{"id":64143,"date":"2018-08-23T16:47:25","date_gmt":"2018-08-23T22:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=64143"},"modified":"2018-09-05T09:52:47","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:52:47","slug":"the-cosmos-and-the-day-of-the-jackal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2018\/08\/the-cosmos-and-the-day-of-the-jackal.html","title":{"rendered":"The Cosmos and “The Day of the Jackal”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Eagle<\/a>
The \u201cFairy\u201d in the Eagle Nebula \u00a0 (Public domain\u00a0Hubble photo from NASA and the European Space Agency<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Notes from an uncompleted manuscript:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The quantum theorist Hugh Everett was evidently the first to seriously propose the idea of multiple universes.\u00a0 He has been followed, however, by such scientists as Oxford\u2019s David Deutsch and Lee Smolin, a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics at Canada\u2019s University of Waterloo and a member of the graduate faculty of the philosophy department at the University of Toronto.\u00a0 Smolin has apparently described his idea as \u201cfrank speculation\u201d and as, in a certain sense, something of a \u201cfantasy.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

In 1971, the British novelist Frederick Forsyth published a thriller titled The Day of the Jackal<\/em>, in which a clever professional contract killer very nearly manages to assassinate the French president, Charles DeGaulle.\u00a0 With almost superhuman skill and elaborate planning, the \u201cJackal\u201d manages to get himself into position for a single fatal shot.\u00a0 At the very last moment, though, President DeGaulle moves, and the bullet merely enters the ground. \u00a0So the cheering crowd surrounding President DeGaulle notices nothing, and life goes on as if it had never happened.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 1973 movie that bears the same name followed the novel pretty closely, portraying the \u201cJackal\u201d as elusive, ingenious, and almost unbelievably cunning.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 1997, though, the story was again made into a movie. \u00a0(Hollywood loves to remake successful films.) \u00a0This time, though, it was called, simply, The Jackal<\/em>, partly because the narrative had been substantially altered and partly because Frederick Forsyth wanted neither his own name nor his original novel associated with it. \u00a0In this later version, the \u201cJackal\u201d (now played by the American star Bruce Willis, whose strong suit probably isn\u2019t restraint, rather than by the elegant, patrician English actor Edward Fox) is a very much less subtle assassin.\u00a0 No longer urbane and understated, the new \u201cJackal\u201d tries to take his target out (in this version, it\u2019s the American First Lady rather than the president de la Republique<\/em>) with such massive firepower that, far from his attempt passing unnoticed, the crowd surrounding his target flees in classic Hollywood mass terror as shattered brick and glass rain down upon their heads.\u00a0 It would be exceedingly difficult, if one were not actually in on the plot, to figure out just who, exactly, the assassin\u2019s target had been.<\/span><\/p>\n

Clearly, though, either carefully planned precision or massed and massive destruction will serve to assassinate someone.\u00a0 It\u2019s a matter of finesse versus wild excess.<\/span><\/p>\n

Physicist Karl W. Giberson, from whom I borrow the \u201cJackal\u201d analogy:<\/span><\/p>\n

you can explain the marvelous design of our universe by the finesse of a wise creator or the firepower of some mindless cosmic machine extravagantly belching out alternative realities, some of which have the ingenious design of this one, but most of which do not\u2014collateral damage on a cosmic scale.<\/strong>[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Smolin, The Life of the Cosmos<\/em>, prologue.\u00a0 [See it.]<\/span><\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Giberson, \u201cThe Goldilocks Universe,\u201d 30.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 Notes from an uncompleted manuscript: \u00a0 The quantum theorist Hugh Everett was evidently the first to seriously propose the idea of multiple universes.\u00a0 He has been followed, however, by such scientists as Oxford\u2019s David Deutsch and Lee Smolin, a faculty member at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an adjunct professor of physics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[120,545,123,602,1362],"class_list":["post-64143","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-design","tag-fine-tuning","tag-intelligent-design","tag-multiple-universes","tag-multiverse"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Cosmos and "The Day of the Jackal"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    Notes from an uncompleted manuscript:   The quantum theorist Hugh Everett 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