On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
To be and not to be—that is the mystery:
Whether opposing states thus coexist
Until their limbo meets a conscious mind,
Which, by observing, ends it? To look, itself,
Affects what’s seen, for by our sight we end
The many delicate entanglements
That matter’s heir to. ’Tis a constant loss
That cannot be escaped. The smallest acts
May seal our fate in ways none can predict,
For nature charts its course by rolling dice,
With nil regard for our desires or prayers.
Through countless chance events we came to be,
And random luck may hasten our demise.
It falls to us to ease each other’s load
And find such meaning as we can in life.
That we evolved from dust of stars, with minds
Adept at seeking meaning for ourselves,
Should ample meaning be; aye, there’s the rub,
For where’s the line dividing mind from brain
That frees the first from laws of space and time
To act with ghostly power from afar?
O, Erwin, do not chafe at vexing truths
That mock thy core beliefs about the world.
The universe cares naught for thy despair
And cannot bend its nature to thy will.
Its secrets lie beyond the human realm,
Beyond the grasp of common human thought.
That untold wondrous mysteries still abound
To challenge and exalt the greatest minds
Is surely life’s most precious gift of all.