Scientists hope one day to have a theory of everything (TOE). This would be a theory of relativity, quantum mechanics, electromagnetism and gravity that explains that upon which the rest of the universe is based.

I’m happy for them, and I hope they do come up with one. But what will it really tell us? Is it that the universe is a perfectly orderly system based on natural laws that all fit together like a big mathematical jigsaw puzzle?

The logic seems a tad bit circular. There is something called the anthropic principle which says if the universe wasn’t the way it is, we wouldn’t be around to ask questions about it.

There are a lot of funny coincidences in the universe. Like if Planck’s constant were just the tiniest bit larger or smaller than 6.6 X 10E-34, stars would be unable to produce carbon, the building blocks of life as we know it. It would be hard for a carbon-based life form such as an astrophysicist to discover that Planck’s constant was anything other than this value.

That there is order in the universe does have one redeeming value, as I see it. If we ever do make the acquaintance of an intelligent alien species from another planet, we would at least share a common mathematical language with them.

It’s unfortunate that only a handful of mathematicians and physicists, a few chemists, and a biologist or two, would be able to speak it fluently.

Another difficulty with the TOE is that it isn’t obviously apparent how it will explain some of the spectacular things that we sense.

Natural laws have given us the technology to print an aluminum disk in such a way that when a small beam of laser light is reflected from its surface a pattern of ones and zeros can be read by a machine designed for that purpose. Eventually the ones and zeros are converted into currents that move a metal coil attached to a paper dish, compressing airwaves which we hear.

That relatively uninteresting string of ones and zeros is, nothing less than “magically” translated into a Mozart symphony, or a live Phish concert, and it is difficult to see how the orderliness of the universe could produce such spectacular, emotion-inducing sounds.

I don’t doubt that it can be explained by natural laws, but how will the TOE be relevant? It seems like stating the obvious.