Quantum mechanics deals with how some of the tiniest, most
fundamental particles in the universe move around. They don't
follow the usual laws of physics that apply to large objects.
Instead, they seem to move around in very mysterious ways. For
almost a hundred years now people have been trying to figure out why
those tiny particles move around the way they do. There are many
different opinions about what is really going on. For some
background on this you can see, for instance, the video,
Quantum
Physics Debunks Materialism.
The final result at the end of the video is that "Science has not
buried God, it has revealed Him.". I like that conclusion, of
course, but there are many problems with that analysis. First, the
reasoning involved is faulty. Second, the argument is based on the
Copenhagen interpretation (CI) of quantum mechanics and the CI is
filled with silly results, some of which are mentioned in the video.
Third, the video skipped the relational blockworld (RBW)
interpretation of quantum mechanics that gives an excellent argument
for the existence of God and a human soul. Fourth, the CI used in
the video is actually anti-Biblical.
The video centers on the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum
mechanics that came from physicist Neils Bohr. This interpretation
has been around for a long time and you can use it to get the right
answers when you do a quantum mechanical problem. But many people
have not been happy with it because it presents a picture of the
world that is really bizarre and very much at odds with our
understanding of the world. The video presents the idea at a level
that is OK for people who already understand the subject. It is not
so great if you know nothing about the subject. All sorts of facts
are tossed in without giving the viewer an adequate background.
Well, you can't do too much in a short video. First, we will look at
the strange results and then move on to another interpretation that
gets rid of the strange results.
The first of the strange results is that a thing does not have any
real existence until we make a measurement of the thing. Before the
measurement there are only possibilities. The measurement by a
conscious being makes the thing exist briefly and then the thing
goes back to just being a collection of possibilities. So, for
instance, one of the classic examples (that does not come up in the
video) is that the moon is only there if someone looks at. Before
you look at it, it isn't a real, objective object. When you look
at, it becomes real for a moment and then when you stop looking at
it, it is no longer real, it is just a collection of possibilities.
This is certainly counter-intuitive. We think there is a real,
objective, material world "out there" that we are constantly
observing and the moon (and everything else) will be there whether
we look at it or not.
This idea that you have to look at something to make it real does
not work well from the Christian perspective. God is certainly out
there and He is looking at everything all the time (heck, He made
it, how could He avoid looking at it?) So God ought to be making
every thing real whether we look at it or not. Why should a person
have to look at something to make it real when God has already done
that? The video's attempt to dodge this issue does not make any
sense.
A second strange item is the explanation for the
Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiments. In these experiments the
measurement of one particle manages to automatically and INSTANTLY
affect the condition of a related particle that is very far away in
space. To make this work, there would have to be some weird
machinery behind the scenes that makes it work.
A third item is the Schröedinger's cat experiment. At a certain
time, the experimenter opens the box and finds out that the cat is
either alive or dead. BUT BEFORE the experimenter opens the box,
the cat is supposed to be in a strange state (a superposition) of
being alive and dead at the same time. Common sense tells us that
the cat will be either alive or dead long before the experimenter
opens the box so this result that it isn't either one until someone
looks in the box is really bizarre.
Next, there is the classic double-slit experiment. Here, as in the
video, if you shoot small particles at the double-slit AND you place a
piece of film behind the slits you will get an "interference"
pattern on the film, EXACTLY the kind of pattern you would get if the
particles were really waves and they went through both slits (like a
wave would). On the other hand, if you put a particle detector
behind the slits you will get the pattern you would expect if those
particles were really particles and they went through one slit or
the other (not both). So one physicist thought they should be
called "wavicles".
Next, there are other clever experiments like the double-slit
experiment but where you change the experimental set-up at random
while the experiment is being performed. These experiments are
called delayed choice experiments. If you tried to do this
in the double-slit experiment it would work like this. AFTER the
particle goes past the slits, suppose you could change what the
particle will find in the future. So in one case you could place a
piece of film back there and in another case you could place a
particle detector back there. You choose what is there at random.
Of course you have to be able to switch them really, really fast!
They have to be switched before the particle (or the wave or the
wavicle) gets there. But the particles always know what they will
find in the future! When physicists look at this from our
conventional perspective, they think that when the particles reach
the slits they ought to behave like particles and go through one slit
like a particle, or both slits, like a wave. But they don't. They
behave as if they already know what they will find in the future.
In our conventional understanding of the world, the future isn't out
there yet, is it? So physicists and philosophers find these
experiments to be really disturbing.
There is another important thing to notice about this experiment
that shows up nicely in the video. As each particle moves along,
they end up at random locations on the film. One particle might go
slightly left, one particle might go slightly right, another
particle might go radically left, another might go radically right
and another might go right down the middle. The randomness in this
experiment also shows up in other quantum mechanical experiments and
this is extremely disturbing to physicists as well. Physicists have
been looking for hidden variables that will explain why this
randomness occurs. Einstein's famous quote is that "God does not
play dice".
Then there's Bell's theorem. Bell's theorem comes from quantum
mechanics as well. It produces some really strange results such as
-1/8 is greater than or equal to 0 and the square root of 2 is less
than or equal to 1. In Bell's Theorem, the math is so simple that it
can't be wrong. It seems as if the only thing that can go wrong is
that some of the assumptions that go into Bell's theorem must be
wrong. People have been trying to solve this problem for a long
time too and everyone is still not satisfied. So, now, when it
comes to interpreting quantum mechanics in general, it makes sense
to do the same thing. It makes sense to try to figure out what
assumptions we have about the world that may be wrong.
One group of physicists who have gone on to question our basic
assumptions about our world has come up with the relational
blockworld interpretation of quantum mechanics. This interpretation
gets rid of the strange quantum mysteries by boldly embracing a
result that comes from special relativity: the block universe idea.
In our conventional thinking we believe the past is gone, only the
present exists and the future is not out there yet. Philosophers
call this idea that only the present exists, presentism. In the
block universe, the past has never gone away and the future is
already out there. Philosophers call this idea, eternalism.
Eternalism is the result you get from the block universe.
The block universe is STILL a counter-intuitive idea but there are
solid reasons why we should take it seriously. (For some
scientists who take the idea seriously see the related essay:
Science Point to the Blockworld.)
A convenient way to get to know the block universe idea is to look
at an amusement park ride, such as the haunted mansion ride at
Disneyworld. At the beginning of the ride, you have the whole
future of the ride ahead of you and it has all been completely
prepared for you. What you will see is already there. It already
exists. Then, halfway through the ride, half of your future is still
ahead of you AND the past, the part that you've already seen, is
still there behind you. The past did not go away. And when you
finished the whole ride all that past world is still there. It
never went away.
So what is happening in our real world is that God has made the
whole universe to be much like the haunted mansion ride. In the
haunted mansion ride the things you see don't move. They stay in
the same place "forever" (or until someone decides to redecorate.)
Instead YOU move. Likewise, things in our universe are not changing
by moving around. Everything is frozen in place FOREVER. It is our
consciousness (our soul) that is moving through the universe and
this makes it look like the things around us are moving around. So
now we have proof that people are much more than matter and
consciousness comes from that "much more". We also have an
excellent proof for a Creator because of all the complexity we find
in this world. Life is the most outstanding example, life is
extremely complicated. In addition, as in the haunted mansion ride,
nothing in this universe is happening by chance. Everything has
been planned ahead of time and has been put in place ahead of
time. With presentism people can think that things are moving
and happening at random. But that is not the case with
eternalism. NOTHING is happening at random. NOTHING is happening
by chance. Whatever happens in your life has been specifically
designed for you.
So, now, we will go look at how RBW does away with the bizarre
results that you get from the Copenhagen interpretation. One of the
big items in the video was the experiment with Schröedinger's cat.
Again, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, before someone
looks inside the box, the cat is dead and alive at the same time.
Supposedly when someone looks inside, the cat becomes dead or alive.
In the RBW interpretation the cat WAS actually dead or alive before
the experimenter looked. In fact, the cat WAS dead or alive before
the experimenter did the experiment. In fact, the cat WAS dead or
alive long before anyone thought of doing the experiment. In fact,
the cat WAS dead or alive long before there were even people on
Earth. That's because the future is already out there. The future
of the entire universe.
When it comes to the EPR experiments where a measurement on one
particle supposedly affects the condition of another particle that
is very far away in space there is the following explanation.
(NOTE: this explanation does NOT come from the physicists proposing
RBW but it does follow quite easily.) When God built the universe,
He made sure that the "laws" (patterns, would be a better word) of
quantum mechanics were strictly enforced (except when He does a
miracle). So if you measure a property of one particle, God simply
makes sure that the other particle will have the property that the
"laws" (patterns) of quantum mechanics says it should have. You
don't need any complex machinery behind the scenes to make things
work out right! God just built it all that way.
When someone sets out to do the double slit experiment, God already
knows what the future will be. If there is a particle detector
behind the slits, the equations of quantum mechanics tells us what
the result will be (you get the particle-like result). If there is
merely a piece of film back there, you will get a different result, a
result that makes it look AS IF the particle is behaving like a
wave. Either way, you're not dealing with a wave or a particle
moving through space. The equations simply give you the results you
get when the experiment is laid out a certain way. Also, when it
comes to the randomness you find in quantum mechanics, well, God can
simply use a random number generator to determine where, what we
believe is a particle traveling through time, will end up.
This block universe idea, is, of course, a RADICAL departure from
what we are used to. But people have had to get used to other
radical ideas in the past. They had to get used to the idea that
the Earth is not flat, that the Earth is not the center of the
universe and the continents move. The RBW interpretation leaves us
with a real universe "out there" that only a very powerful
intelligence could have made.
Finally, this idea in the Copenhagen interpretation that is
explained in the video, that people make the universe when they
consciously look at it is actually anti-Biblical. God said
HE made the universe (and this is the whole universe across all of
space and time). AND THEN HE RESTED. It's done. It's finished.
No more creation is going on. The Copenhagen interpretation says WE
are still creating the universe when WE consciously look at it.
This anti-Biblical position is actually used by new-agers to promote
the idea that WE make the world and WE can make it to be anything WE
want. So it is actually a tragedy that this idea is being
promoted in a video produced by Christians.
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