Re: Classification scheme for ID debate
George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Tue, 07 Oct 1997 19:11:12 -0400Glenn Morton wrote:
>
> At 09:01 AM 10/7/97 -0400, Keith Walker wrote:
>
> >Indeed, it was a similar trap that Jonathan Edwards fell into with his
> >formulation of providence. For him objects only existed in the moment to
> >be created again in the next moment. Whilst his view maintained the close
> >and direct involvement of God with his creation it left no real room for
> >secondary causality.
>
> This sounds eerily similar to the implications of the Lamb-Retherford shift
> of atomic physics. The vacuum of space time is constantly creating virtual
> particles, such as an electron and positron, which then annihilate each
> other an instant after their creation, An electron attempting to orbit a
> nucleus must run a gauntlet of these virtual particles. As I understand it,
> occasionally the atomic electron may hit a virtual positron with the result
> that the electron which continues around the nucleus is the former virtual
> electron whose partner in creation was just destroyed. Thus, speaking
> classically, the electron which completes the orbit is not the one which
> started the orbit (although one cannot distinguish "different" electrons).
> If this sea of virtual particles affects other nuclear particles, this leads
> to the conclusion that the atoms and molecules in our bodies are not the
> "same" as the ones we ate breakfast with, although they are indistiguishable
> from those).
Kind of. In quantum electrodynamics a real electron is
described as an unobservable "bare" electron which is "dressed" by an
infinite series of interactions with photons it emits, photons which
make electron-positron pairs in flight, &c &c &c. While that specific
description is due to our use of perturbation theory, it does suggest
that matter is ultimately what it is only because of interaction. &
that's why I suggested that, in the doctrine of providence, God's
cooperation with natural processes is at least as basic as God's
sustaining action, & perhaps even logically prior to it.
George Murphy
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@imperium.net
http://www.imperium.net/~gmurphy