Quantum Physics and Free Will, Omniscience, and Determinism

[greylorn]

I would answer that question as absolutely yes, God knows every photon’s position and momentum. He could not be omniscient without knowing everything.

Does God need to be omniscient?

An omniscient entity cannot have an original, creative thought. Even humans can manage such thoughts, now and then.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

I claim its possible He does not know the slit an electron goes through in a double slit experiment. He could nonetheless be omniscent. It would just be different than what one usually considers omniscent to be.

If God does not know which slit the electron goes through, then God is not omniscient. Omniscient is defined as “the capability to know everything infinitely;” literally all knowing. If one does not know all, then one cannot be all-knowing. This is basic definitions that you are screwing up here.
There is zero possibility that God could be omniscient and not know something. It is a complete contradiction of terms. You could, however, define God as magniscient, “very knowing.” In which case I, and likely many others on this forum, would completely disagree.

So you claim it is, if all properties of a human, who ingested some radioactive material, is known including the rough position of the particles, then in principle it would be known for certain whether he gets cancer or not?

Sounds a bit strange considering that its indeterministic, which particles actually decay and in which direction the decay products are emitted.

No, it is not known if said person would get cancer or not. There is no formula for getting cancer, it is something that happens to each person individually. And even if you knew the position of every particle, it could not reveal such information to you.

I have already stated on this matter that the intrinsic indeterminacy of a quantum decay of a radioactive material plays no role on the development of cancer in a macroscopic organism. This is not rocket science, it is simple logic: indeterminacy is an effect of quantum mechanics and is only valid in the quantum regime; once you escape the quantum regime, indeterminacy plays no role.
So, again, it is absurd to think that quantum indeterminacy means there is a global indeterminacy.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_fusion
“There are two effects that lower the actual temperature needed. One is the fact that temperature is the average kinetic energy, implying that some nuclei at this temperature would actually have much higher energy than 0.1 MeV, while others would be much lower. It is the nuclei in the high-energy tail of the velocity distribution that account for most of the fusion reactions. The other effect is quantum tunneling. The nuclei do not actually have to have enough energy to overcome the Coulomb barrier completely. If they have nearly enough energy, they can tunnel through the remaining barrier. For these reasons fuel at lower temperatures will still undergo fusion events, at a lower rate.”

Okay, you are missing the point here. We are not talking about single particles, but massive globs of plasma. If there is sufficient gravitational pull on a gas cloud, fusion will occur. Spend your time reading this Wikipedia article on star formation, rather than looking up the nuclear fusion article that is discussing something completely different than stars

Not the entire mass will be iron, just the larger part. In the end phase silicium will burn into iron and the amount of silicium will decrease. At some point there will be not enough silicium left to maintain a fusion process and collapse will happen. And the breakdown of fusion process will not be completely uniform.

Considering my statement of “When the entire core becomes iron, there is no more fusion…” the first sentence means absolutely no sense: the core is not the total mass, and the “larger part” will definitely not be iron; the core is the smaller part.
The second and third sentences are a rephrasing of my statement. But that last one…obviously it will not be a radially uniform stop in fusion, since it is only the core, but there is still fusion going on in the outer layers of the star where (going from outer-most to inner-most and ignoring many by-products) hydrogen produces helium which produces carbon which produces neon which produces oxygen which produces silicon which can produce more iron. Those 6 layers are still maintaining fusion.

–continued–

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

–continued–

If by chance many of the remaining few silicium atoms in a region meet (and this is not determined), such a region will maintain the fusion process slightly longer than a region, in which by chance few of the remaining silicium atoms meet each other. So in case of uniform silicium distribution, the breakdown of fusion process will still not be uniform, due to the indeterminancy.

There will not be a ‘few remaining silicon atoms,’ but about half a solar mass of them (give or take, depends on the initial mass of the star). Take a look at the work of Stan Woosley and Thomas Weaver, they have done a lot of analyses of supernova nucleosynthesis. The plasma ejected in a supernova follows conventional Eulerian hydrodynamic flows (though, because it is a hot plasma, it technically is magneto-hydrodynamics or hydro-magnetics, but suffice it to say, there is not that much different outside the magnetic field), which have been known for a hundred years.
As I have stated above, there is no quantum indeterminacy in macroscopic physics.

And the exact way the breakdown happens will influence the following explosion and the distribution of the expanding material slightly.

Again, not really true. See the work of Roger Chevalier, Don Ellison, John Blondin, and/or Bram Achterberg (usually listed as A Achterberg). These guys know about the flow of supernova ejecta in space.

And an asteroid passing through the expanded and cooled down gas cloud will have its course slightly altered depending upon the distribution of the gas cloud, which is not determined prior collapse due to the indeterminancy of the exact pattern of fusion process breakdown.

If the gas has cooled sufficiently, then it is possible for the asteroid to not have been completely obliterated. But, again, there is no gravitational pull on the ejecta so that will not affect it. And, again, an asteroid is a macroscopic particle, if it hits a cold gas cloud, it is extremely possible to determine its new trajectory.

We do not know how the brain functions and therefore do not know, whether for simulating a brains classical physics would be enough or not.

And regarding very remote chances, they are just ignored for convenience. According to QM there is a chance, that we all die the next second, if all radioactive particles of earth decay the next second. Chance is low for this to happen, but it is not deterministic whether it will happen or not.

So what you are saying in the first paragraph (if you can call a sentence a paragraph) is that you made a baseless assertion that neural processes are quantum in nature when you have absolutely no idea. I am glad that this is a logical discussion I am having with you.

I do not believe such a decay could happen. The chance of the timing of 10[sup]80[/sup] particles to just decay-including our own?–is just beyond astronomical. Sure the radioactive decay is a quantum process, but the chance that 10[sup]80[/sup] particles doing it simultaneously (or at least close to it) is getting into statistical mechanics where quantum effects are often ignored because of the macroscopic system.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Does God need to be omniscient?

An omniscient entity cannot have an original, creative thought. Even humans can manage such thoughts, now and then.

I believe God needs to be omniscient. As St Thomas points out, it follows from his perfection.

And I would disagree with your analysis: an omniscient entity possesses all thought, so creative and original thoughts are possessed by an omniscient entity. Humans can only manage to have original and creative thoughts with respect to humanity, not with respect to the omniscient entity.

 

[carn]

If God does not know which slit the electron goes through, then God is not omniscient. Omniscient is defined as “the capability to know everything infinitely;” literally all knowing. If one does not know all, then one cannot be all-knowing. This is basic definitions that you are screwing up here.

No.
Omnipotence is well compatible with “being unable to create a stone so heavy one cannot lift it” and “being unable to create a circle with some points having a different distance from center than others”.

The reason is that the statements are paradoxons and so the things cannot exist and things that cannot exist are irrelevant in respect to omnipotence.

And its the same thing with omniscience, things that cannot be known are irrelevant in respect to omniscience. And such a thing that cannot be known is in case of a double slit without wave function collapse the path of the particle. Not knowing it, is no problem for omniscience.

No, it is not known if said person would get cancer or not.

You forget i am talking about things being deterministic or not. About whether the intial state (specific human with ingested radioactive material and with known surrondings.) already determines the final situation (cancer or not cancer).
Since the radiactive decays are the initial cause for the cancer and are indeterministic, its impossible that its deterministic whether a specific human gets cancer.

I have already stated on this matter that the intrinsic indeterminacy of a quantum decay of a radioactive material plays no role on the development of cancer in a macroscopic organism. This is not rocket science, it is simple logic: indeterminacy is an effect of quantum mechanics and is only valid in the quantum regime; once you escape the quantum regime, indeterminacy plays no role.

And this is a flawed although very handy logic. The reason we can mostly ignore quantum mechanics in macroscopic situations is, that if we throw 610^23 “dices” often roughly 110^23 will show up 6. Since we lack claculating power to always simulate the 610^23 dice throws, we just calculate as if the dice throwing does not happen and always 110^23 sixes are present.

This does not matter much for us in most cases, because the variation of the number of sixes will be very low, far below our other error sources and therefore the precision of our results does not change whether we include the dices or not.

But what i am talking about is not what we know, but determinism.
Is it already determined, that the asteroid currently 100000 LYs away and moving so, that it passes through our solar system in about 1 billion years, will be on a collision course with earth?

In classical physics it would be.
But the answer is only determined, if the position of all larger masses and all particles, which are going to collide with the asteroid, are determined exactly for the coming billion years. But on such a time scale even tiny variations could change the result of some event slightly and thereby change the matter distribution slightly. Therefore QM could play a role and cause the above question to be indetermined.

If there is sufficient gravitational pull on a gas cloud, fusion will occur.

I never denied that.
I just claimed that when the fusion process stops chance will start playing a role.

rather than looking up the nuclear fusion article that is discussing something completely different than stars

Strange statement, that the fusion process powering stars has nothing to do with stars.

obviously it will not be a radially uniform stop in fusion,

I am claiming that the stop in fusion will not be rotationally symmetric in all layers.

As I have stated above, there is no quantum indeterminacy in macroscopic physics.

So you would claim, that throwing a real dice is, as its a macroscopic object, completely deterministic and its just our lack of knowledge of the exact position and movement of all particles near the dice (and that includes the hand throwing the dice), that causes us to be uncertain about the dice result?

And, again, an asteroid is a macroscopic particle, if it hits a cold gas cloud, it is extremely possible to determine its new trajectory.

Of course. But i am talking about whether prior to the supernova the asteroid course was already exactly determined. That is only possible if the gas distribution was exactly determined prior the supernova. And as a star goes supernova, when a reaction goverened by quantum mechanics does not happen often enough anymore, i see no reason why the gas distribution should be exactly determined prior the supernova.

That t is roughly determined is of course true (roughly being probably something like 10^-3 error). But for the asteroid path to be determined hundreds of millions of years into the future, roughly is not enough.

—continued—

 

[carn]

I do not believe such a decay could happen. The chance of the timing of 1080 particles to just decay-including our own?–is just beyond astronomical.

But its not 0. And therefore QM indeterminancy can have global effects. Although it happens seldom.

Sure the radioactive decay is a quantum process, but the chance that 1080 particles doing it simultaneously (or at least close to it) is getting into statistical mechanics where quantum effects are often ignored because of the macroscopic system.

They are ignored for convenince. Any simulation including them all would get horribly complicated without improved precision:
50%±5 of result A
50%±5 of result B (A and B being usual macroscopic and deterministic results, we just often do not know, due to lack of knowledge of initial state)
1 to 10^100000000000000000000000000000 ±5 chance for us being all grilled
1 to 10^100000000000000000000000000000 ±5 chance for experimental apparatus dissolving spontaneously
…

We just ignore those latter aspects as they are irrelevant given our measurement error.

But the “measurement error” of an omniscient being must be exactly 0. And therefore these unlikely situations are not irrelevant, when considering the knowledge of such a being. The being must certainly know whether its A or B,because it knows also intial state exactly. It simply can take what is intially known about the situation and from that conclude whether A or B will happen.
But the crazy QM results are not determined by intial state, they either happen or do not happen. The omniscient being cannot know about them by locking only at the intial state. Therefore the knowledge of the omniscient being of the initial state is limited if QM is correct.

Of course for an omniscient being this might be irrelevant, because it will know whether the crazy results will happen. But for our understanding of omniscient it is not irrelevant.

 

[carn]

Would you shed some light on the circumstances?

Whenever the wave function has not collapsed.

As an example en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment#Interference_of_individual_particles
double slit experiment.

When there is no mechanism determining throught which slit the particle moves, the question “What exactly was the position of the particle, during the moment it passed through the slits?” is a meaningless question. At that moment the particle has no exact position.

 

[tonyrey]

Does God need to be omniscient?

An omniscient entity cannot have an original, creative thought. Even humans can manage such thoughts, now and then.

The flaw in your argument is that omniscience is not static but dynamic like creativity…

 

[aquohn]

The flaw in your argument is that omniscience is not static but dynamic like creativity…

Can you be more specific? Currently this cannot be qualified as an argument.

 

[aquohn]

Alright, time to settle a few issues about qauntum theory once and for all. It seems that most obejctions are levelled from a philosophical viewpoint, or from a flawed physical one. I suggest that the “philosophers” actually study the subject matter, for it is actually a lot harder than it seems.

As for the argument about quantum macroscopic events, Wikipedia has the following to say:

The quantum physics used at atomic scales works differently in many ways from Newtonian physics. Indeed, some findings are unintuitive and difficult to believe. Physicist Aaron D. O’Connell explains that understanding our universe, at such small scales as atoms, requires a different logic than day to day life. O’Connell does not deny that it is all interconnected: the scale of human existence ultimately does emerge from the quantum scale. O’Connell argues that we must simply use different models and constructs when dealing with the quantum world.[32] As a result, these branches of physics are sometimes misrepresented or misunderstood, making some claims seem more scientific than they are (e.g. The Secret (book)[33] or What The Bleep Do We Know!?[34]). Quantum mechanics remain, however, the product of careful application of the scientific method, logic and empiricism. For instance, Werner Heisenberg’s carefully formulated Uncertainty principle explains why the paths of objects can only be predicted in a probabilistic way (the reasoning is nuanced, involving, among other things, the observer effect).

Although it is not possible to predict the trajectory of any one particle, they all obey determined probabilities which do permit some prediction.
This is where statistical mechanics come into play, and where physicists begin to require rather unintuitive mental models: A particle’s path simply cannot be exactly specified in its full quantum description. “Path” is a classical, practical attribute in our every day life, but one which quantum particles do not meaningfully possess. The probabilities discovered in quantum mechanics do nevertheless arise from measurement (of the perceived path of the particle). As Stephen Hawking explains, the result is not traditional determinism, but rather determined probabilities.[35] In some cases, a quantum particle may indeed trace an exact path, and the probability of finding the particles in that path is one.[clarification needed] In fact, as far as prediction goes, the quantum development is at least as predictable as the classical motion, but the key is that it describes wave functions that cannot be easily expressed in ordinary language. As far as the thesis of determinism is concerned, these probabilities, at least, are quite determined. These findings from quantum mechanics have found many applications, and allow us to build transistors and lasers. Put another way: personal computers, Blu-ray players and the internet all work because humankind discovered the determined probabilities of the quantum world.[33] None of that should be taken to imply that other aspects of quantum mechanics are not still up for debate.

On the topic of predictable probabilities, the double-slit experiments are a popular example. Photons are fired one-by-one through a double-slit apparatus at a distant screen. Curiously, they do not arrive at any single point, nor even the two points lined up with the slits (the way you might expect of bullets fired by a fixed gun at a distant target). Instead, the light arrives in varying concentrations at widely separated points, and the distribution of its collisions with the target can be calculated reliably. In that sense the behavior of light in this apparatus is deterministic, but there is no way to predict where in the resulting interference pattern any individual photon will make its contribution (although, there may be ways to use weak measurement to acquire more information without violating the Uncertainty principle).

Some (including Albert Einstein) argue that our inability to predict any more than probabilities is simply due to ignorance.[36] The idea is that, beyond the conditions and laws we can observe or deduce, there are also hidden factors or “hidden variables” that determine absolutely in which order photons reach the detector screen. They argue that the course of the universe is absolutely determined, but that humans are screened from knowledge of the determinative factors. So, they say, it only appears that things proceed in a merely probabilistically determinative way. In actuality, they proceed in an absolutely deterministic way. These matters continue to be subject to some dispute. A critical finding was that quantum mechanics can make statistical predictions which would be violated if local hidden variables really existed. There have been a number of experiments to verify such predictions, and so far they do not appear to be violated. This would suggest there are no hidden variables, although many physicists believe better experiments are needed to conclusively settle the issue (see also Bell test experiments). Furthermore, it is possible to augment quantum mechanics with non-local hidden variables to achieve a deterministic theory that is in agreement with experiment. An example is the Bohm interpretation of quantum mechanics. This debate is relevant because it is easy to imagine specific situations in which the arrival of an electron at a screen at a certain point and time would trigger one event, whereas its arrival at another point would trigger an entirely different event (e.g. see Schrödinger’s cat - a thought experiment used as part of a deeper debate).

 

[aquohn]

Thus, the world of quantum physics casts reasonable doubt on the traditional determinism that is so intuitive in classical, Newtonian physics. At the small scales, our reality does not seem to be absolutely determined. Yet this was precisely the subject of the famous Bohr–Einstein debates between Einstein and Niels Bohr. There is still no consensus. In the meantime, humans continue to benefit from the fact that reality obeys determined probabilities at the quantum scale. Such adequate determinism (see Varieties, above) is the reason that Stephen Hawking calls Libertarian free will “just an illusion”.[35] Compatibilistic free will (which is deterministic) may be the only kind of “free will” that can exist. However, Daniel Dennett, in his book Elbow Room, says that this means we have the only kind of free will “worth wanting”. For even more discussion, see Free will.
[edit] Other matters of quantum determinism

Chaotic radioactivity is the next explanatory challenge for physicists supporting determinism
All uranium found on earth is thought to have been synthesized during a supernova explosion that occurred roughly 5 billion years ago. Even before the laws of quantum mechanics were developed to their present level, the radioactivity of such elements has posed a challenge to determinism due to its unpredictability. One gram of uranium-238, a commonly occurring radioactive substance, contains some 2.5 x 1021 atoms. Each of these atoms are identical and indistinguishable according to all tests known to modern science. Yet about 12600 times a second, one of the atoms in that gram will decay, giving off an alpha particle. The challenge for determinism is to explain why and when decay occurs, since it does not seem to depend on external stimulus. Indeed, no extant theory of physics makes testable predictions of exactly when any given atom will decay. At best scientists can discover determined probabilities in the form of the element’s half life.

The time dependent Schrödinger equation gives the first time derivative of the quantum state. That is, it explicitly and uniquely predicts the development of the wave function with time.

So if the wave function itself is reality (rather than probability of classical coordinates), quantum mechanics can be said to be deterministic. Since we have no practical way of knowing the exact magnitudes, and especially the phases, in a full quantum mechanical description of the causes of an observable event, this turns out to be philosophically similar to the “hidden variable” doctrine[citation needed].

According to some,[citation needed] quantum mechanics is more strongly ordered than Classical Mechanics, because while Classical Mechanics is chaotic (appears random, specifically due to minor details - perhaps at a smaller scale), quantum mechanics is not. For example, the classical problem of three bodies under a force such as gravity is not integrable, while the quantum mechanical three body problem is tractable and integrable, using the Faddeev Equations.[clarification needed] This does not mean that quantum mechanics describes the world as more deterministic, unless one already considers the wave function to be the true reality. Even so, this does not get rid of the probabilities, because we can’t do anything without using classical descriptions, but it assigns the probabilities to the classical approximation, rather than to the quantum reality.

Asserting that quantum mechanics is deterministic by treating the wave function itself as reality implies a single wave function for the entire universe, starting at the origin of the universe. Such a “wave function of everything” would carry the probabilities of not just the world we know, but every other possible world that could have evolved. For example, large voids in the distributions of galaxies are believed by many cosmologists to have originated in quantum fluctuations during the big bang. (See cosmic inflation and primordial fluctuations.) If so, the “wave function of everything” would carry the possibility that the region where our Milky Way galaxy is located could have been a void and the Earth never existed at all. (See large-scale structure of the cosmos.)

 

[aquohn]

And this:

Early scientific thought often portrayed the universe as deterministic,[44] and some thinkers claimed that the simple process of gathering sufficient information would allow them to predict future events with perfect accuracy. Modern science, on the other hand, is a mixture of deterministic and stochastic theories.[45] Quantum mechanics predicts events only in terms of probabilities, casting doubt on whether the universe is deterministic at all. Current physical theories cannot resolve the question of whether determinism is true of the world, being very far from a potential Theory of Everything, and open to many different interpretations.[46][47]

Quantum mechanics defines probabilities to predict the behavior of particles, “rather than determining the future and past with certainty”. Because the human brain is composed of particles, and their behavior is governed by the laws of nature, Stephen Hawking says that free will is “just an illusion”.[48]
Assuming that an indeterministic interpretation of quantum mechanics is correct, one may still object that such indeterminism is for all practical purposes confined to microscopic phenomena.[49] This is not always the case: many macroscopic phenomena are based on quantum effects. For instance, some hardware random number generators work by amplifying quantum effects into practically usable signals. A more significant question is whether the indeterminism of quantum mechanics allows for the traditional idea of free will (based on a perception of free will — see Experimental Psychology below for distinction). If a person’s action is the result of complete quantum randomness, however, this in itself would mean that such traditional free will does not exist (because the action was not controllable by the physical being who claims to possess the free will).[50]

Under the assumption of physicalism it has been argued that the laws of quantum mechanics provide a complete probabilistic account of the motion of particles, regardless of whether or not free will exists.[51] Physicist Stephen Hawking describes such ideas in his 2010 book The Grand Design. According to Hawking, these findings from quantum mechanics suggest that humans are sorts of complicated biological machines; although our behavior is impossible to predict perfectly in practice, “free will is just an illusion.”[48] In other words, he thinks that only compatibilistic (deterministic) free will is possible based on the data.

Erwin Schrödinger, a nobel laureate in physics and one of the founders of quantum mechanics, came to a different conclusion than Hawking. Near the end of his 1944 essay titled “What Is Life?” he says that there is “incontrovertible direct experience” that we have free will. He also states that the human body is wholly or at least partially determined, leading him to conclude that “…‘I’ -am the person, if any, who controls the ‘motion of the atoms’ according to the Laws of Nature.” He explains this position on free will by appealing to a notion of self that is emergent from the entire collection of atoms in his body, and other convictions about conscious experience. However, he also qualifies the conclusion as “necessarily subjective” in its “philosophical implications.” Contrasting the views of Hawking and Schrödinger, it is clear that even among eminent physicists there is not unanimity regarding free will.

I think that settles that, eh? (The reason why I did not use a link is that no one actually seems to be reading the links)

 

[aquohn]

And regarding the cancer issue, how about this: you are trapped in a box with a devilish mechanism designed to smash a vial of poison and kill you the moment a radioactive source decays. It basically works the same way. God does not know about your death with 100% certainty, though he can state with great probability you will be killed by poison. It is possible that thirst, starvation, and suffocation get to you first, or that the entire box (or, more accurately, every particle in the box) could quantum-tunnel or decay away, leaving you free to live your life as per normal. Of course the chnce that any of these might happen are extremely low (except for the first one; it depends on what the radioactivity source is), but they are still possible, violating the existence of omniscience, at least as we traditionally define it.

Speaking of traditionally defined omniscience, God not knowing the exact momentum and position of a particle at the same time or which slit a particle went through is entirely logical and does not compromise His sovereignity over the universe at all. Those pieces of information simply do not exist. Asking for them is like asking you to p(name removed by moderator)oint an atom on a wave breaking on a shore and saying that it is the wave in its entirety. I will repeat the assertion again. IT SIMPLY DOES NOT EXIST. God cannot know something which does not exist.

 

[aquohn]

Now to address greylorn’s concerns in the first post.

I did not study physics formally. In fact I dived into qualitative quantum mechanics with only an intuitive understanding of classical mechanics (like what good Angry Birds players have…), using Wikipedia as my textbook and popular science books as supplementary reading material. Wikipedia lives up to its goal of being neutral; I formulated my own interpretation of the results, but of course they were shaped by my beliefs. I do not believe that I accept the ‘dogma’ greylorn speaks of.

As for his point on why God created us, and someone else’s point on whether God existed before the Big bang, it’s like this.

I believe that our universe is merely a local patch of spacetime, i.e. there is more spacetime outside the universe. From hence we gain a reference point.

Now, on to God proper. I believe that in the beginning, there was no time. With no time existing, ‘existence’ in its primordial form evolved into a state of maximum perfection: omnibenevolent, omnipotent, and, as far as logically possible, omniscient. Whether this evolution was fast or slow is another piece of information which does not exist: there was no time. And after this, God wanted to permit his love to flow onto something/someone else. So he created Man in his image, and Angels to serve him, and Earth and Heaven to contain them both. Earth, and the Universe, were indeterministic, as, of course, no-one is going to derive any pleasure out of watching a film which they have memorised perfectly down to the slightest jitter of a quark, as I said before, and Man is going to react differently in an indeterministic universe. Maybe they will treat God and his love differently. Who knows, free will is even more unpredictable than quantum mechanics. And of course God created time and space, so that finite minds, flaws and all, might be able to comprehend the universe He placed them in. And of course God was more subtle than merely willing these things into existence: to give Man some fun problems to solve, he decided to use his new paintbrush Physics to do things like create singularities which expand into full universes, and also, he used his engine of indeterminancy combined with his omnipotence and his paintbrush Physics to shape the universe and life into what it is today. Of course he proceeded to immerse himself in his spacetime-bounded slice of existence, and hence has a consciousness less alien to us, and can recieve, consider and answer prayers without troublesome or freaky transformations being required on spacetime for him to do so.

Alright, that’s more or less it. Why and how we came to be.

tl;dr God had so much love and goodness that He wanted to share it with creatures who can appreciate it the same way He could. we are those creatures.

 

[Alberti_Devoveo]

Carn: It seems to me that

(a) You have very little training, if at all, in physics and are just running with an idea without any clue as to the complete illogic and idiocy of it. I will try not to waste my time debating physics that you are very clearly wrong about.
You are literally arguing that a missile will be deflected from its final point because of a radioactive decay (or even something more frequently occurring such as an air shower) nearby the trajectory. It is beyond lunacy to think that a sub-atomic particle could possibly deflect something as massive as a missile.

(b) You are advocating that there is no such thing as free will. There are easier ways to do this than introducing quantum mechanics: using God’s omniscience or using causality. Introducing physics that you have little grasp of only hinders your ability to argue.
My suggestion is to drop it entirely, and start arguing based on philosophical grounds rather than scientific grounds.

(c) You introduce strawmen arguments a lot. Case in point: I argued your definition of omniscience is flawed because an all-knowing being cannot not know something; you then argued something about omnipotence.
Try sticking with the arguments presented against your position. Do not invent new positions to argue, people here will call you out on that.

 

[greylorn]

I believe God needs to be omniscient. As St Thomas points out, it follows from his perfection.

And who says that God is perfect? What does perfect even mean? If you take the trouble to study the history of the religious beliefs which you now hold, you will find that all of them are invented by men, who subsequently proclaimed them to be God’s truth.

You obviously have a good grasp of physics. You’ve acquired this from authority figures-- professors, and textbooks written by their cronies, which rarely include the dissentions, squabbles, and mysterious moments of mysticism which pepper the true history of physics.

Essentially, everything you know about physics comes from something you learned from an authority figure. However, you probably hold the belief that whatever these authorities say and write is backed up by experimental evidence, much like the dollar was once backed by gold.

Now consider your religious beliefs in a related context.

You and I both believe in a created universe, and therefore in a Creator. There is excellent evidence for our shared belief within the universe itself— things like the 20-odd perfectly balanced constants, the fine mathematical symmetry of physical laws, and the impossible numbers that come out of the most basic calculations for the random assembly of a gene.

In this context I invite you, and the two or three other thoughtful posters to this thread (not Carn) to consider evidence in the context of our beliefs about the nature-- the very properties-- of its Creator, or Creators.

After all, here you are, accepting the teachings of Aquinas, an authority figure who thought that the flat earth was at the center of the universe. Why? If ever there was a time to “question authority,” is this not it?

Did Aquinas have any experimental evidence upon which to base his opinion that God is perfect, omniscient, and omnipotent?

What does our limited experimentally obtained knowledge tell us about the properties of God?

And I would disagree with your analysis: an omniscient entity possesses all thought, so creative and original thoughts are possessed by an omniscient entity. Humans can only manage to have original and creative thoughts with respect to humanity, not with respect to the omniscient entity.

Admittedly, the insights obtained by scientists are original only to themselves. They are doing reverse engineering, tracking the evidence of a thought process back to the principles behind it, which have already been invented or discovered by another mind.

Consider how deeply you want to spread the notion of non-originality in support of your programmed beliefs. Does it apply, for example, to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony?

No doubt God would perceive this fine composition, with its intricate balances between instruments and the human voice, created by a man who could not hear the thunderous applause at its first performance, as a trivial ditty not worth using as background music for a beer commercial-- but did God really know it, or hear it, before Ludwig wrote it?

If you believe that, then answer this question— what is the purpose of any human’s existence? Are you a rubber stamp born to reproduce God’s most trivial thoughts, or do you actually have a mind?

Your reply to this will be more interesting if you first let your brain react according to its programming, deposit whatever comes out in the nearest WOM (Write-Only Memory), cogitate for a few days, and then come back.

 

[tonyrey]

The flaw in your argument is that omniscience is not static but dynamic like creativity…

		 		 	 	 Can you be more specific? Currently this cannot be qualified as an argument.

1. Creation is a dynamic process because it causes changes to occur
2. God’s knowledge is also a dynamic process because He knows the changes He causes
3. God is dynamic because He responds to our prayers and actions
4. Yet God does not change because “In Him we live, move and have our being”
5. Similarly we remain the same persons even though our nature may change

 

[carn]

Carn: It seems to me that

(a) You have very little training, if at all, in physics and are just running with an idea without any clue as to the complete illogic and idiocy of it.

Thats lol.

Read the lengthy quote of wiki by aquohn, it cleary shows, that the idea the universe could be indeterministic to some extent due to QM is far from being incompatible with physics.

I will try not to waste my time debating physics that you are very clearly wrong about.

If i would be wrong and if you could read, you could show where i am wrong.

You are literally arguing that a missile will be deflected from its final point because of a radioactive decay (or even something more frequently occurring such as an air shower) nearby the trajectory. It is beyond lunacy to think that a sub-atomic particle could possibly deflect something as massive as a missile.

Learn reading please.

I argued that the endpoint of the trajectory of an asteroid after 100 million years can depend on a quantum event now.

(b) You are advocating that there is no such thing as free will.

Now i am lost, I can get the idea, how sloppy reading skills lead to the comment about missles, but this?

Can you point out the post, in which i argued that there is no free will?

(c) You introduce strawmen arguments a lot. Case in point: I argued your definition of omniscience is flawed because an all-knowing being cannot not know something; you then argued something about omnipotence.

Because what you called a flaw in my definition of omniscience is not a flaw and shows up in similar way in omnipotence. I hoped you noticed this, but if you do not read carefully.

 

[greylorn]

The flaw in your argument is that omniscience is not static but dynamic like creativity…

I think that this is some nonsense you’ve made up. Would you kindly dispel my negative judgment by providing an example illustrating “dynamic omniscience?”

Your reply to AQ is entirely unsatisfactory. You address creation as a dynamic process, for example, but not omniscience. Likewise knowledge, etc. etc. etc. You need to address omniscience per se, which was the term you used.

If you can make a legitimate concept out of this, you could write your own theology book, in which you can acknowledge me for the catchy buzz-phrase.

 

[JDaniel]

Alright, I am about to present a controversial original viewpoint. I hope that readers take time to think about the implications, and give rational reasons for/against this.

Being a philosopher, Catholic, and physicist, I have considered deeply the theological implications of the field known as quantum physics. Quantum physics is a highly complicated field, no attempt at explanation will be made here. Interested readers are welcome to check en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introduction_to_quantum_mechanics.

Well, basically, in layman’s terms, the overwhelming evidence is in favour of a model of the universe where things are decided non-deterministically. In other words, it is impossible to know the outcome of certain things from initial conditions. Additionally, the act of measurement of certain things will force them to behave differently than if they had not been measured (and evidence indicates that this is simply because we obtained knowledge of it), and this seems to be a feature of reality itself: reality is in the eye of the beholder.

Now this seems to be a very human-centred position, which is good (for Catholics), since we are made in the image of God and ipso facto hold a special position in this universe. Additionally, a mildly technial argument can show that there has to exist an external consciousness (read: God) for the universe to exist.

Now all this is fine and good, until one remembers that God knows everything, including that which will happen in the future. This simply cannot occur in a non-determinsitic universe (cf. Laplace’s demon), and conflcits with the problem of systems behaving differently when people obtain information about them. Circumventing this with the ‘God can do anything’ card is like saying that God can create a square circle: it doesn’t magically become possible just because we say ‘God can’.

So, therefore, I propose an amendment to the Catholic Church’s stance on omniscience, which happens to kill a few annoying problems such as ‘why would God create us?’, ‘why would God need us to pray if he already has a ‘plan’ ahead for us?’, ‘how do we reconiccle free will with omniscience’, etc.: God does not know what is in the future.

Before people decry me for heresy, allow me to offer a technical argument in my defence. If God knows everything that is going to happen, he knows exactly when and how I will die. But if I am placed in a situation where my life and death rest on a quantum event (cf. Schrodinger’s Cat), then God cannot know exactly when I will die.

God knows everything in existence at any moment, but he cannot predict how it would evolve since it is non-deterministic. He can influence it (though he doesn’t do it in very spectacular ways anymore, cf. Elijah at Mt. Sinai), but not predict its evolution. Wouldn’t it be better if we could write our own world, our own damnation and salvation (to an extremely small extent, but still)? Wouldn’t such a creation have more value? Wouldn’t it be a better test of ourselves.

As I said, a controversial viewpoint. But feedback would be appreciated.

Aquohn:

It is fascinating how many of us really do not know what we’re talking about as regards the subject you bring up. The following except is from The Teaching of the Catholic Church, Vol. I, Chap. III, p. 103, 1962. (Bolding is mine.)

"Truth is eternal because it is identical with eternal Deity. Finite minds participate in truth in the same manner in which they participate in being. God is necessary truth, envisaging finite beings within an infinite unity of conscious meaning, in which alone lies their original possibility.

“God’s knowledge, therefore, is for ever complete and changeless. Being eternal he knows, in unalterable vision, as actually existent, all the beings of the universe according to their proper and individual natures, together with every series of changes in matter and living things, as well as all acts of freewill in angels and men. We ourselves cannot even predict our own free acts, because the whole meaning of our natures never appears in our finite consciousness at any one time. But the whole reality of all free spirits is completely obvious to God in his creative act. The acts of a man are not creative or new being, but utilise powers which are the immediate product of the devine life itself; they are thus fully comprehended in God their primary Cause. In this perfect and changeless meaning of God things are not observed as past or future, or viewed as from afar. All states of being, all events, conditions, intentions, rights, duties, merits, demerits, joys, sorrows, hopes and fears, are “present” in an eternal and comprehensive awareness.”

Does this change any of the propositions herein?

God bless,
jd