Evolutionary Deism

Evolutionary Deism

I have found so many errors associated with an unexamined assumption in discussing the nature of the Divine that I finally feel compelled to addressing the issue. The assumption is this: that an atemporal being can be completely exist within the framework of time. This is going to take some explaining because, unlike "God", we humans do exist within the framework of time.

First let's consider whether or not evolution exists. On second thought, let's not. Evolution exists. Period. It is a scientific fact. Since Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace so many pieces of evidence for biological evolution have accumulated that to disregard them for a non-scientific "theory" pretty much requires throwing out our entire understanding of the universe. There are differences between a scientific theory and any old crackpot proposal, the first of which is that a scientific theory needs to be testable. This is a problem for some really interesting proposals such as string theory as an explanation for all observed physical phenomena, much more so for creationism in its usual form. Evolution exists in ourselves, in biology, and even in those awful engines that allow life to exist at all - the stars. Everything we know of changes. Everything we know of evolves. Why, then do we exclude the Divine from change?

Twentieth century paleontologist/philosopher Tielhard de Chardin in his seminal work, The Phenomenon of Man, envisioned the Divine as "the Omega point". De Chardin saw God as the limit point of evolution. I am in complete agreement. A centralm myth in the esoteric philosophy of the Kabbalah is that the angels (which we can think of as the intelligent operators of cosmic principle) were granted a boon by the supreme Deity. The boon they requested was to participate in the creation/construction of the universe. Our reality has not been presented to us as a fiat accompli. It is moving. It changes. It is alive and we are participants in its life. Voltaire's statement: "Si Dieux n'existe pas, il faudrait l'inventuer. {If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him}" was probably meant as a sarcastic comment on the inability of humanity to stand on its own two feet and take responsibility for his actions. Yet I have adopted it as my personal motto. We, like the angels, are involved in the creation of the Divine.

As creatures within the framework of time we cannot always see the effects of the ripples of our actions (for want of a nail, shoe, horse, battle, war was lost...) but we can be quite sure that for every action an equal and opposite reaction will occur. Karma is quite real for the simple reason that our consequences have actions. The universe around us changes because we change it. Too often do we use only minuscule foresight. Yet, at the boundary of time we can sense the Alpha Omega that exists outside of time. The meditation of the moment can align us with the joyful Creation in which we, like the angels, are participants in creating a living God worthy of the highest ideals and dreams of humanity.

Om. Peace. Om

There Are Many Mansions

 

  On a Spiritual Interpretation

 of the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics

John 14:2: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you."

A couple of days ago my father in law asked me to listen to a CBC podcast about (among other things) quantum gravity and the role of imagination in physics and give him my feedback. This appealed to my ego as he is no intellectual slouch. Appealing to my ego is a successful strategy in motivating me to write. Besides, I'd been thinking for some time of writing an article about the many worlds interpretation of QMech and it seems the time is ripe.

Werner Heisenberg's now famous Uncertainty Principle (which he mathematically  proved from accepted and verified physics equations) is that one cannot know with exact precision both the position and the momentum (directional velocity multiplied by the mass) of an object. This was the death knell for classical physics. The widely held opinion of the time, that all of physics was essentially known and that all that was left was mopping up was shown to be false. The billiard ball universe of the late 19th century where everything could be completely predicted from the initial state play came unglued.

Two interpretations of this uncertainty were available: 1) that observation interfered with the observed phenomena because of a limitation in the observation or 2) space-time itself had a certain kind of uncertainty built into it. To paraphrase the Copenhagen interpretation, space-time was itself as holy as Swiss cheese.

Surprisingly, though new to physics, this was not a new problem at all. It was a very physical version of Zeno's Paradox.: you can't get anywhere at all from where you are now. It begs the question still unanswered by today's physics: is reality discrete or is it continuous? The current answer appears to be that at the distances of the Planck wavelength space-time is discrete. Distance itself comes in little quantized packages. I'll come back to this point later but for the moment let us focus more on what the U.P. might mean for predictability.

Keeping in mind the Copenhagen interpretation of the U.P. we note that there are many possible ways a physical system may develop from a specific state and they are all dependent on probability. Since the mathematical description of how wavicles (wave/particle dualities) propagate is the Scroedinger equation which intrinsically incorporates probability rather than trying to determine exact outcomes, the outcomes themselves are probabilistic.

Suppose that the wave equations predict an equal likelihood of two possible outcomes then there is no a- priori reason why one outcome would be favored over the other. This leads to the ""Many Worlds" interpretation of  quantum mechanics. The idea is that there is a multiverse, a multiplicity of universes, in which every possibility is played out.

Scroedinger himself formulated his famous cat paradox from these elements. Suppose, he proposed, that a cat is put in a bell jar connected to a device set to dispense a lethal gas if a geiger counter counts enough radio active decay in a certain time period. Since the radio active decay of substances is governed by quantum effects that have probabilistic properties can we predict that the cat (after a certain time) whether will be alive or will it be dead?

It's a very famous problem. I'm convinced that we human's tend to look at it the wrong way. Instead of looking at it from the viewpoint of the rather heartless experimenter, let's look at it from the point of view of the cat. I.'ve met some strange cats in my time. I think our cat is just a little bit nuts. However, I have never met a suicidal cat. From the viewpoint of the cat, it's never in the universe where it is extinguished. The wave form of  it's consciousness ALWAYS COLLAPSES TO THE STATE WHERE IT LIVES.

In essence, the consciousness of the cat has made the choice as to which universe it's in. This puts a whole new slant on the idea of how our consciousness affects the universe around us. Maybe imagination is not just a mental creation tool, maybe it affects our physical reality.

"the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter..." Sir James Jeans in The Mysterious Universe (1930)

There Are Many Mansions (2)

  On a Spiritual Interpretation

 of the Many Worlds Theory of Quantum Mechanics

John 14:2: "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you."

 In an earlier post I began discussion of the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum mechanics by describing the Scroedinger's cat gedanken experiment of Erwin Scroedinger. I suggested that better understanding  of this thought experiment could be achieved by visualizing the viewpoint of the cat. This suggested that differing viewpoints might result in different "world lines". By "world line" I mean here that reality actually splits into more than one version dependent upon the collapse probability waves - giving rise to multiple universes. 

What I'm proposing here, in the strongest sense, is that our reality is determined by our consciousness. That each of us live in a physical reality that is slightly different from anyone else. That our belief structures also structure that reality. 

Is there any evidence of this at all? As apocryphal as such evidence may be, subjective evidence is still worthy of consideration in my mind. Here is a small example of such evidence. I clearly remember an occasion in which my "new thought/age" minister told me that he had cast a horoscope for a certain area of the country. I thought this most unusual, not just because I give little credence to horoscopes but because I'd never heard of casting a horoscope for a place before. In a conversation with him several years later the subject came up again. He seamed surprised and puzzled as he claimed to have never done any such thing. So, two different people appear to have experienced two different realities. 

This might be chalked up to errors in memory but I'm not satisfied with that explanation. Times arrow is reversible for the laws of physics. It seems to me perfectly reasonable that the wave equations  for me and my minister collapsed into two differing realities. For me the wonder was that there was some bleed through between the two realities.

 Of course, allowing such flexibility in what we call "reality" also introduces all kinds of problem for the usual conceptions of causality. It introduces potentially massive communication problems if your reality is different than mine. I think most of us would grant that reality for any of us is colored by our emotional view. What I suggest here is that our reality is determined by all of our consciousness. That there are, indeed, many mansions in the many worlds which we inhabit and that we are in some part responsible for building them with our consciousness.

How does this work on a group basis? If each of us lives in an individual reality dependent on our own consciousness, how will we ever understand each other. I think the key is resonance. I like to use the term "consensus reality". Consensus reality is that generally accepted view of world shared by the larger group. It has no greater claim to universal validity than any individual view but it is that reality which resonates with the whole of the group.

How do these differing realities interact? I use the visualization of Venn diagrams. For example, in the case of the Scroedinger cat, visualize two intersecting circles, one for the experimenter and one for the cat. Where the circles intersect the realities are the same. There is a common truth between them. Where they do not intersect, the realities are not the same. Where they do intersect the quantum wave functions are in resonance. In the S-cat example the intersection in which the cat lives for the observer, her universe is in resonance with the cat's. The observer simultaneously exists in the world of all possible quantum states but the larger intersection is where the cat lives. The quantum waves are resonant and that intersection is the mutually preferred state.

This proposed view of a greater reality more inclusive than the consensus reality helps to explain such phenomena as those associated with differing observer reports. Most especially this helps explain differing observations of such rare phenomena those labeled psychic. It helps explain why they aren't repeatable as they are, by nature, much more readily influenced by individual consciousness than those in the larger consensus reality. It helps explain how it is that a certain well known magician and psychic debunker has never observed such phenomena despite an apparently earnest search to do so. Strangely, his disbelief in the existence of such is precisely that which precludes his observation of them.

The consensus reality in modern western society is the scientific viewpoint. By definition for something to be "scientific" it has to be repeatable. It has to have a commonality and mathematics gives it the largest possible commonality As having been derived from the logical framework of mathematics, the consensus reality that  has proven the most efficacious in building modern western society is the scientific viewpoint.By definition for something to be "scientific" it has to be repeatable. It works and it allows us to communicate from a common framework  Therefore, I conclude the the sane reality - that in which we may best communicate - is the scientific reality. But... it is not the only reality.

 In a future blog I hope to speak on the accepted  laws of logic which preclude a multi-world view from the scientific consensus reality. Specifically Aristotle's Law of the Excluded Middle which says of Truth that something must be true or false but never both simultaneously. In Non-Aristotlean Logic or, as used in A.E. van Vogt's classic S.F. novel, The World of Null-A. Notice that before the collapse of a Scroedinger probability wave to a specific state this is exactly the situation that is modeled. "Achintya bheda abheda" or inconceivable simultaneous oneness and difference in everything as stated in some Hindu philosophies. I propose that conscious choice (on some level) is, itself, responsible for this collapse to a specific state.

One of the chief tenets of science is that a scientific premise is testable. This is a primary consideration for those who criticise the string theory model of the universe. No one has come up with a way to test it. It may actually be untestable. A similar problem occurs with Non-Aristotilean logic. Yet this does not mean it is untrestable in principle. 


"Today there is a wide measure of agreement, which on the physical side of science approaches almost to unanimity, that the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears as an accidental intruder into the realm of matter; we are beginning to suspect that we ought rather to hail it as a creator and governor of the realm of matter..."
 Sir James Jeans - The Mysterious Universe (1930)