Two words that in combination resonant with mysterious implication. They are the last two words of the first verse of a poem by William Blake, The Tyger. I first read this poem in high school. The notion of fearful symmetry has furtively lurked about my mind ever since.
It seemed an important idea. I wasn’t sure why.
Blake was poet, artist, and mystic. He wasn’t understood in his own time (1757–1827).
He still isn’t. I am fascinated by his work because it is transparently opaque. Isn’t that the essence of Art; to provoke wonder about the everyday mystery of reality.
Much has been written about this famous poem.
My interest is in what Blake intended by “fearful symmetry”. I took it to mean a perfectly balanced concentration of power & purpose committed to a single objective. Blake’s metaphor was a tiger’s full commitment to its attack. He meant much more.
Full commitment requires putting everything you have into what you’re about. I once saw a Nature Channel video of a cheetah chasing an antelope. I don’t know how, but by some measurement of muscle extension, the energy expended could somehow be determined.
The cheetah was using eighty-seven percent of its total capacity – just for lunch.
How many humans use eighty-seven percent of their total capacity for anything? Athletes at peak performance, soldiers on the battlefield, people in fear for their life, people in any similar critical moment sometimes rise to that level. It’s rare.
What is rare in humans is everyday commonplace for predators and their prey.
There is one exception – not eighty-seven percent exceptional – but exceptional in serious focus and determination – the successful businessman. I’ve known quite a few businessmen in the course of my work in design and marketing. The successful ones were tigers, not in ferocity, but in concentration on the work at hand. They did not decide on this way of being. It was their nature. I doubt any of them thought about fearful symmetry - even though they had it.
Their fearful symmetry is the product of their determination to succeed. They are driven to produce: the best product/service possible, at the lowest price possible.
“C’mon, what are you talkin’ about. Business guys are just out for the money”.
That’s a common belief. It’s not true.
Any guy “just out for the money” won’t last long. Those that don’t end up in prison soon go out of business; people don’t like being cheated. They take their business elsewhere.
The best product/service possible, at the lowest price possible is the only thing that keeps buyers coming back for more. Successful businessmen are tigers when it comes to giving their customer/clients what they want. Money follows the fearful symmetry of the successful businessman.
Physics deals in a different sort of fearful symmetry – the symmetry of validated reality. The theorems of physics are expressed in equations. They are called equations because what’s on one side of the equal sign must be equal to what’s on the other side. The best equations are elegantly simple. Einstein’s E=MC2 is the best of the best. Energy = mass, times the speed of light squared. It’s simple, unchallengeable, and indispensable for tying together the many loose ends of Newtonian Physics.
The fact that mass and energy are interchangeable implies that mass is a sort of illusion created by a particular state of energy. Perhaps there is only energy. Sub-atomic physics, which studies the world inside an atom, says as much.
The quantum universe inside an atom behaves very differently than the world outside. Physicists find two sets of reality unacceptable. They are searching for a theory that will explain how these seemingly two realities are really two aspect of the same thing.
They are seeking the fearful symmetry of a Unified Field theory. The theories that have come closest to this goal are collectively known as String Theory.
Several mathematical models have been proposed. They all are based on the idea that all of reality is composed of vibrating “strings” of pure energy.
What appears to be solid matter may in fact be infinitesimal flickers of energy, each singing their own song. Each song being perceived by physicists as lepton, quark, boson, and so on – in much the same way musical notes are perceived as C, D, E, F, G, and so on. The math of these various String theories is not disputed, but there is no way – yet – to validate any of them experimentally.
I think William Blake would be very pleased with the fearful symmetry of a theory that could be described as God singing the Universe into being.
Einstein would also have appreciated that notion. He thought that beauty, especially in the form of symmetry, should guide the search for truth in theoretical physics.
Anthony Zee uses Blake’s poem to analogize current theorizing in his 1986 book, Fearful Symmetry – The Search for Beauty in Modern Physics.
In one passage he describes Einstein’s reaction to a cogently constructed equation presented by a colleague – “It’s so ugly”.
Einstein had no interest in any equation that seemed to him to be ugly. He was convinced that God’s designs would necessarily be beautiful. Equations that lacked beauty were perforce not true.
Modern folks, inculcated with the idea that God has no role in science, will no doubt be surprised at Einstein’s insistence to the contrary. Greater knowledge of history would reveal to them that almost every great scientist assumed a Divine Creator.
These days, those who can’t quite get the word God out of their mouth, say, “Intelligent Design”. That seems to me to be a distinction without a difference.
Symmetry, fearful or otherwise, pleases both eye and mind. There is a quality of reason and rightness about it – balanced, reflective, serene. Some part of our soul resonates to the harmony of perfectly matched elements, parts working in unison, whether in predation, business, physics, or the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Fearful – symmetrical or otherwise – also means apprehensive. Both words mean to be afraid, but the word apprehend also means to take hold of something, whether an antelope or an idea. The Bible says, “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.
Would it be more accurate to translate the Hebrew as, “Apprehension of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”.
Isn’t understanding always the beginning of wisdom.
It takes a perfectly balanced combination of power, purpose, and commitment to create Fearful Symmetry – whether predator, businessman, physicist, or simple soul.
Tyger, Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry.