god & quantum physics

Does modern physics prove God? Does the Tao find proof in quantum realities? If I may take a little contrarian license here - yes indeed! The main point that I want to develop here is that both modern physics and mysticism maintain that we are to discard the assumption of “pure objectivity” (aka “the myth of the given”) and begin to think about the nature of reality in counter-intuitive and paradoxical ways... That is, both quantum physics and the teachings of the world’s great mystics frustrate our classical demand for objective certainty about the nature of reality, and as such, I will contend that once we accept that reality is profoundly paradoxical and discard the unexamined assumption of and “independently existing” reality out there to which we have direct access, then a fruitful dialog between science and the central teachings of the world's religious traditions can start to take place.

To begin, recent critical-historical scholarship into the teachings of Christ (Freeman 2007) have shown that a stable pattern of “paradoxical reversals” informs the deep structure of virtually all of Jesus of Nazareth’s teachings on the Kingdom of God. In at least thirty parables and all of his most memorable aphorisms (one-liners), Christ employed a consistently paradoxical strategy whereby those that are saved are really lost, just as those that are lost are really saved; or where the insiders are out just as the outsiders are in, and so on... So where all of the sayings of Jesus that tended to be remembered and re-told within the early Christian communities have this kind of explosive paradox in their narrative structure, the basic point here is that Jesus’ language of paradox undermines our traditional demand for objective certainty about the nature and meaning of ultimate reality, a notion which points directly to the often puzzling and flat out strange world of quantum physics.

Since the shocking discoveries in 1920s with quantum mechanics, it is now widely held that the fundamental particles that make up the concrete matter of our daily experience cannot be pinned down to a specific time and place at all. On the quantum level, the idea that a particle (electron) has a definite location and a definite speed is no longer allowed, that is – against conventional expectations both the position and the velocity of an electron are directly un-see-able. And as is well known, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle abolished the cosy picturability of quantum objects - there is in quantum theory a radical inability to predict the physical co-ordinates of things with objective certainty. In other words, our common place demand to know both where something is and how fast it is going actually distorts the nature of reality at the quantum level, so much so that this demand for objective certainty can now be seen as an outdated legacy of our traditional metaphysical assumptions about reality, an insight which finds direct verification in the objective uncertainty of Jesus’ very own paradoxical teachings on the nature of reality.

As far as I can tell the collapse of the wave packet – where at the moment of measurement the electron actually appears - simply means, as the Buddhists say, there is no such thing as “self-existing” entities or substances, i.e. Reality is empty of self-existence. In other words, the sub-atomic building-blocks of matter (electrons) are not really “things in themselves” (Kant) at all, but a co-creation of the observing mind enacting the world of physical objects... So while it is true that human intentionality does not actually create reality on a quantum level (as in What the Bleep...) it is also the case that it is only us and our categories of knowing that still insist on there being definite things out there with determinate and calculable spacio-temporal features. So where the collapse of the wave packet fixes the game so to speak, Reality itself is radically paradoxical (or empty of self-existing substances) and slips through the grasp of our all too human anticipatory fore-structures... until we force an objective pin-point answer out of it – but this says a lot more about our unexamined assumptions and the intellectual gymnastics of the Schroedinger wave equation than about the way things really are...

Another example of this paradoxical or counter-intuitive understanding of physical reality can be witnessed in the phenomenon known as quantum entanglement in which the specific states of two or more objects have to be described with reference to each other, even though the individual objects may be spatially separated. As mentioned in the feature article above, it is possible to prepare two particles in a single quantum state such that when one is observed to be spinning-up, the other one will always be observed to be spinning-down and vice versa, this despite the fact that it is impossible to predict, according to quantum mechanics, which set of measurements will be observed. As a result, measurements performed on one system seem to be instantaneously influencing other systems entangled with it, even if the two particles are thousands of miles apart - what is also called “spooky action at a distance”. So again we have an intricate paradoxical dance in which sub-atomic elements are simultaneously different and inseparable, and where there is no such thing as independently existing entities... Another blow to the assumption of objectivity

And the same paradoxes are true of Einstein's theory of relativity, the most important implication being that concepts such as space and time - previously thought to be pre-given, separate and absolute are actually interdependent and interwoven - as are matter and energy in E=MC². Essentially, there is no fixed center to the universe in Einstein's general theory, no privileged frame of reference for notions of space and time, and no permanent unchanging substances or entities, that is - no pre-given realities that exist independently of human observations.

One of the biggest discoveries of modern science (quantum physics and relativity), then, is that the fundamental assumption that we have direct access to an objective external reality (as either a fundamental particle or even as a theistic God existing independently ‘out there’) - is meaningless and untenable. In accordance with the best available evidence from modern science, it seems that the objects that we come to know are not pre-given at all but at least to some extent a construction or a perspective of the knowing subject (not a creation, to be sure), i.e. a subject that unavoidably constitutes the world it comes to know in accordance with various background assumptions about the way things are meant to be (space/time, position/momentum, subject/object). As such, quantum physics is only perplexing because our background assumptions – which insist on objective certainty and calculability when it comes to the nature of physical reality - simply do not conform to the way things really are. And in the same way the parables of Jesus surprise and disorient their hearers with un-expected reversals of meaning that are structurally impossible to pin down with objective certainty all the while ushering in an alternative view of reality. And the point here is that this structural coherence between physics (quantum) and mysticism (Christ) may well be saying something about the way things really are, where paradox is not so much a problem to solve but a Mystery to live with... (Stu Davis)

Furthermore, this integral short-circuit between physics and mysticism ushers in a thoroughly “post-metaphysical” orientation (see Wilber Integral Spirituality, Appendix II) that moves beyond the out-dated classical assumptions about the question of Being constituted by Plato, Aristotle and the ancient Greeks over 2000 years ago. The washed up history of Western metaphysics consists specifically in the search for a “pre-given” or “independently existing” ontological reality as well as what Derrida calls “the fallacy of conceptual presence”, where the meaning of words is held to be already given to us without regard to their linguistic context. But as a “post-metaphysical” approach, the paradoxes of modern science (quantum physics and relativity) and mystical paradox (the teachings of Christ) both jettison from their representations the “myth of the given” – there is no fixed center of the universe - and suggest that the capacity to take “multiple perspectives” and to “tolerate ambiguity” - i.e. a degree of objective uncertainty - is essential to any more balanced and comprehensive account of the world.

And given that even the most elementary perception of the world is structured by certain “interpretive fore-structures” of the human mind, the radical shift effected here would suggest that that just as science involves faith - i.e. a basic trust in a series of presuppositions that cast things in a certain light, it is faith - i.e. the capacity to trust in a certain perspective on the world, that allows science to see anything at all. So science (seeing) now begins to look a lot like religion (believing) just as religion (believing) begins to look a lot more like science (seeing).

Moreover, the paradoxes of quantum physics (which are only perplexing if we insist on objective certainty when it comes to the nature of physical reality) are not simply reflected in the teachings of Christ, they also show up in the Eastern Enlightenment traditions. Not only does the central Ying-Yang symbol of Taoism correspond perfectly with the paradoxical teachings of Jesus - in that each side of any binary pair contains the seed of its opposite, the “mutual interpenetration of all phenomena” (i.e. paradox) is also considered the highest teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition on the nature of ultimate reality – both of which hold that reality is empty of self-existing substances and that there is no fixed center to the universe. And in addition to this, we also have the paradoxical teachings (or ko-ans) of the Zen Buddhist tradition on the Non-dual nature of reality, teachings that defy orthodox logic in being structurally impossible to pin down or objectify. And Nagarjuna's widely influential philosophy of Non-dual Emptiness (sunyata), also demolishes “the myth of the given” (i.e. the myth of permanence and separateness) by invoking a deconstructive dialectic that relentlessly questions the dualistic assumptions of our ordinary commonsense view of the world as a skillful means of opening awareness to un-qualifiable Emptiness (Consciousness without an object).

Significantly, the Dalai Lama (2005) has recently written that Buddhism and quantum physics both reject any notion of an independent or self-existing objective reality. According to the Dalai Lama, the nature of ultimate reality (Non-duality) contradicts the prior assumptions of our ordinary commonsense view of the world (the assumption of objectivity), and in support of the basic thesis here, he argues that the integration of science and religion will require us to abolish our certainties about the objectifiability of empirical data, an approach which also points directly to the paradoxical teachings of Jesus Christ.

Since these paradoxical approaches (paradox means “against orthodox opinion”) seek to question the fundamental demand for “objective certainty” in traditional worldviews, this thesis is likely to be considered scandalous by the established structures of both scientific knowledge and religious belief. However, by proposing an alternative modeling of reality that would effectively point towards an integration of the worldviews of science and religion (within an ultimate context of radical not-knowing), a significant outcome this inquiry is that it may well, in the words of Einstein – that it allow us to read the “mind of God” - which is not all that far-fetched when one considers that all the world’s great spiritual teachers as well as the flat-out strange discoveries of modern physics are said to give voice to the Great Paradox of the universe...

--

"Become passers-by" (Jesus of Nazareth)

camfree that's a beautiful passionate post .. but as it says in the write-up .. isn't identifying spirit with quantum potential actually qualifying the unqualifiable ?

doesn't spirit's essence permeate the quantum level no differently than all levels ?

i love what it says in quantum questions :

all things are not ultimately made of subatomic particles (is love?).. all things are made of god