The Quantum Bible

There are at least two passages in the Bible that address the nature of consciousness and perceived reality.

 We are all familiar with Genesis 1:1, which says that

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

 

Less familiar is the second verse:

 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

This second verse, so often overlooked, is as profound as the first.  In my view, it describes physical reality as an indeterminate potential of possibilities, which is strikingly similar to many interpretations of quantum physics / quantum mechanics (QM).

Nor does this theme end there.  In the second chapter of Genesis, we find yet another frequently overlooked passage that reinforces 1:2, verses 19 and 20

¹⁹ Now the Lord God had formed out of the ground all the wild animals and all the birds in the sky. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name. ²⁰ So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds in the sky and all the wild animals.

Here we have what appears to be a strong inference that physical reality and human perception of it are interlocked, and that physical reality does not coalesce until a conscious perceiver acts.

I’m not a Biblical scholar nor a theologian, but after having struggled to reconcile quantum physics with my Christian beliefs, I was astounded to rediscover these passages in the earliest chapters of the Bible.

Science may be catching up.

Does God Play Dice with the Universe?

Albert Einstein was right, when he famously denied that the universe is based in chance.  He did so, not as a religious statement, but as a denial of a central tenet of quantum physics (QM), the uncertainty principle.  The uncertainty principle says that certain things happen inside the atom that are inherently unpredictable, even by nature itself, so to speak.  If so, then by extension, everything is ultimately determined at random.

Einstein’s alternative theory was that the universe is deterministic.  This idea is as mistaken as the uncertainty principle.  Einstein averred that the universe, once it was set in motion, would play out like a complex row of dominoes.  According to determinism, the future is already decided, and cannot be altered.

Both of these concepts, chance and determinism, are incorrect.  The universe is neither inherently unpredictable, not are its future events inalterable.  There is a third element that neither Einstein nor Heisenberg (and others) seem to have considered—the agency of sovereign individuality.

Life, consciousness and free will are fundamentals upon which all of physical reality is based.  Even if somehow the universe could exist without them, as one person pointed out, what would it matter?  If reality had no life, no conscious witness, then its existence or nonexistence would make no difference.  Likewise, if we had no free will, we would be helpless observers of our own lives, but not participants.  We would be going through the motions, acting out a script that nobody wrote.

Free will is forbidden by the current paradigm in physics.  The physics is correct, the paradigm is wrong.

If we can freely choose between good and evil, then there must actually be good and evil.  They are not figments of our imagination.

These are not games.  Your choices have eternal consequence.  Seek wisdom from the source of all wisdom.  I chose to seek it in Christian faith, and it lifted me from the depth to the heights.  You could do worse.

Cosmic Intent

Pure Probability, Fake Probability, and Cosmic Intent

 

Quantum Physics is revolutionizing how physics describes nature.  Some of its experiments are producing stunning results.  In quantum physics, common sense seems to go out the window, and even down the rabbit hole.  Is the universe really that weird?

 

At the heart of quantum physics (or quantum mechanics) is the principle of uncertainty, and this in turn involves quantum probability.  QM seems to say that everything in the universe is based on chance.  In an infinite quantum multiverse, chance alone would create universes populated by clowns riding unicycles, and every coin flip in them would always land as heads.  If you think I’m making this up, look up what the premier physicists tell us—that in the infinite multi-verse, everything that can happen, will happen, and must happen an infinite number of times.

 If this is true, then the universe is the ultimate absurdity, a cosmic madhouse with no rules except eternal rolls of dice.  Since we cannot lead productive lives based on the belief that all is futility, then we should seek a more well-grounded worldview.

 

This is where the concept of Cosmic Intent comes in.  But first, we must dispel the notion of randomness, since if randomness rules, then intent is irrelevant.

 

There are two kinds of probability, pure and fake.  Since fake is easier, let’s discuss that first.

 

Fake probability (called pseudo-randomness) is best demonstrated by using a normal deck of standard playing cards.  If you look at the top card, you do not have to guess what it is, but otherwise, you do.  Nature already “knows,” so to speak, what the top card is, but you don’t, until you see it.  Your guess has one chance in 52 of being correct.

 

Now for the hard part.  Quantum probability, or pure probability, does not work like that.  Quantum cards would be like dice.  While the dice are rolling, they have no specific result.  Only when they come to rest do the results become certain.  In principle, in the quantum deck of cards, no card has a specific identity until it is seen, or perceived.  This is pure probability.

 

In quantum physics, a radioactive atom will decay at a truly random time, within the parameters of its half-life.  Even if you could look inside the atom, and see everything that is happening there, you still could not predict with certainty when the atom will decay.  Inside the atom, pure probability rules.  Not even nature “knows” when the atom will decay.

 

Fake randomness only seems to be random, because it is our ignorance that makes us uncertain.  Pure randomness is truly random, truly uncertain.  The difference is all the difference in the universe.

 

But what if we can show that randomness requires intent?  We can show that.  Let’s start with a trick question.  If I roll one die, what is the chance that it will land a six?  One in six?  Yes, but only if the die has six sides.  If it has four sides, there is no chance, and if it has twelve sides, there is one chance in twelve.

The key point is that dice do not have random numbers of sides.  They are designed and manufactured with a specific intent and purpose.

 

Randomness in the universe is like that.  The universe, like dice, has specific parameters within which chance must operate.  The universe, like dice, is intelligently designed and created for a specific purpose.

 

We can call this principle, Cosmic Intent, but we could also call it, God’s will.

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Is There Any Point or Purpose?

 

According to Eric Dietrich, philosophy is a dying discipline.  He says,      

 

“Except for a patina of twenty-first century modernity, in the form of logic and language, philosophy is exactly the same now as it ever was; it has made no progress whatsoever [in the past few centuries]. . . . Even more outrageous than this claim, though, is the blatant denial of its obvious truth by many practicing philosophers. . . . a mental condition where the affected person denies there is any problem. . . . philosophy 's inability to solve any philosophical problem, ever.”

 

Dietrich’s glum assessment would have some merit, except for some recent advances in science, advances that are leading to a reexamination of the philosophy that underlies science itself.  It must be emphasized that the God paradigm does not dispute science, but rather, it challenges the philosophy called natural materialism, which is the basis upon which the scientific establishment operates these days.

 

That philosophy also goes by other names, or at least associations with, ideas such as physicalism, monism, objectivism.  The common thread they all seem to have, is that everything in physical nature can be explained by other things in physical nature, with no need to resort to matters of spirit, no need for purpose or plan or meaning.  All of that, is deemed to be an unscientific hodge-podge of meaningless, subjective drivel, and a waste of time, a diversion from the more worthy goals of scientific inquiry.  The greatest minds of physical science say so, and we ordinary mortals (no sarcasm intended, really) cannot help but be intimidated when they do.  I am.

 

However, as Shakespeare would say, the truth will out. 

 

For centuries, theologians and others struggled against the growing evidence for a purely physical explanation of everything in nature.  By extension, nature itself was its own, and only, explanation, according to those who did the hard work of scientific research.  Their work became incorporated into technology, and today we luxuriate in the many blessings of that technology.  Our lives are longer and more pleasant than at any previous time in history.

 

Yet, all along, there was a gorilla in the room, indeed three of them.  They are still with us, silently bearing witness to the inadequacy, the futility, indeed the absurdity of a purely physical explanation to physical reality.  Those three witnesses are life, consciousness, and free will, a unified trinity of objective observations which, well, “will out.”

 

For centuries, it was argued that even those three features of humanity will eventually prove to be purely physical in nature.  Of course, many of us recognize that argument as being one from faith, not science.  It is utterly unscientific to state as a fact something that has not been demonstrated.

 

It so happens that, slowly, gradually, the evidence is mounting that life, consciousness and free will are intertwined in such a way that instead of being peripheral products of nature, they are at its essence, at its core and foundation.

 

This evidence comes from many sources, but perhaps the most impressive evidence comes to us from the science of quantum physics (or quantum mechanics, as it is also known).  The book, The God Paradigm, goes into this in more detail, but for the purposes of this brief commentary, experiments in quantum physics have had stunning and controversial results.  These results hint that the human mind is not a mere observer of reality, but in a fundamental way, shapes it.

 

There is more.  No one element of science has been conclusive in this regard, but the weight of many discoveries is increasing.

 

Another stunning discovery was something called the Fine Tuning of the universe.  What this means is that, if the physical properties of the universe were to be any different than what they in fact are, the universe would either collapse into a fireball, or explode into a mist, but in neither case, could it support life, civilization and the technology of science.

 

We can go on and on with this, and The God Paradigm does, but the main point of this commentary is actually to dispute the notion that philosophy is a dying endeavor of humanity.  It is not.

 

Indeed, the progress, which the philosophy of a new paradigm will produce, will not only revolutionize science, it will magnify the benefits of technology—and this is crucial, when one considers that the very technology which cures disease can also produce germ warfare, and with it, incurable diseases.

 

As Bob Dylan might say, the old guard is rapidly fading.