From: Debbie Mann (deborahjmann@insightbb.com)
Date: Wed Jul 02 2003 - 11:25:20 EDT
I am bothered by:
Total randomness. It seem to violate not only that God is involved in our
lives in a personal way, is all-powerful and additionally total randomness
appears to violate free will. The law of entropy says that left to
themselves things will become more and more random. We, as human beings in
our world, continually fight randomness.
The uniqueness of ourselves and our souls. Would the other me be as unlike
spritually as a twin?
-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu]On
Behalf Of George Murphy
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2003 7:18 AM
To: Glenn Morton
Cc: Asa
Subject: Re: Predeterminism and parallel universes
Glenn Morton wrote:
>
> My friend Howard asks for a science and religion topic. I hope this
> qualifies. I have pondered the implications of a Scientific American
> article which I read on the plane on the way back from the UK. The
article
> is Max T Tegmark, "Parallel Universes," Scientific American May 2003, p.
> 40-51.
>
> The article notes that the region of the universe which we can observe, is
> cT big, where c is the speed of light and T is the age of the universe.
This
> is approximately 10^26 meters away in all directions. Now, each second
this
> region grows by c meters bringing a part of the universe which was
> previously unobservable within view. Thus this clearly implies that the
> real universe is much larger than what we can see. And here is where the
> issue gets interesting, at least to me.
> Someone at a point in another region of space is equally limited in his
view
> of the universe. and if you place observers as in separate regions, as
> illustrated by
>
> http://home.entouch.net/dmd/parallel.bmp
>
> each centered in his own universe equal in size to our own but only
touching
> our universe, you get regions of space which are causally disconnected
from
> each other which have a different arrangment of the matter. Each volume
can
> be termed a 'Hubble volume' Using quantum one can count the permutations
of
> matter which can occur in each of these Hubble volumes. It turns out
that
> the matter can be arranged in 2^(10^118)) different patterns. After that,
> the patterns must repeat! That means that if the universe is bigger than
> this many Hubble volumes, duplication of an entire Hubble volume occurs.
> Thus, if our universe is duplicated, it means that there is another you
and
> another me out there in a galaxy far far away.
>
> The universe doesn't have to be infinite for this to occur. It can be
quite
> finite, just extremely large. Thus one doesn't have to grant infinite
power
> or extent to the created universe. And this brings us to the theological
> issue.
>
> How would God be able to predetermine events in a universe based upon
> quantum? As far as one can tell there are no hidden variables i.e. no
> underlying rules which govern quantum events. They appear to be chance
> related, unpredictable.
>
> But if, the universe was rigged so that every possible permutation
occurred,
> then the universe is entirely predictable. Only the location in the
greater
> universe of a particular Hubble arrangement isn't predictable.
>
> This is something most Christians probably won't like because it is a
> trivial predeterminism, unless one considers that creating a universe that
> big can't possibly be trivial. One thing I like about this view is that
it
> doesn't have to depend upon Hugh Everett's many world's hypothesis
solution
> to the collapse wave function.
>
> Theologically, the objection, I suspect will be that it diminishes God.
> Does it?
It diminishes God only if one thinks that the model of God as absolute
monarch
is necessary. But if God's action in the world is distinguished by kenosis
(as the NT
suggests) then God's not having complete control of all events is the kind
of thing we
might expect. (BTW this would be part of an answer to the question I posed
yesterday
about distinctive Christian insights on relision-science issues.)
But this still leaves the question "What makes the wave packet collapse?"
(The
Everett idea isn't an answer to this question but a way of avoiding
"collapse" in favor
of a splitting of the universe.) It doesn't seem satisfactory (Leibniz'
principle of
sufficient reason) to say "It just happens." & having some ultimate cause
other than
God is unsatisfactory.
Or - one can argue that God acts at the quantum level to collapse wave
packets
for some or all events in such a way that there is no contradiction with our
statistical
laws of quantum theory. Bob Russell has recently made use of this idea to
speak about
God's action in, and direction of, the evolutionary process at the molecular
level. (An
article of his will be in the collection of essays edited by Keith Miller,
_Perspectives
on an Evolving Creation_ which will be out from Eerdmans later this summer.)
One
problem with this is that, unless there are hidden variables, God has to act
directly on
quantum events.
Another way to play it is to appeal to the idea that it is the entrance of
consciousness into the measurement process that makes the wave packet
collapse. If one
then asks what makes the wave function of the observer's mind collapse &c
one is led
finally to the claim that there must be some ultimate intelligence which
makes all
observations definite, and thus to something like a QM proof of the
existence of God
(Belinfante). It can be asked whether God can be said to "observe" the
universe in the
same sense that one uses the term in QM. Again I think there is the
possibility of a
distinctive insight from Christianity, that the mind of God is uniquely
linked to a mind
within the universe & all its perceptual apparatus via the Incarnation.
I dealt with some of these questions - though certainly not definitively -
in my
article "Does the Trinity Play Dice?" in the March 1999 issue of
_Perspectives on
Science and Christian Faith_.
Shalom,
George
-- George L. Murphy gmurphy@raex.com http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
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