A Proof Of God Using Quantum Physics

[MindOverMatter2]

You mean that energy is God, something immaterial Whose essence is the same as Its existence? I think you are alluding to disproving extreme materialism (pantheism). You might be interested in St. Thomas Aquinas’s De æternitate mundi (On the Eternity of the World).Yes, many people confuse the world for God.This is very true. I’ve never looked at it that way, though.Yes, why not just say that the universe doesn’t have a cause? I think that would be detrimental to explaining the order of the universe. That the universe is orderly and has a rational plan is a philosophical apriorism that all scientists assume, after all.

I take it from this post that you do not wish to indulge in what I proposed.

Thanks anyway.

Peace.

 

[Geremia]

I take it from this post that you do not wish to indulge in what I proposed.

What makes you think that? I’m just trying to figure out exactly what your asking and trying to make it more specific.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

What makes you think that? I’m just trying to figure out exactly what your asking and trying to make it more specific.

What do you think I am asking?

You are aware of the esse/essence distinction, yes?

 

[Geremia]

You are aware of the esse/essence distinction, yes?

Probably not as well as you might think I am; please elaborate.

 

[Greg27]

It is an interesting argument. However, in my view it is problematic since God is not the only concious entity in the universe. If you believe in Christian theism, there are at least two other kinds of concious being in the universe, being angels (whether the ones in heaven or in hell as demons) and man. Why could not these entities also ‘collapse’ the wavefunction? Why not intelligent aliens (if you don’t believe in God or angels)?

In my understanding, one strange feature in quantum mechanics is the observation of a physical system causes it to ‘collapse’ from a series of probable states into a single observed state. But it seems a big leap for me to jump to the conclusion the human mind is at the centre of the universe. But there are good philosophical arguments that ‘reality’ as we construct it using science needs the human mind and cognition to do so, and our perception and understanding of the universe are not pure and unmediated. So our concious awareness of the universe must be important to how we understand it and how the world appears to us.

 

[Nael]

The universe isn’t really real. It’s just sorta real. Just like you never see, hear, taste, touch, or smell any external thing, it’s all a mental projection like watching a movie, or a big giant holodeck. “Merily, merily, merily, merily… life is but a dream”.

But dreams also contain things that are real. For example, you see a friend in a dream, then that dream contains an element of reality; your friend in your dream is also your friend in real life. Therefore, just because it’s a dream it doesn’t mean that it’s not real.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Probably not as well as you might think I am; please elaborate.

There are potential natures or essences. For instance, “human nature”. Because human nature only potentially exists, this means that human nature cannot exist of its own accord. “Existence” or “esse” is not an attribute or an intrinsic expression of human nature. If existence was an attribute or an intrinsic expression of human nature, then human nature would simply exist without potentiality. It would exist timelessly since it would have no beginning in time or potentiality in its existence or nature. Its esse would be identical with its essence.

We know that there is such a thing as existence or “reality” as opposed to non-existence or non reality. This is evident in the fact that we know and see things that are real and we can distinguish them from that which is not real. The thing we perceive with the senses has that which is absent to our senses when the thing it self is no-longer present as an object or being. If there were no objective “real” or “existence”, then existing would have no substantial difference from not existing (this is a contradiction).

Yet we see things existing, but we also see things passing in and out of existence. Things are potentially real or contingently real. This means that they require the existence of something else, which is itself potentially real. But that which is potentially real, has no reality of its own, since it evidently requires the actual existence of other realities in order to be real. Thus human nature is not real in virtue of its self, but is in fact borrowing or participating in the reality of something else, since its nature has no intrinsic existence. Its nature is not identical to its reality.

It does not solve the problem of existence if we regress infinity, because we are still dealing with potential states which do not have an existence of their own accord. Thus we must account for why possible or potential beings exist, if it is in fact the case that their essence is not identical with their existence.

Out of nothing comes nothing. Thus there must be an absolute reality, which exist without potentiality, and is in fact the act of perfect reality. It is existence by its intrinsic nature. It is the “esse” in which potential essences participate. The first cause of all things not only causes things in to being, but also sustains them in being through its eternal act of reality. The first cause also has an essence or nature, but ultimate reality is the perfect unity of both essence and esse; its esse is identical with its essence. They are the same thing in God.

Hence the esse and essence distinction (distinguishing between potential essence, and existence).

 

[Cecilianus]

This is one interpretation of Quantum Physics that i believe can lead to a inferential proof of God. Perhaps the first scientific proof of God? The following quote is taken from an article by David Pratt.

My argument goes like this.

1. If there were no self conscious beings to collapse the wave function, then reality consisted only of “potentia”. If I’m correct, logically speaking, this would mean that no evolution could have taken place to give rise to conscious beings. This is because mind is needed in order for any material reality to be actualized.

2. Therefore, there must be an eternal transcendent mind (in which these transcendental realms of quantum probabilities exist) that eternally collapses the wave function by necessity of its being; there by giving rise to material reality.

But…

If they could, then this fact would probably ruin my argument. But since there is no good observable causal reasons or mechanisms that would suggest that non-conscious entities can collapse their own wave function, i see no good reason to think that they could; logically speaking.

I am certainly no expert in regards to Quantum Physics, and i will not pretend to be. My argument is only based upon one interpretation that hasn’t really been proven yet. Not to mention that i might be misunderstanding something of vital importance. Perhaps a Catholic with greater knowledge then i will destroy my contentions; but its just a bit of fun.

It will be nice to see what people think. And perhaps somebody might provide their own inferential proves in regards to Quantum Physics. That will be interesting.

I’m coming into this late, and haven’t read through the whole thread yet, so my apologies if I repeat something somebody else said.

I’m interested by the argument, but I don’t think it works. Hopefully my understanding of QM is sufficient, since I’m inches away from a degree in physics (just the class in regular mechanics left).

The whole idea of having wave functions and collapsing them assumes the existence of a mind measuring it, so it’s not so much an argument as a tautology. Quantum mechanics is basically a Kantian process; what it basically shows is that properties such as angular momentum or position are really and truly “observables” - it doesn’t make sense to talk about them unless you’re measuring them. (And you can’t measure something if you don’t have a mind to measure it with.) What would the world be like without us around to measure it? The question makes no sense - “like” to whom? In order to answer the question you have to perceive the universe in order to see the likeness, so you can’t talk about observable quantities without someone observing them.

Mathematically, consciousness is introduced in the formalism using eigenstates and operators. A fundamental premise of QM is that an eigenstate corresponds to a measurable quantity and an operator corresponds to the act of measuring it. The uncertainty principle can be derived by looking at equations in different eigenstates, so the principle itself assumes as its premise that we are measuring something, so it wouldn’t make any sense to talk about QM if we weren’t measuring anything. (Nor would it make sense to talk about the universe, if you have no way of knowing about it.)

So your error lies in saying that conscious beings must exist in order to collapse the wave function. We would not talk about a wave function except in terms of the probability of measuring a specific quantity. You’re basically saying “Conscious beings must exist in order to measure something if something is going to be measured”. Reality is there whether it is measured or not.

Philosophically, I would find your argument troublesome because it implies Berkeleyan idealism (Berkeley came up with this argument for God’s existence hundreds of years ago).

I will respond to Wolfgang Smith’s arguments in another post.

 

[Cecilianus]

The universe isn’t really real. It’s just sorta real. Just like you never see, hear, taste, touch, or smell any external thing, it’s all a mental projection like watching a movie, or a big giant holodeck. “Merily, merily, merily, merily… life is but a dream”.

This is not an accurate representation of what Quantum Mechanics tells us about the world.

 

[Cecilianus]

Some physicists believe it is at the quantum level God acts in the universe. They see the universe as being porous in the quantum areas.

Quantum foam has nothing to do with God, unless you view God as an impersonal event governed by statistics.

 

[Cecilianus]

An interesting interpretation of quantum mechanics that invokes God was developed by Wolfgang Smith in his book “Quantum Enigma”. He uses a Thomistic ontology to explain the various quantum enigma and recalls Saint Thomas Aquinas’ identification of God with the natura naturans, or the “Nature who makes nature”. Specifically, he argues that the wave-like interference of particles occurs in the realm of prime matter, whereas the de-superposition of waves into particles occurs in the realm of forms, and that God affects the transition from potency to act.

He explains it more clearly:

“I contend that quantum indeterminacy - the partial chaos of quantum superposition - can indeed be viewed as reflective of the primordial Chaos or even more concretely as a remnant of this underlying ‘disorder’” (page 123)

“The determinative act, moreover, is in fact more than a mere choice, a mere selection of one element from a given ensemble: for it brings into existence - as it were, ex nihilo - something which previously did not exist as an actual entity” (page 66)

“There is a certain transition from potency to manifestation – from the physical to the corporeal plane – and such a transition can only be effected by the creative or ‘form-bestowing’ principle, which is natura naturans. But since the action of natura naturans is perforce ‘instantaneous’ …], it turns out that there is in reality no temporal process – no actual ‘roll of the die’ – which determines or selects the measure value of X from the spectrum of possible outcomes. This determination derives, so to speak, ‘from on high’ and interrupts the normal course of events, that is to say, the Schrodinger evolution of the given system.” (page 107).

Here are some links to his books and essays for those who are interested:
book
essay

This should be required reading for all Catholic science students.

-Ryan Vilbig

I would agree with Smith on this matter provided that “matter” and “form” are understood as epistemological categories and not physical realities. This is not to say that measurement doesn’t affect a particle’s properties - the fact that it does is the disturbing thing about QM - but rather just that we can’t talk about the universe isolated from our measuring it. (Not because it doesn’t exist, but because we can’t know anything about it without knowing anything about it.)

 

[Cecilianus]

The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics is essentially solipsism: the mind creates the rest of reality. Dr. Stephen Barr eludes to this in his book, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith (link): “[The Copenhagen interpretation] raises the interesting question of whether we can talk about what happens if no one ever observes it. What if the universe had never given rise (and never were to give rise) to sentient beings such as ourselves? What then would the wavefunctions refer to? What would the laws of physics mean without observers?” (page 244) However, Dr. Barr doesn’t propose a solution to this.

Aquinas argued that the problem with solipsism was that solipsists can’t explain their own existence: Summa 1, q.2: “There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible) in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible…Therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.”

Unfortunately, most physicists today are solipsists. Among the few exceptions are Wolfgang Smith (link), and Robert John Russell (link).

We need young Catholics to pursue graduate studies in physics so that a reasonable metaphysics is given a voice in science.

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com

There is nothing solipsistic in the Copenhagen interpretation of QM. The EPR paradox is problematic in that it radically alters our notion of causality and can easily give rise to either solipsism or the Bohm interpretation of QM (which would necessitate jettisoning relativity - something we really can’t do), but philosophically solipsism doesn’t really explain things any better than non-solipsism does; it just removes the problem and the question. It’s really the coward’s way out. How we are to explain the EPR paradox I can’t tell you and nor can anyone else yet, but we have rigorously proven (in Bell’s Theorem) that the Copenhagen interpretation is true.

 

[Cecilianus]

It looks like you are on the right track with understanding the fallacy of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. The fallacy is to take a limitation of an operational procedure of observation and making it into an ontological principle. That is, the principle of indeterminacy says that what cannot be measured exactly does not occur exactly. Heisenberg falsely and ridiculously asserted that he had disproved the law of causality. Such utter nonsense is not even questioned by the majority of today’s physicists.

Heisenberg tended to be a bit sloppy as a philosopher. But the Copenhagen interpretation has been rigorously (and ingeniously) proven through Bell’s Theorem. There are no “hidden variables”.

 

[Cecilianus]

According to the uncertainty relation, as related by Heisenberg, there is an inherent limitation to the accuracy that can be attained in measurements. From this fact Heisenberg immediately jumped to the conclusion that causality had been thereby definitively disproved: “The invalidity or at least the meaninglessness of the law of causality seems to be firmly established through recent developments in atomic physics.” (April, 1927)

And again two years later, Heisenberg says that “the resolution of the paradoxes of atomic physics can be accomplished only by further renunciation of old and cherished ideas. Most important of these is the idea that natural phenomena obey exact laws – the principle of causality,” (Physical Principles of the Quantum Theory; Chicago Univ. Press, 1930)

Heisenberg was sloppy.

There can be no quantitative version (physical account) of “potentia”, which is meta-physical.

And, insofar as it is not quantitative, vague and useless.

The notions of “act” and “potentiality” are not Aristotelian mechanics; they strictly metaphysical concepts and realities. Heisenberg’s attempt to give a qualitative notion quantitative significance was intended to convey the illusion that he was a realist. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Heisenberg’s world is ultimately a world of chance, chaos, and incomprehensibility. He says quantum mechanical representation of the objective world “is completely abstract and incomprehensible, since the various mathematical expressions p(q), p(p), etc., do not refer to a real space or a real property; it thus, so to speak, contains no physics at all.”

In that case Heisenberg’s understanding of math and physics were screwed up. I would be cautious in throwing the terms “chance, chaos, and incomprehensibility” in the same sentence though. Chaos and chance are perfectly comprehensible to physicists. That’s what we have numbers for - to measure the probability of something happening.

Nothing can be further from Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy than the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

Good riddance to Aristotle and Aquinas then; Aristotle’s understanding of science was hardly the most advanced, and if he screwed up so badly in the realm of things easy to understand - the natural world - how much more likely is it that he got his metaphysics wrong?

Just asking.

 

[Cecilianus]

Well, if there was an omniscient and omnipresent observer, all wave functions would collapse immediately resp. would have collapsed already. There would be no “potentia” at all and we could observe no quantum phenomena at all.
Since we do observe them we can conclude there is no ominscient and omnipresent observer. That rules out the Christian god I’d dare say.

God doesn’t measure anything, silly. How He knows the world I can’t say, and nor can anyone else. He doesn’t pose a threat to QM.

 

[Cecilianus]

okay after reading this thread i have a few questions, maybe someone can put provide some (name removed by moderator)ut.

1)is light and sound a product of the beginning?

Beginning of what?

2)what are things without light? how do you know what something is when there is no light to see it?

You can’t know it, but who said you need to know it in order for it to be there?

3)so then could the product of light and sound be consciousness? (once we could see and hear we could begin experiencing. once we could experience, we could reflect. once we reflect, we learn.)

Again, I don’t understand what you mean. Phonons and photons were around for billions of years before life evolved. And deaf and blind people can still be self-aware.

4)if evolution is true, why would life even develop eyes or ears? how would it even know to adapt to seeing and hearing if it cant even see or hear anything?

Natural selection.

to OP, sorry if this is off topic from your thought but this is what came to mind while reading this thread:
You don’t have to look to outer space or go to the end of the Universe to know nothing/emptiness. You are empty. The matter that you are made of is only probably going to be there and only exists as matter when we look at it. Even if the molecules are really there, they are still 99.9% emptiness.

How can nothing be something? The same way your mind is real.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

Good riddance to Aristotle and Aquinas then; Aristotle’s understanding of science was hardly the most advanced, and if he screwed up so badly in the realm of things easy to understand - the natural world - how much more likely is it that he got his metaphysics wrong?

Just asking.

Please, lets not confuse scientific theories with metaphysical certainties. They employ different modes of investigation.

 

[Cecilianus]

I believe in God. I don’t believe in wave-functions.

I think that wave-functions are useful inventions to correlate observations, and nothing more. After all, wave-functions are complex; they contain imaginary numbers. Where does the imaginary part of a wave-function exist?

No, I don’t buy this argument because it involves a very incomplete picture, and metaphysical assertions on things I don’t believe exist.

“Where does the imaginary part of a wave-function exist”? That’s an easy question to answer. Take a water wave. The part of the wave with the largest imaginary component is the part straight down the middle - where the height of the water is the same as where it would be without a wave. Imaginary numbers are best thought of as the measurement of an Aristotelian potentia - energy’s there even though it’s at the same level as it would be without the energy. (Sorry - with all due respect to blabber about potentia “meta-physical” and therefore not quantitative, we’re talking about the physical world, which happens to be quantitative, like it or not.)

You are erring because your imagination is reifying numbers.

 

[Cecilianus]

Quantum Mechanics cannot prove God, as others have posited. However, nothing about quantum mechanics is inconsistent with God.

I’ve studied the subject myself (I have a degree in physics, only a BS, but I also grew up around it as I came from a family of scientists, so I have a good perspective on the subject).

I would posit that quantum mechanics does not so much prove God, but rather is a strong indicator of the existence free will. The inherent randomness of the universe; and indeed the complexity of “empty” space, seems to contraindicate a deterministic universe. In other words, even if you knew all of the initial conditions of the universe to the limits of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, you could not predict the result we see today. We might make probablistic evaluations of likely results based on chaos theory, but you cannot deterministically predict the result to the same level of certainty you started with.

If the universe is not deterministic, then it is possible that we have free will. Indeed, free will seems the most likely result for a being capable of abstract thought since his or her though processes are not determinisitic.

It’s not a proof of free will, really, but the coincidence is more than a little convenient to me.

Ultimately, God cannot be proved, in the sense that none may dispute His existence, because the only way that humans have to eliminate all reasonable dispute on a matter is to make a measurement using a physical tool that both can be understood and agreed upon. (This is positivistic science, in fact.) You cannot measure God with a physical tool, and therefore cannot positivistically prove Him to exist.

You can make some rather reasonable arguments - pointers - that He does exist and that He is the Blessed Trinity. My favorite is first cause followed by the logical claims of Jesus as being God, though I’ve never met an atheist that bought that argument. Most atheists respond to first cause by saying something like, “sure - but that god could be Zeus,” and my retort is that only Jesus claimed to be God, so if He was then that is the correct understanding of God, that Jesus claim is believable because of X,Y,Z - and so and so forth. However, no matter how you formulate the arguments, they are subject to being rejected because they cannot be positivistically proven.

People like to hold onto their dearly held beliefs, even if they are positivistically proven as being wrong. How much harder is it to convince someone a positivistically unprovable belief is wrong?

Ultimately it is the Holy Spirit that converts hearts, not us.

Philosophically, I don’t see how indeterminacy affects free will. Free will is not the same as an uncaused chance event, and whether we have an indeterminate universe or a mechanistic one free will is going to introduce a lot of non-physical agents into the picture.

 

[MindOverMatter2]

How can nothing be something? The same way your mind is real.

You are confusing emptiness with nothingness. The mind is something not nothing. Do not presume that the absence of physical reality equals nothing.