Tuesday, July 28, 2020

A TENTATIVE PROOF FOR GOD BASED UPON QUANTUM FINDINGS




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

              PREMISE #1: The universe is not fundamentally material but mind-dependent.

          PREMISE #2: The human mind cannot account for the stability of the universe. 

          CONCLUSION: Therefore, there must be a greater Mind—God! 

PREMISE #1The universe is not
fundamentally material but mind-dependent.

Many now question whether the physical world is comprised of tiny particles, as was once widely believed. Arjun Walia, known for his work on the documentary, The Collective Evolution III: The Shift (2014), 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.1 

Others suggest that unstable energy must be underpinned by something that is more stable, which might help us to account for the stability, predictability, and order of the material world – something like solid building blocks or at least particles. However, such things are now in question.



PREMISE #2The human mind cannot account for stability of the universe.

Perhaps 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.”2

James M. Kushiner 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: 

              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.’"3

While we might be participants, there must be a major Player! If the human mind is able to impact external reality, there clearly seem to be severe limitations in place. For example, 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. The seven billion inhabitants of the Earth tend to think about the universe in a multiplicity of very different ways. Yet the universe continues to move forward in a harmonious and predictable manner. 

Any doubt about this should be dispelled when we consider 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 of the cosmos. 

Mathematical verities are also mind dependent.

If this is true, then this also 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 this mathematical theorem is distinct from the material world, it seems to understand the material world and to 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? Once again, this isn’t an elegance that we created, but rather discovered. Furthermore, this uniformity seems to be immutable and universal—traits that transcend our individual, changing minds. However, if mathematics is conceptual and therefore, mind-dependent, and yet does not depend upon 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 and ideas of a Superior Intelligence. 

CONCLUSION: Therefore, there must be a greater Mind—God!

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

What mind could 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 the myriad appearances of design, functionality, elegance, and fine-tuning we see all around us. And this brings us back to an omnipotent and omniscient Creator God, the very God described in the Bible. 


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