Walter Hicks wrote:
>
>
> george murphy wrote:
>
>> Walter Hicks wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >
>> > I've never heard a good rebuttal to Wigner's claim.
>>
>> I have a good deal of sympathy with Wigner's argument,
>> though it
>> is certainly a minority one among physicists. It should be noted,
>> however, that there is nothing inherently "religious" about human
>> consciousness. This doesn't mean that the idea is of no
>> significance
>> for theology, for it suggests a way in God, through the Incarnation,
>> is
>> involved in the collapse of wave packets and thus with the
>> realization
>> of one out of many quantum possibilities for the universe.
>
> My dissertation advisor hated Wigner's proposal -- but he could not
> cite any refutation of the physical logic. Do you know of any?
>
> I still know of no good rebuttal.
One argument (expressed, e.g., by Polkinghorne in Serious Talk,
pp.28-29) is that the universe existed before conscious life evolved. I
don't think this is a fatal objection beecause quantum entanglement can
connect subsystems at different times as well as at different spatial
locations. I discussed this a bit (primarily from a theological
standpoint) in "Does the Trinity Play Dice?" in the March 1999 PSCF.
(Like the other article I mentioned earlier, this can also be accessed
through the ASA website.)
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
"The Science-Theology Interface"
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