Local Mesopotamian flood

Faith & Science Conversation
41

“Bigfoot” is presumed to be a visible animal living within space-time. So if you claim that “Bigfoot” exists in these dense forests, you have to provide visible signs about the existence of such an animal that everyone can see and analyze, like for instance footprints, hairs, or rests of DNA.

By contrast an entity existing outside space-time is by definition something immaterial or spiritual. If we have evidence that such an entity exists, rules all physical phenomena, and underpins the existence of anything material, then we are proving something spiritual in whom we live, move and have our being, and this is what people of all times call God.

Actually what I state is just the opposite of what Chopra claims:
We are taught by quantum mechanics that “Schröndiger cats” (superposition of macroscopic objects) are possible in principle. Consequently, that 70’000 people see “the sun dancing at 2 pm” somewhere, is not a thing that breaks any “law of nature”, simply because there is no “law” forbidding nature to do such a thing. However, I cannot oblige the sun to dance at 2 pm at will, as I oblige your mobile to ring by typing a suitable number in my mobile. In the quantum world there is place for miraculous healing, but we cannot use quantum mechanics to develop paranormal “healing technologies” (like those Chopra sells).

The very thrust of Born’s rule is this: quantum effects cannot be explained by any causal evolution or link within space-time. The outcomes of the single events are inaccessible to us and reveal a “pre-established harmony” outside space-time. “Pre-established harmony” (prästabilierte Harmonie) is the concept Max Born uses in his seminal paper of 1926: It originates from Leibniz and refers to contents in God’s omniscient mind. There is no equation or rule fitting completely the set of outcomes contained in the omniscient mind: Extraordinary phenomena (like miracles) are possible but unpredictable in principle by physical means. However the omniscient mind is kind to us and ordinarily shapes the world according to regularities we can predict, and so develop technologies, and live. This means that the big wonder is not the “miracles” but the ordinary life after all. (For more detail see this article).

When you speak to someone, the message your words convey does not emerge because a word causes the next one to appear. The sequence of the words is determined by the message in your mind. Similarly for the world outside there: As you very well state “there is no reason to think that [it] is entirely destroyed and then rebuilt every 5.39E−44 seconds”, what happens is that the omniscient mind shapes the world from outside space-time according to regularities that allow us to behave rationally. Once again the ordinary behavior of nature is the really terrific wonder!

You express things very well again: “Mountains seem…”:
You are applying to “mountains” the conservation of identity you experience in yourself. Mountains are like the words you speak: they are “spoken” to us from outside space-time by highly intelligent beings that live beyond space-time and thus neither have foots nor hairs, and cannot be directly perceived by our senses: “No sound is heard from them, yet their words go to the ends of the world. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge.”

42

So you are saying that there is no observable evidence that supports the existence of “entities beyond space-time”?

That’s now how quantum mechanics works. Once observed by a single observer the Sun has to be in one place. It can only be observed in one place, and that place is determined by the first thing to observe it, which can be something as simple as particles in our atmosphere.

What experiments back this rule?

Is this based on any science, or is this more of a religious belief?

You are saying that mountains don’t really exist?

43

@T_aquaticus and @AntoineSuarez,

You two keep switching back and forth between science and metaphysics.

At the current point, what exactly is the point at stake ?

1 Like
44

I am trying to figure out if there is any science in what @AntoineSuarez is proposing.

“However in today’s quantum physics we have a lot of evidence implying the existence of entities beyond space-time.”

That seems to hint at scientific evidence for these supernatural entities.

45

Thanks for your interest. I try to answer more in detail:

Born’s rule formulates the essence of quantum physics: Quantum effects cannot be explained by any causal evolution or link within space-time; there is no way to predict single outcomes with certainty, only outcome frequencies can be predicted by means of probabilities (Max Born 1926; for his interpretation Born won the 1954 Nobel Prize).

Born’s interpretation is actually backed by all quantum experiments (see some References in this article), for instance Mach-Zehnder interference, Stern-Gerlach, Entanglement.

All these effects prove that the correlated detection events cannot be explained by assignment of properties before detection. Accordingly the only possible explanation by causal connection in space-time would be some signal between the detectors. But this possibility is ruled out by experiments using detectors so separated from each other that there is no time for a light signal to travel from one to the other at the time detection happens (as for instance this experiment proposed by me, which was realized 2012 in Geneva).

This means that the outcomes of the single events are inaccessible to us before they happen, and their correlation reveals a “pre-established harmony” (in Max Born’s words) outside space-time. Hence the entity ensuring this “harmony” is immaterial or spiritual.

If you keep to your personal identity and this identity is underpinned neither by any material continuum nor by your consciousness, then one can’t help concluding that you are sustained in being by some immaterial or spiritual entity that is always conscious. This entity is not directly visible like the sun, but we have scientific evidence for it: the nonlocal correlations demonstrated by quantum experiments. This spiritual being in whom we live, move and have our being is what people of all times call God.

Another important implication of Born’s rule is the following:

So called “laws of nature” are not “necessitarian laws” compelling nature “what to do”. They are only “normative rules” allowing us to guess how probable an event is.

For instance Newton’s Gravitation Law does not oblige the sun to rise tomorrow in Zürich at say ‘7.40 am’ but is only a rule reflecting our conviction that that the sun will rise tomorrow in Zürich at ‘7.40 am’. Accordingly I am not ready to pay anything to enter a bet with payoff 1 if the sun rises tomorrow in Zürich at ’11.15 am’ and no payoff otherwise.

So quantum experiments back the following noteworthy conclusion:

God is kind to us and ordinarily shapes the world according to mathematical equations and regularities that allow us to predict it, develop technologies, and live in. Nonetheless there is no mathematical equation fitting exactly all the possible outcomes contained in God’s mind: if He considers it convenient, He may also produce events that are outside the ordinary course of nature. What is more, all visible events can be considered natural ones: Almost all of such events are ordinary ones, but extraordinary natural events can in principle happen as well. The latter are what people of all times call “miracles”. But once again, the fact that God shapes the world so that we can calculate it is by far “the biggest miracle”.

46

How do you get from there to entities that live outside of our universe?

Why would it need to be an entity?

47

More precisely it needs to be an author. The reason is the so called “free will theorem” (see this article and References therein):

If we have free will and can freely decide the settings of our apparatuses, then we have to acknowledge that there is free will behind the nonlocal effects too. Even randomness appears to be a particular case of free will. Hence the quantum effects reveal an author the same way as the words in yours e-mails reveal an author.

This conclusion is reinforced by the argument with the conservation of your personal identity: If the space-time is quantified or discrete, no material continuum can ensure that today you are the same person as yesterday. Nor can your consciousness be responsible of this conservation since you lose it while you sleep. This means that you receive your “being someone” neither from matter nor on your own, but from someone who is conscious all the time and can say: my being is my name; my name is “I AM”.

In life we all struggle to make a name for ourselves. The question is not “to be or not to be”, but rather “to be someone (to have a name) or to be nobody”. God is the author who makes it possible that I become someone and gives me a name forever.

48

Because we cannot access them directly with our senses, even in principle.

We know about their existence by reasoning on the basis of experiments proving nonlocal correlations between detection events.

This amount to say that the unpredictable outcomes exist in God’s mind (“pre-established harmony”).

And this is also the meaning of the Multiverse in the end: We cannot access other parallel universes directly with our senses . Consequently they are nothing material (“visible”) but mental entities in the omniscient mind.

49

Then I think you can accept my explanation on the basis of Max Born’s interpretation of quantum physics:

God is kind to us and ordinarily shapes the world according to mathematical equations and regularities so that we can predict it and live in. Nonetheless there is no mathematical equation fitting exactly all the possible outcomes contained in God’s mind: if He considers it convenient, He may also produce events that are outside the ordinary course of nature.

In fact all visible events can be considered natural ones: Almost all of such events are ordinary ones, but extraordinary natural events can in principle happen as well. These are what people of all times call “miracles”. One of these is certainly the resurrection of Jesus. But the Israelites’ Crossing of the Red Sea and Noah’s Flood could be other.

In conclusion, “miracles” do not break any “law of nature”. And the fact that God shape the world so that we can calculate it is by far “the biggest miracle”.

50

You keep repeating this, but never actually show us the reasoning. Your response to requests for this reasoning just result in you repeating the same claim. Why does it require an entity for nonlocal correlations?

51

I’ve always liked this particular view… that miracles do not have to break laws of natures to be miraculous.

But if you go into a congregation (or a limber mob of albino atheists) and say that God could have used natural laws to create Earth in 6 days … it breaks peoples “heads” to use “miracle” in such an unusual way …

I think that’s why BioLogos officers were careful to include the possibility for “supernatural” actions in their Mission Statements. But everybody has their own view of what is “reasonable” or “unreasonable” for a miracle that could be naturally fulfilled … and one that is no longer natural or amazing in its providential coincidence… and that can only be described as truly Miraculous!!!

52

The reasoning was provided with my Reference to the “free will theorem”. I apologize for possible lack of clarity and try to meet your request more directly:

“Nonlocal correlations” require “free will”, and in this sense an author or conscious entity, to the same extent as the choices of an experimenter are assumed to be freely performed by a conscious entity.

I dare to ask:
Do the words you utter and write require an author with “free will” and a conscious entity?
If YES, then the nonlocal correlations require such an author and entity too.

53

It would appear to be just the opposite to me. If you have two entangled particles then one entangle particle must match the other entangled particle. That indicates determinism, not free will. You might as well say that an electron can just decide to have a positive charge, if it wants.

54

To explain what “two entangled particles” means it is appropriate to use the following comparison:

Alice measures one particle and far away Bob measures the other one.

Each measurement can be compared to tossing a fair coin:
Alice gets either ‘head’ (1) or ‘tail’ (0) randomly, and similarly does Bob.

So the possible join results of Alice and Bob are:

(1,1): Alice gets ‘head’ and Bob ‘head’
(1,0): Alice gets ‘head’ and Bob ‘tail’.
(0,1): Alice gets ‘tail’ and Bob ‘head’.
(0,0): Alice gets ‘tail’ and Bob ‘tail’.

If Alice looks at her results she notices nothing particular: She gets a sequence with half of ‘1’ and half of ’0’ randomly distributed, like for instance:

1,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,1,1,0,1,1

And similarly for Bob.

The amazing thing is that the order of Bob’s sequence is exactly the same as that of Alice’s sequence:

1,0,0,0,1,1,0,0,1,0,0,1,0,1,0,1,1,0,1,1

That is: If Alice gets ‘head’ Bob gets ‘head’, and if Alice gets ‘tail’ Bob gets ‘tail’.

Since the flips can be arranged almost simultaneously, this correlation cannot be explained by any communication in space-time, that is, signals travelling at the velocity of light or less.

On the other hand one cannot predict (even in principle) whether the result (1,1) or the result (0,0) happens, and therefore there is indeterminism.

One can say that (1,1) does not consist of two results but it is a single nonlocal result appearing from outside space-time. And same thing for (0,0).

In conclusion you have purpose (correlation) and unpredictability at once, and this is the very sign of free will.

So if you acknowledge that Alice and Bob are free to toss their coins like they want, then you have to acknowledge that there is a free-will deciding either result (1,1) or result (0,0), and this free-will is beyond space-time. In other words the nonlocal correlation we observe makes visible an invisible author.

This comparison is not fitting, because in case of the ‘electron’ there is no possibility of deciding between two alternatives (say ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ charge), whereas each particle in an entangled system has the alternative of producing result ‘1’ or result ‘0’.

55

If I understand entangled particles correctly, if one is “heads” then the other must be “tails”. Therefore, if Alice measures one entangled particle as being heads then Bob will observe the other as being tails every time. There doesn’t seem much room for free will in this process, at least to me. I also don’t see why you need some conscious entity sitting outside of spacetime to make sure the ledgers of particles stays balanced.

It appears that you have inserted purpose without any reason.

56

Here you are addressing a key question in quantum physics, which many people is not yet quite aware of.

Let me repeat a story I have already written in another posting:
The famous physicist John A. Wheeler was once asked: "But if the universe only starts with our observations, is then the big bang here?” Wheeler answered: “A lovely way to put it -‘Is the big bang here?’ I can imagine that we will someday have to answer your question with a ‘yes’.”

This means: There is no physical reality without observations and choices by free human observers and agents (I dare to refer to this article again).

Accordingly, before humans appear, one can say that visible things (entities in space-time) exist as far as they will be accessed by the senses of human beings at some stage. This is the same as stating that before they are observed these things have the status of mental entities and therefore reveal the thinking of some author, and become uttered like words at the moment of observation.

In this light the 6 days of Genesis 1 refer to God’s “mental work” to produce different chapters of a novel which will be read later by readers who are also created in the novel.

57

@AntoineSuarez

This interpretation is a gross misinterpretation of Quantum Physics. I’m not playing in this hot tub of skepticality (< yes, my word).

1 Like
58

George,

I think it worth to discuss your claims seriously.
Could you explicate your reasons?

Thanks in advance.

59

@AntoineSuarez

a) So if a cow sees something, but a human does not, then it doesn’t materialize in the same way? I’m not even going to attempt to mention alien life forms (since I don’t have one to show you).

b) Assuming you are using the right approach, how does a Quantum Magic Show - - where the particle or aggregations of particles depends completely on the free decision of a human - - give the particle or aggregations of particles any Freedom at all?

I have frequently heard the uncertainty principle invoked as a way to explain human freedom within the brain. But at the very most, this approach only helps demonstrate that photons and all the other “-tonns” of the Universe are the things that act free. Put them all together, and there is still no freedom based on this analysis.

I certainly don’t want you to think I am opposed to human free will. I once was. I no longer am. But I do not attempt this scenario by fabricating a new layer of metaphysics based on uncertainty or even definite uncertainty.

If you are trying to explain the 6 Day problem… you’ll have to go back to “figurative” interpretations of the pre-Human experience. I think there is credibility to that exercise. But having it depend on human observation doesn’t really explain why God would “fix” on the wording we find in the Genesis creation story.

Stars go super-nova all over the Universe without any human observation. We know this to be true because we see the remains of it all over.

60

Your remark is fitting and shows the necessity of expanding my explanation:

Alice measures 50% of the times “heads” and 50% “tails”;
Bob measures 50% of the times “heads” and 50% “tails”.

Alice can freely switch her apparatus between two particular positions X and Y (to simplify things we ignore a similar possibility for Bob).

Entanglement means that
with position X the join results are perfectly correlated:

  • if Alice measures “heads”, Bob measures “heads”,
  • if Alice measures “tails”, Bob measures “tails”;

and with position Y the join results are perfectly anti-correlated

  • if Alice measures “heads”, Bob measures “tails”,
  • if Alice measures “tails”, Bob measures “heads”.

Hence:
If Alice is free to choose between X and Y,
nature is free to choose

  • (with X) between (heads, heads) and (tails, tails)

  • (with Y) between (heads, tails) and (tails, heads)

And the fact of correlation (with X) reveals purpose or plan coming from outside space-time, and the same for anti-correlation (with Y).

Additionally:
Since the two measurements are space-like separated, the change of the outcome’s pattern from correlation to anti-correlation cannot be considered an effect caused by Alice’s switching between X and Y through some connection in space-time.

This means that the purpose of the author Alice to switch from X to Y,
is corresponded by the purpose of an (invisible) author beyond space-time to change the outcome’s pattern from correlation to anti-correlation.