Please review this paper

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2014taylorj

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I’m currently writing an article discussing the possibility of scientifically proving the existence of God. The article is in very early stages, hence why the first draft is a preprint. For various reasons I cannot return to this paper for about a year. I would really appreciate if someone could please give me feedback on the ideas which are expressed in this paper, so that I can know whether there is any value in what I am writing?

https://osf.io/nqdj8/
 
2014taylorj said:
I’m currently writing an article discussing the possibility of scientifically proving the existence of God. The article is in very early stages, hence why the first draft is a preprint. For various reasons I cannot return to this paper for about a year. I would really appreciate if someone could please give me feedback on the ideas which are expressed in this paper, so that I can know whether there is any value in what I am writing?
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I haven’t had time to read the entire article, but have you considered the following experiment?

More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics)

Okay, having had time to read your article a bit further, it would seem that the above experiment disproves your entire article. There’s no such thing as an independent observer who collapses the wave function.

But still, I haven’t read the entire article. So perhaps I’m mistaken. But it appears as though your argument is mistaken.
 
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Please if you finish reading it inform me of the impression that you had of the paper?
 
This particular experiment does not, because the measuring devices used were not conscious.
 
As someone who teaches about the nature of science as a both a body of knowledge and a philosophy/way of knowing, one of the core things in the literature is that science does not purport to address all questions, especially when it comes to things like matters of faith. Why do you think you should attempt to do so when it’s contradictory to the premise of what science is?
 
Primarily because its the only type of knowledge that our secular society values.
 
I don’t think that really answers my question. Why should I use a hammer to comb my hair? That’s essentially what you’re doing.
 
2014taylorj said:
Please if you finish reading it inform me of the impression that you had of the paper?
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I’m still not through reading it, I’m trying to parse it thoroughly. And at the moment I can’t dedicate my full attention to it. Eventually I’ll get through it.

But one thing is already apparent, it’s flawed in the same way that most metaphysical arguments for God are flawed. In that it begins by assuming the existence of God, or something that can only be explained by invoking a conscious being with a Godlike nature.

In this particular case you’ve assumed that there must be an overarching fixed state of reality, otherwise Wigner and his friend could have differing perspectives on the state of reality at any given moment. And this you argue creates a paradox, in which Wigner’s observations contradict his friend’s observations. But in fact they actually don’t.

All the thought experiment is saying is that from Wigner’s perspective he doesn’t know which state the system is in. While his friend is saying that from his perspective he does indeed know what state the system is in. These two statements don’t contradict each other. There’s no contradiction between Wigner not knowing the systems state, and his friend’s knowing its state. These two statements aren’t mutually exclusive.

Much of the problem lies in how you’re visualizing reality as some fixed physical state, and superposition as a state that somehow exists in opposition to it. It may simply be that the two states are just the result of the two different perspectives, of two different observers.

So in other words, you began with an assumption, which inevitably led you to your intended conclusion.
 
I have only given your manuscript a brief skimming, but I have uncovered the fatal flaw. In quantum theory, detection, loosely called observation, is a matter of physical impingement alone: The state of a system cannot be determined without a physical interaction, and that interaction unavoidably changes the state of the system. It has nothing to do with consciousness.

The conflation of consciousness with observation is a popular misunderstanding that leads to many errors. Here is one magnificent example:


I will stick with the fundamental textbook version of quantum mechanics. It is sometimes difficult, counter-intuitive, paradoxical, puzzling, surprising, and so on, but it is always grounded in the physical, where physical objects possess, transport, and exchange physical attributes like momentum and energy. Nothing more is needed.
 
I am aware of these claims. Contrary to popular belief there are a variety of physicists who support the idea that consciousness causes collapse. Most notably Von Neumann, Bohr, Henry Stapp, Eugene Wigner and John Wheeler. I admit that it is not a verified aspect of quantum theory and is a minority view. This was why I made it clear in the article that this premise, had to be confirmed before a scientific proof of God’s existence could be formulated.
 
Beryllos said:
I have only given your manuscript a brief skimming, but I have uncovered the fatal flaw.
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In the OP’s defense though, he’s proposing a means of demonstrating that consciousness does indeed collapse the wave function. My initial thought is that it’s nuts, but I haven’t had time to really sit down and think it through. But even if he could show that consciousness collapses the wave function it wouldn’t demonstrate the need for God. To do that he has to invoke Wigner’s Friend, to show that the absence of an overarching consciousness would inevitably lead to contradictions and paradoxes.

So even if you assume for the sake of argument that consciousness collapses the wave function, it doesn’t demonstrate the need for a Godlike consciousness.
 
It must be emphasised that the aim of this paper, was not to prove the existence of God scientifically, but to show that God’s existence could be proven scientifically. The argument that you just formulated is valid, and attacks the second premise of this argument. But again this point, you just raised is scientifically testable, since all is needed is to confirm whether from there is a genuine superposition from the perspective of observer 2(Wigner), at the exact moment in which observer 1 claims to know the outcome. This would undoubtedly demonstrate that there is a paradox. I believe that I raised such an objection in premise 3, and then mentioned this experiment in response.
 
2014taylorj said:
Primarily because its the only type of knowledge that our secular society values.
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This is the popular idea and it is a growing truth, but we can’t solve this issue by justifying that delusion. By seeking scientific evidence of God you are in fact reducing epistemology to the scientific method alone, which is scientism. There are other ways of knowing such as metaphysics. What you should be writing is how metaphysics is just as important and as valuable as the subject of physics.
 
2014taylorj said:
It must be emphasised that the aim of this paper, was not to prove the existence of God scientifically, but to show that God’s existence could be proven scientifically.
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It cannot. The best that science can do is identify a “zero-point” from which all physical things proceed, which was what people thought had been done when we discovered the big-bang. Another way is to identify things that cannot be explained physically, but attempts to do so in the past have all too often resulted in a God of the gaps situation that was later replaced by a physical theory. This is not to say there are not things that physics can’t explained because i think there are; but we have to be careful that it isn’t just another God of the gaps…
 
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I don’t reach the conclusion that God can be proven scientifically. Rather, it is concluded that science, could in principle demonstrate the existence of an ultimate observer. However, science cannot determine, whether this ultimate form of consciousness is the creator and ruler of the universe(which I think, is a good working definition for the existence of God).
 
2014taylorj said:
I don’t reach the conclusion that God can be proven scientifically. Rather, it is concluded that science, could in principle demonstrate the existence of an ultimate observer. However, science cannot determine, whether this ultimate form of consciousness is the creator and ruler of the universe(which I think, is a good working definition for the existence of God).
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I have thought of this idea before, that being the idea that we need an observer to collapse the first wave function. But i am not sure that is technically correct.
 
lelinator said:
So even if you assume for the sake of argument that consciousness collapses the wave function, it doesn’t demonstrate the need for a Godlike consciousness
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But if there is a procession of change only because a consciousness has collapsed the wave function, then we would need an overarching consciousness to explain the history of the universe, since humans have only been here for a short time.

But as i have already said to 2014taylorj i don’t know if it’s technically true that “consciousness” collapses the wave function.
 
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What is the context, are you a scientist, a theologian, are you looking to get it published in a peer reviewed journal, why do you have to put it down for a year
 
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