Can Quantum Physics Teach Us About God And Ourselves
Quantum physics is one of the most complicated things you can study, but its also incredibly mind-blowing. Lets focus on some of the basic tenets of quantum mechanics, and use those to explore the relationship among quantum science, human thought, and some of the deepest philosophies of Christianity and Buddhism. Well explore the fundamentals of quantum theory and maybe well find some hints about the nature of reality along the way.
Do you believe that two things can be in the same place at the same time? For a long time, scientists rejected this notion point-blank, along with all manner of ideas about logical impossibilities. Then quantum physics came along, and revealed that seemingly incompatible truths might not only be possible they just might comprise the very essence of reality.;
Quantum theory arose around the turn of the 20th century, when scientists developed the technology to study tiny entities known as quantum particles. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines; a quantum as any of the very small increments or parcels into which many forms of energy are subdivided. So, if were talking light, a quantum particle would be a photon; if were talking matter, the quantum is the electron.;
It might take some hefty open-mindedness some quantum thinking,” you might say. Quantum physics requires us to accept how little we know, while understanding that by doing this, we may be closer than ever to seeing the universe as it actually is.;
Getting Closer To God With Quantum Faith
So what does this all have to do with faith and religion?
Religion and science have always seemed incompatible . But when you look at the relationship between science and faith, you begin to see that the two may be far more similar to each other than we ever dreamed. Could quantum physics be the bridge weve been searching for?
Many scientists believe that all quantum mysticism is pure quackery, which may be so. Still, its fascinating to at least entertain the similarities in the language used by religious leaders and that used by modern scientists.
Its up to you to decide what to believe. Just remember, quantum physics tells us that by making a decision, you might be creating your answer, and if you had made another decision or used another method, the truth you settled on might have ended up looking very different.;
To learn more about the arguments between scientists and religious leaders, view theMagellanTV documentary Science Vs God:
One essential principle in Mahayana Buddhism is the concept of emptiness, which means that nothing has inherent existence. If you look at your hand, you see that its made up of fingers and flesh and bones, and that it doesnt exist separately from the rest of your body. A hand only exists because you observe and name it.;
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The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will make you an atheist but at the bottom of;the glass God is waiting. Warner Heisenberg
Reason One: Human Observers Are Sufficient
The argument being exploited in this method of proving God is that there needs to be an observer to cause a collapse. However, it makes the error of assuming that the collapse has to take prior to the creation of that observer. In fact, the Copenhagen interpretation contains no such requirement.
Instead, what would happen according to quantum physics is that the universe could exist as a superposition of states, unfolding simultaneously in every possible permutation, until such a time when an observer springs up in one such possible universe. At the point the observer potentially exists, there is, therefore, an act of observation, and the universe collapses into that state. This is essentially the argument of the Participatory Anthropic Principle, created by John Wheeler. In this scenario, there is no need for a God, because the observer is itself the creator of the universe. As described by Wheeler in a 2006 radio interview:
We are participators in bringing into being not only the near and here but the far away and long ago. We are in this sense, participators in bringing about something of the universe in the distant past and if we have one explanation for what’s happening in the distant past why should we need more?
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Was The Big Bang The Beginning
;In view of the fact that a beginning in physics implies a Creator, many physicists with a naturalistic orientation would like to avoid the necessity of such a beginning. For this reason, they have proposed that the Big Bang was not the beginning of the universe. Before we can assess this hypothesis, we will want to get a few facts about the contemporary Big Bang Theory.
The Big Bang Theory was proposed originally by a Belgium priest by the name of Fr. George Lemaitre who used it to resolve a problem connected with Einsteins General Theory of Relativity. Though Einstein did not at first affirm the idea of an expanding universe, he later believed it because of its overwhelming verification. Indeed, it is one of the most rigorously established theories in physics today.
Essentially, the contemporary Big Bang Theory holds that a big bang occurred approximately 13.7 billion years ago . It may be analogized to a balloon blowing up where the elastic on the balloon is like the space-time field .
Now, going back to our analogy, suppose there are paint spots all over the balloon. Notice that as the balloon expands , all the paint dots move away from each other. Our universe has been doing something like this for 13.7 billion years.
Was the Big Bang the beginning of the universe? Many physicists think that it was because the Big Bang was the moment at which space-time came into existence and because there is no physical evidence for a period prior to the big bang.
Can Science Rule Out God
We must understand the laws of nature before we can deduce their origins
Creation of Adam.
I should make it clear from the start that I have no religious agenda. Im not a believer. Im not a committed atheist either.
For 10 years, I was an editor at Scientific American. During that time, we were diligent about exposing the falsehoods of intelligent design proponents who claimed to see Gods hand in the fashioning of complex biological structures such as the human eye and the bacterial flagellum. But in 2008 I left journalism to write fiction. I wrote novels about Albert Einstein and quantum theory and the mysteries of the cosmos. And ideas about God keep popping up in my books.
Should scientists even try to answer questions about the purpose of the universe? Most researchers assume that science and religion are completely separate fieldsor, in the phrase coined by evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould, nonoverlapping magisteria. But as physicists investigate the most fundamental characteristics of nature, theyre tackling issues that have long been the province of philosophers and theologians: Is the universe infinite and eternal? Why does it seem to follow mathematical laws, and are those laws inevitable? And, perhaps most important, why does the universe exist? Why is there something instead of nothing?
Perhaps. Well have to wait and see.
This essay was adapted from the introduction to Saint Joan of New York: A Novel about God and String Theory .
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What Is Quantum Physics
In essence, quantum physics is the study of matter and energy at very small, nanoscopic levels, beginning within nuclei, atoms and molecules. Modern science declares that “quanta particles” form atoms. These atoms form molecules and molecules form objectseverything that we can see is made up of these quanta particles. What makes these quanta particles so special is that they do not behave in ways according to known laws of physics, thus making them more of a series of probabilities, rather than something we can scientifically define and observe. Everything that we can see is made up of things that we cannot seeunseen particles. It is in this unexplained, fundamental discovery in science that we find our first Biblical evidence of this phenomenon in Hebrews 11:3 “By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at Gods command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen.”
The High Improbability Of A Pure Chance Occurrence Of Our Low
;A low-entropy universe is necessary for the emergence, development, and complexification of life forms . Roger Penrose has calculated the exceedingly small probability of a pure chance occurrence of our lowentropy universe as 10^10^123 to one. How can we understand this number? It is like a ten raised to an exponent of:
1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
This number is so large, that if every zero were 10 point type, our solar system would not be able to hold it! Currently, there is no natural explanation for the occurrence of this number, and if none is found, then we are left with the words of Roger Penrose himself:
In order to produce a universe resembling the one in which we live, the Creator would have to aim for an absurdly tiny volume of the phase space of possible universesabout 1/10^10^123 of the entire volume, for the situation under consideration.
What Penrose is saying here is that this occurrence cannot be explained by a random, pure chance occurrence. Therefore, one will have to make recourse either to a multiverse or as Penrose implies, a Creator .
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God Quantum Physics And The Bible
In our pragmatic state of mind we tend not to believe in what we cannot comprehend with our basis senses. Therefore, the idea of world conditions being different from those we know seems far fetched.
Quantum physics is a science presently challenging the scientific community much less the limited scientific knowledge of non-scientists. Trying to look up a comparatively simple definition of the subject is a challenge. Under quantum physics is a note it is based on quantum theory. There you find quantum theory is based on quantum mechanics. There the definition is: theory of the mechanics of atoms, molecules, and other physical systems that are subject to the uncertainty principle.
An overly simplistic description is it means coloring outside the scientific box as most of us know it.
Try this for example. Quantum physics suggests that quantum particles that make up atoms can leap distances without going through space. What? They can even change their fundamental qualities to evade detection. The amazing thing is there are scientists who understand this.
This science offers evidence that light particles can ignore time. Studious people with knowledge in the field are convinced of it.
Some persons of faith in the scientific community are saying this is opening the door to further comprehension of creation.
Quantum physics shows that there is a lot not known, a lot.
Do you know how many hairs are on the back of a musk ox in Nome, Alaska?
Can Science Give Evidence Of A Creation And Supernatural Design
;We should begin by clarifying what science can really tell us about a beginning of the universe and supernatural causation. First, unlike philosophy and metaphysics, science cannot deductively prove a creation or God. This is because natural science deals with the physical universe and with the regularities which we call laws of nature that are obeyed by the phenomena within that universe. But God is not an object or phenomenon or regularity within the physical universe, so science cannot say anything about God. Moreover, science is an empirical and inductive discipline. As such, science cannot be certain that it has considered all possible data that would be relevant to a complete explanation of particular physical phenomena or the universe itself. It is always open to new data and discoveries which could alter its explanation of particular phenomena and the universe. This can be seen quite clearly in revisions made to the Big Bang model.
So what can science tell us? It can identify, aggregate, and synthesize evidence indicating that the finitude of past time in the universe as we currently know it to be and conceive it could be. Science can also identify the exceedingly high improbability of the random occurrence of conditions necessary to sustain life in the universe as we currently know it to be and conceive it could be.
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We Would Rather Claim Conscious Control And Agency Over Our Political Voting Than Over What Breakfast Cereal We Are Purchasing
Recent research by my own team shows that nudge techniques often dramatically fail.;They also backfire, leading to worse outcomes than if they weren’t used at all. There are several reasons for this, such as applying the wrong nudge or misunderstanding the context. It seems that more is needed to change behaviour than nudging.
That said, nudgers lead us to believe that we are more easily influenced than we think, and than we are. A fundamental aspect of our psychological experiences is the belief that we are the;agents of change, be it personal circumstances or external ones .
On the whole, we would rather accept;that we have free choice;in all manner of contexts, even when we perceive it is under threat from mechanisms unconsciously manipulating us. However, we still strategically believe we have less;agency, control and responsibility;in certain areas, based on how consequential they are. For example, we would rather claim conscious control and agency over our political voting than over what breakfast cereal we are purchasing.
So, we may argue that our poor breakfast choice was down to subliminal advertising. However, we are less inclined to accept being duped into voting a certain way by big tech social media forces.
Subtle signals we don’t always pay attention to, such as hunger or our emotions, can influence the decisions we make
* Magda Osman is a reader in experimental psychology at Queen Mary University of London.
The High Improbability Of Five Other Anthropic Conditions
;A cosmological constant is a number which controls the equations of physics, and the equations of physics, in turn, describe the laws of nature. Therefore, these numbers control the laws of nature . Some examples of constants are: the speed of light constant , Plancks constant , the gravitational attraction constant , the strong nuclear force constant , the weak force constant , the mass of the proton , rest mass of an electron , and charge of an electron proton . There are several other constants, but these pertain to the following anthropic coincidences :
If the gravitational constant or weak force constant varied from their values by an exceedingly small fraction even just one part in 10^50 then either the universe would have suffered a catastrophic collapse or would have exploded throughout its expansion, both options of which would have prevented the emergence and development of any life form. This cannot be reasonably explained by pure chance.
If the strong nuclear force constant were higher than its value by only 2%, there would be no hydrogen in the universe . If, on the other hand, the strong nuclear force constant had been 2% lower than its value then no element heavier than hydrogen could have emerged in the universe . This would have been equally detrimental to the development of life. This anthropic coincidence also seems to lie beyond the boundaries of pure chance.
1. A multiverse and2. A super intellectual Creator .
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Modern Usage And Examples
In contrast to the mysticism of the early twentieth century, today quantum mysticism typically refers to its New Age incarnation that claims to combine ancient mysticism with quantum mechanics. Called a pseudoscience and a “hijacking” of quantum physics, it draws upon “coincidental similarities of language rather than genuine connections” to quantum mechanics. Physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined the phrase “quantum flapdoodle” to refer to the misuse and misapplication of quantum physics to other topics.
An example of such misuse is New Age guru Deepak Chopra‘s “quantum theory” that aging is caused by the mind, expounded in his books Quantum Healing and Ageless Body, Timeless Mind . In 1998, Chopra was awarded the parody Ig Nobel Prize in the physics category for “his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness”.
The 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!? dealt with a range of New Age ideas in relation to physics. It was produced by the Ramtha School of Enlightenment which was founded by J.Z. Knight, a channeler who said that her teachings were based on a discourse with a 35,000-year-old disembodied entity named Ramtha. Featuring Fundamental Fysiks Group member Fred Alan Wolf, the film misused some aspects of quantum mechanicsincluding the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the observer effectas well as biology and medicine. Numerous critics dismissed the film for its use of pseudoscience.
What Is A Quantum Fluctuation
The term quantum fluctuation is used to describe a number of phenomena in quantum mechanics: the correlation of electrons in atoms and molecules, the zero-point energy of harmonic oscillators, the effects of tunneling, the spontaneous appearance of matter-antimatter particle pairs, etc What all of these phenomena have in common is the existence of what is known as a superposition state. In quantum mechanics, particles and fields can exist in two or more different states at the same time. When one of the states predominates, the remaining state is often referred to as a quantum fluctuation. For example, if we imagine a quantum mechanical coin that can exist in the single state heads or the single state tails, a superposition might consist of the state 99% heads and 1% tails, where the small 1% contribution of the tails state could be seen as a quantum fluctuation. A quantum fluctuation can be either dynamic or static. A dynamic quantum fluctuation refers to the emergence of a superposition state as time progresses. A static quantum fluctuation refers to the fact that the wavefunction exists in a superposition state at some particular instant of time.
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