mind, unbounded

Sir Isaac Newton knew no Trinity
was rooted in his bible in the Greek
but-lest his books be all deemed heresy--
such things he'd write about, but dared not speak.
Instead, he made the cosmos correspond
to God's own tabernacle for His ark
that He'd called forth, by word, not magic wand
a box of Light, carved out of primal Dark.
Imputing physics to the ancient text
its Bronze Age authors had no way to know
strange, pious physicist to retroject
his insights to an era long ago.
Great alchemist! The last of all his kind
transmuted not base metals, but the mind.

snug

Fred Hoyle conjectured Carbon has a state
of excitation far above the ground
and excess energy can radiate
instead of shattering on the rebound
no evidence for such a state was known
it came to him like Kekulé's dream-wraith
a brainstorm that occurred to him alone
but which he published in an act of faith
that heavy elements could be explained
without invoking miracles or Djinn
relieved cosmologists who'd felt constrained
to only Hydrogen and Helium
a cosmos built up from Fred Hoyle's insight
a world for Goldilocks that fits just right

what is

the mystery is we might understand
with minds designed for finding fish and fruits
a universe constructed without plan
inhabited by beings whom it suits
anthropic principles toss what can't be
within our corner of the multiverse
not knowing which parameters are free
and which can change (but only for the worse)
invoking "God" concedes the mind's defeat
hypotheses are made to falsify
the Standard Model--'though it's not complete--
still outperforms old scripture's pious lie
like Goldilocks, we ponder day and night
why it should be this cosmos is just right

what is man that Thou are mindful of him?

evaporative cooling skims the fleet
and leaves the sluggards with the lame and old
the faster atoms carry away heat
and what remain must huddle in the cold
like Maxwell's demon with his little gate
but lacking an intelligence or will
the Second Law's implacable as Fate
inexorably, Order slides downhill.
Despite the stars, the universe is dark
on average, just a few kelvin degrees
our fate's as dreary as it might seem stark
at equilibrium, we're doomed to freeze
all virtue's just provisional 'til then
the cosmos is indifferent to men     

reflections

C-symmetry sets anti-matter's bounds
it must behave like ordinary stuff
yet here on Earth it's been so rarely found
that characterization has been tough
bad novelists feel free to speculate
about a cosmos where all seems reversed
but which is "positive" and which its mate
is just a matter of which got named first
except neutrinos there are all "spin right"
while here they spin like the left-handed do
no measurement of length or width or height
could reassure that you're the real you
all other tests, that world would freely pass
although you're stranded through the Looking Glass

the problem of consciousness

Aristotelian teleology
presuming ends then making up a cause
kept Europe rapt for twenty centuries
despite what seemed irreparable flaws
Spinoza made the case (and so got shunned)
by those too frightened to think such a thought
that we should start with how the thing's begun
and reason from what is to find the ought
but Heisenberg tossed cause away as well
and knocked the clockwork cosmos to the ground
an edifice that spanned Heaven and Hell
constructed on foundations so unsound
we're left in so absurd a universe
to contemplate if consciousness is curse