despair?  The vision in these fresh eyes–of the earth and the cosmos– must include us, the human beings, and help us find our goodness and sacred purpose, and heal the long shadows of our history. 

I want to close with one more excerpt from Mr. g. Which I do hope you’re enjoying. Please read the book. It’s not long. First, let’s give a big welcome to new email subscribers: Nancy, Juliet, Tom, Diva, Margarida, Beans, and Win. Welcome to Myth Matters!

If you’re new to Myth Matters, I invite you to head over to the Mythic Mojo website. You’ll find a transcript of this episode, information about Story Oracle readings and my consulting services, and you can also join the email list if you’d like to receive links to new Myth Matters episodes in your inbox.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to the patreon patrons and bandcamp supporters of Myth Matters. If you are finding something of value here at Myth Matters, I hope you’ll consider supporting the podcast on patreon or buying me a coffee, leaving me a positive review online, or emailing me to say hello. 

I want to leave you with this chapter titled “On a small planet.” Lightman writes, that is Mr. g says, 

“I did not tell uncle and aunt about all of my visits to Aalam – 10 4729. Or of the many things that I saw. What I heard in a city that arched over a hill. The planet was one of a dozen orbiting an ordinary star, the smallest planet in the system. It was a quiet world. Oceans and wind made scarcely a sound. People spoke to one another only in whispers. I floated above the city and looked down at its streets and inhabitants. Corners of buildings rusted in the air; billows of steam rose from underground canals. Through throngs of creatures moving this way in that, as creatures do in their cities, I spotted two men passing each other on a crowded walkway. Complete strangers. In the eight million beings living in the city, these two had never met before, never chanced to find themselves in the same place at the same time. A common enough occurrence in a city of millions. And as these two strangers moved past, they greeted each other, just a simple greeting. A remark about the sun in the sky. One of them said something else to the other, they exchanged smiles, and then the moment was gone. What an extraordinary event! No one noticed, but me. What an extraordinary event! Two men who had never seen each other before and would not likely see each other again. But their sincerity and sweetness, their sharing an instant in a fleeting life. It was almost as if a secret had passed between them. Was there some kind of love? I wanted to follow them, to touch them, to tell them of my happiness. I wanted to whisper to them: ‘This is it, this is it. ‘“

I hope you’ve enjoyed this sketch of Mr. g by Alan Lightman. A story of creation that combines science, theology, and moral philosophy from the perspective of an unknown creator. I encourage you to pick up the novel and see where it takes you. I’d love to hear your thoughts if you do.

If we have a better understanding of our need for myth, and all that our old stories offer, we can live more satisfying lives. We can inhabit a better story and create a more beautiful, just and sustainable world. 

Feel free to email me in response to this episode or post a comment on the Mythic Mojo website.  If you have questions about mythology, I’ll do my best to answer them.

And that’s it for me, Catherine Svehla and Myth Matters. Thank you so much for listening. Take good care of yourself and until next time, keep the mystery in your life alive.

Useful links:

The Joseph Campbell Foundation Skeleton Key Study Guides and webinar registration

Mr. g by Alan Lightman

Bitch: On the Female of the Species by Lucy Cooke. I didn’t specifically mention this but recommend it. Interesting and illuminating survey of recent science in the field of evolutionary biology. You’ll see the influence of unrecognized myths!