A TENTATIVE PROOF FOR GOD BASED UPON QUANTUM FINDINGS

I am a non-scientist. I cannot personally vouch for the “findings” of science. Therefore, this proof is very tentative and is based upon a consensus regarding the quantum world. The proof goes like this:

1.    The universe is not material but mind dependent

2.    The human mind cannot account for the universe.

Conclusion: Therefore, there must be a greater Mind – God!

PREMISE #1: The universe is not material but mind-dependent. Many question whether the physical world is comprised of tiny particles, as once supposed. Arjun Walia observes:

·       Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating, each one radiating its own unique energy signature… Again, what quantum mechanics reveals is that there is no true “physicality” in the universe, that atoms are made of focused vorticies of energy-miniature tornadoes that are constantly popping into and out of existence.  The revelation that the universe is not an assembly of physical parts, suggested by Newtonian physics, and instead comes from a holistic entanglement of immaterial energy waves stems from the work of Albert Einstein, Max Planck, and Werner Heisenberg, among others. http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/12/05/the-illusion-of-matter-our-physical-material-world-isnt-really-physical-at-all/

Others suggest that unstable energy must be underpinned by something that is more stable – immutable thoughts.

PREMISE #2: The human mind cannot account for the universe. Perhaps instead the basic building blocks of this physical world are thoughts. This idea, at least on the micro level, seems to be widely accepted among quantum physicists:

·       A fundamental conclusion of the new physics also acknowledges that the observer creates the reality. As observers, we are personally involved with the creation of our own reality. Physicists are being forced to admit that the universe is a “mental” construction. Pioneering physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter, we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter. (R. C. Henry, “The Mental Universe”; Nature 436:29, 2005) (14)

James M. Kushner also affirms that:

·       Every prediction quantum theory makes has been tested with consistent results... A photon, for example, may be either a wave or a particle state, but which it appears to be depends on a choice made by the observer... Some scientists like John Wheeler... have reached tentative conclusions:

o   Useful as it is under everyday circumstances to say that the world exists "out there" independent of us, that view cannot longer be upheld. There is a strange sense in which this is a "participatory universe." (Salvo, #32, 64)

While we might be participants, there must be a major Player! If the human mind is able to impact external reality, there clearly seems to be severe limitations in place. We do not seem to be able to impact gravity, the expansion of the universe, or the laws of physics. I can’t even get my wife to think like me! Certain realities of this universe seem to be universal and immutable and impervious to our thinking. Besides, our seven billion inhabitants of this Earth tend to think about the universe in very different ways. Yet the universe moves forward in harmonious and predictable ways.

Any doubt about this should be dispelled by the fact that the laws of physics pre-dated our own existence. Our thinking, therefore, cannot account for them.

Therefore, if the universe is mind-dependent, there must exist a greater mind than ours, omnipotent and unchanging, which can account for the order and stability.

Mathematical verities are also mind dependent. If this is true, this too serves to bolster the above case.

Consider the number 1. It is a concept, an idea. We don’t find the number 1 or 2001 in nature apart from our own conceptualizations of it.

If this is true about the number 1, it is also true about the numbers 2, 3, 4 …. And it must also be true about higher level mathematical constructs, like the Pythagorean Theorem. Through this construct, we are always able to determine the length of the longest side of a right-angle triangle by squaring the two other sides, adding this figure and then determining its square root. Amazingly, this answer is exactly what we find when we actually measure a right angle triangle.

However, we didn’t create this Theorem; we discovered it! Although distinct from the material world, it seems to understand the material world and tell us so much about it.

Likewise, the angles of every triangle contain exactly and invariably 180 degrees. If you were to add a fourth line or side to the triangle, this four-sided figure would contain angles equaling 180 + 180 = 360 degrees. If you would add a fifth line or side to this four-sided figure, it would contain angles equaling 180 + 360 = 540 degrees, ad infinitum.

How can we explain this uniformity, this elegance? Certainly, this isn’t an elegance that we created, but rather discovered. Besides, this uniformity seems to be immutable and universal – traits that transcend our individual, changing minds. However, if mathematics is conceptual and therefore, mind-dependent, but doesn’t depend on our minds, then there must be a universal and immutable Mind that it does depend upon.

To state this another way:

1.    Mathematical truths are conceptual.

2.    They therefore require a mind(s).

3.    Our human minds are not adequate to account for the uniformity, immutability, elegance, and harmony with the “physical” world, which we find in mathematical realities. These mind-dependent realities therefore also point to a greater Mind. Perhaps, then, they (the universe and mathematics) are both made of the same “substance,” the thoughts of a Superior Intelligence.

CONCLUSION:  If the universe is not fundamentally material and is mind-dependent, then an all-determining Mind must be its Source and Sustenance.

What mind can possibly account for the laws of science, the fine-tuning of the universe, and the fortuitous conditions that are necessary for life and discovery? Only an all-intelligent and omnipotent One!

Even if we subsequently discover that this world is not mind-dependent, we still have to account for its myriad appearances of design, functionality, elegance, and fine-tuning, and this brings us back to an omnipotent and omniscient Creator God, the very God described in the Bible.