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" Nature,” wrote Emily Dickinson, “is what we see / The Hill—the Afternoon / Squirrel—Eclipse—the Bumble bee / Nay—Nature is Heaven.” In the last line, the poet leaps from the finite to infinity, to the realm of the Absolutes. It is almost as if Nature in her glory wants us to believe in a heaven, something divine and immaterial beyond nature itself. In other words, Nature tempts us to believe in the supernatural. But then again, Nature has also given us big brains, allowing us to build microscopes and telescopes and ultimately, for some of us, to conclude that it’s all just atoms and molecules. It’s a paradox. "
― Alan Lightman , Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
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" It may be that quantum physics can produce a universe from nothing, without cause, but such an accidental and unanalyzable origin for EVERYTHING seems deeply unsatisfying, at least to this pilgrim. In the absence of God, we still want causes and reasons. We still need to make sense of this strange cosmos we find ourselves in. Permanent or impermanent, absolute or relative, we still long for answers, and understanding. Evidently, science can find reasons and causes for everything in the physical universe but not for the universe itself. What caused the universe to come into being? Why is there something rather than nothing? We don’t know and will almost certainly never know. And so this most profound question, although in tightest embrace with the physical world, will likely remain in the domain of philosophy and religion. "
― Alan Lightman , Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine
