God, Quantum Theory, and Consciousness: Does the Mind of God create reality?

UPDATE--I probably won't be around to argue my point about reality being a projection of the Mind for a while, but I'll come back at some point after I've read more on the subject for further discussion.

"Quantum physics and consciousness": Schrödinger's cat and Wigner's friend
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9KnrVlpqoM

"Is God a mathematician?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jremlZvNDuk

Quantum resurrection, Spinozist ethics, etc.
http://quantum-ethics.org/

There is at present a large group of "intellectuals" who deride the use of Eastern thought in physics. Essentially, the problem boils down to one of history. The founders of the present quantum mechanics--de Broglie, Schrödinger, Bohr, and Heisenberg--each described the "Unity of Life" is a similar way, often drawing on mystical traditions to aid their use of language. Oppenheimer famously quoted the Bhagavad Gita upon the detonation of the first atomic bomb at Trinity, but these ideas are larger than the Vedas; whether we take the Vedic-Hindu-polytheist, Buddhist-atheist, or Taoist-complementarian approach, the result is largely the same.

We ought to use God in the Eastern sense of the world--as Brahman, as ultimate reality--as the perennial metaphor for the constant creation and unity of the natural world. Spinoza's God, Paine's God, and Jefferson's God--the God of Einstein's "Cosmic Religion", a God of Platonic forms to be discovered through the science of mathematics.

The state of academic physics is a bad joke, and the fact that "rationalists" and "brights" and "skeptics" and "secularists" have given these people a stage from which to peddle their pseudo-philosophies is absurd. A view of Agent-Observerhood as primary in the cosmos is a precise metaphysical claim; dark matter and dark energy, in contrast, stretch every imagination to no resolve. Teaching this nonsense--all predicated on a misunderstanding of Bohr's Copenhagen interpretation, I might add--is bad science, bad history, bad philosophy, and it ought not be tolerated by anyone with a half-woking brain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy

Addendum:
And in response to Richard's couple of posts about how physicists do not have a philosophically sound interpretation of either general relativity (which is wrong--or incomplete--since space and time obviously cannot be continuous) or quantum theory, I would direct anyone interested to the book "Quantum Engima," which takes the reader through the historical development of the quantum theory and what, exactly, it is that the physicists don't tell the general public--or their own students--when it comes to its seeming anomalies.
http://www.sythe.org/something-all/1707360-i-just-had-crazy-thought.html

http://quantumenigma.com/

 

Atheism is a cop out for those who seek what cannot be found. The cult consists of many self righteous individuals who turn a blind eye to faith because of lack in evidence. They search for tangible evidence of a spiritual being. Seeking knowledge can very well distort, or even blind the truth. It's the generous curse embedded in our nature. Radical believers are often used as examples of why x cannot be true, and it's the same argument being proposed time after time. Interpretations of God are no more than manifested ideas being placed in a vessel. There is no wrong or right answer for your premise, rather a guessing game of logical views with no real evidence to support it.

Eh

 

There is absolutely a right and wrong answer to the question: And it is the job of science, not "faith" (the belief in something without evidence) to get us there.

I wouldn't advise faith as a basis for the belief is an Ultimate Reality--Brahman or God. To me, God is almost something of a poetic term--a word which is a human invention--though it is the job of philosophy and science to tell us more about this strange reality: not faith, and certainly not a priest.

It seems to me this is something more than atheism and less than pure Deism--there was a Watchmaker in the infinite past who set it in pure motion. We somehow--mysteriously, as is currently appears (which basically just means we haven't yet worked out the full answer)--form a part of both the Watchmaker and the Watch itself since big-C Consciousness seemingly has something important to do with the fundamental mechanics of the cosmos. I think Dawkins termed it an "obscure form of deism" in describing Paul Davies book, The Mind of God in his The God Delusion.

 

And a good video from Roger Penrose on why Copenhagen is--rather obviously--incomplete and a more fundamental theory is needed (the best point is made toward the end when he quotes Dirac saying that the current formalism of quantum theory involves neglecting infinities in an arbitrary way, which is not sensible mathematics--and Dirac of all people would know):

"There is no God and Dirac is his prophet."
--Werner Heisenberg

And as for wave/particle duality, Henry from minutephysics uses pilot wave theory (Bohmian mechanics) to explain the electrons as physically real, which is obviously a much more sensible approach than the nonsense they teach with Copenhagen:



For more on Bohmian mechanics:



And an interesting bit on contextuality:

 

Science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God, nor should it try. Quoting philosophers and theories does not change that fact.

Considering what I said above, there is no right or wrong answer. It's impossible for science to come up with credible evidence that would obstruct the views of religion entirely, especially when you consider how many times science has proven to be wrong.

 

A person who claims there is no quantifiable god/other force is just that- they claim there is none. The quotes above seem to just try to relate natural phenomena to a god figure, which doesn't fit well into either of the common views held by almost anyone in the west. I'm not saying it's wrong or a bad opinion, but trying to relate what is being described to either atheism or non-pantheistic religion is a stretch by each of their own standards.

 

You're just saying words without a reason. Don't tell me--a scientist--what I can and cannot do. Science is the method of asking Nature questions and thinking about the answers She gives. Is Nature not the work of the Divine?

Science as a worldview is the scientific method--asking questions and forming hypotheses.

Science as an establishment is the collection of data that we as humans have gained through the application of the scientific method and the associated theories we have created through the analysis of such data.

If you think the science of electromagnetism, for example, can be "proven to be wrong," you should stop using your computer, your cell phone, your heartbeat, your brain. It could all be nonexistent, according to you!

Religion has never proven scientific research to be wrong. Rather, the scientific method has improved on previously flawed research. Science is self-correcting and increases our knowledge; your religion does none of these things, nor has it ever.

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/
http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/superstition.htm

There have been studies of prayer that have failed to find any statistically significant effect. Is this not evidence against a certain type of religious belief?

I agree. But what makes the traditional views of God in the West immune from criticism or in any way close to the reality of the situation at all? Because we've "always held these views"?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_tradition

We need "some blood transfusion from the East to the West to save Western science from spiritual anemia" (Erwin Schrödinger, 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics, creator of the wave mechanics, Vedantist--that is, Indian philosophy and mysticism based on a science of the subjective, Advaita Vedanta).

 

Are you saying science can prove or disprove the existence of a spiritual being? That's physically impossible, and out of our reach as humans.

According to me? I never said any of those things. It's logically impossible for religion to prove anything wrong.

When I said science has proven to be wrong, I meant it in a general way.

http://www.iflscience.com/editors-blog/five-science-facts-we-learnt-school-are-plain-wrong
http://www.sciencechannel.com/strange-science/10-science-mistakes.htm
http://www.newscientist.com/special/rewriting-the-textbooks

Prayers are self satisfying hopes manifested into a ritual. Prayers "coming true" are mere coincidences. I don't believe in the act myself.

 

Science cannot either prove or disprove the existence of the Toothfairy. Some of us just choose to accept that believing without evidence is ignorant. Not all of us require a purpose to be here. However, when it comes to whether it is a scientists question, I absolutely believe so.

Do you think that the religious apologists for one second would revoke evidence if say by some miracle a scientist unearthed the dna of Jesus and proved he was of fatherless conception, would that be considered evidence that doesn't affect faith? Of course not.

Your putting it in the same catagory as a "is my red, your blue" question. Where as I don't believe so.

Either god exists, or doesn't exist. They're the options of that question, and I believe can be unveiled at some point in the future. ( and they're not 50:50 options )

 

That was a bad comparison, considering the tooth fairy is fantasy folklore; aka known fiction.

When you consider the capabilities of a human and the technology available, it's safe to presume that physical objects cannot detect the existence of a spiritual being, especially not a God. That's just common sense.

There will always be people who won't be able to accept the truth when it's shown.

Not by human technology.

 

I beg to differ on a logical sense of disproving the existence of something that has not been proven to exist.

Such as Russel's Teapot
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot

I agree that it is not possible to detect something that doesn't exist, to prove it doesn't exist. However, if you were to say rule out the requirement for a god such as proving the origin of life and the cosmos, or proving no life after death as such. Would slowly remove the need for god, and be nothing more than a future age's literary entertainment.

 

What about a "spiritual being" (I assume you mean some sort of Platonic ideal form--sort of like the fundamental particles) makes it incapable of interacting with experimentation? If a "spiritual being" has no interaction with the physical world at any point whatsoever...then what the hell is it? Can you even say such a thing exists? You've defined it out of existence then--if it has absolutely no interaction with anything that exists.

 

It just seems like the concept in general is just trying to say that unknown potential measurable metaphysical forces and or beings may or may not be relatable to "god", universal spirits, etc.

There is a root point being made in the quoted texts, but the conclusions made are not really linked to the point.

 

But a metaphysical force can be reduced to physical terms--because the metaphysical presumable exerts some statistical effect on the mechanistic--and therefore can be understood, at least mathematically.

And the idea is essentially that time and space are constructs of the mind--the individual mind: And that which we create in our mind cannot rule over it. So what does it mean to say that death is a "finality" when causality only exists to a conscious observer?--time and space are not fundamental, in other words.

And if you and I are the ones who create space and time...this definitely has metaphysical implications, for the idea of God, for the idea of Consciousness, for the idea of death, and for the idea of quantum resurrection and immortality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

 

I understand this, but as a practical rule, everyone operates in their own current time and space and accepts and acts as if that their time and space is the same time and space as everyone elses. If time and space are creations of the mind, it seems to have considerable control over the body that the mind inhabits instead of the opposite.

The ideas in the quoted text just aren't testable, which means it doesn't really fit under the Western definition of science.

 

Wrong.

Look into pilot wave theory (referenced above) and quantum bayesianism:

http://www.nature.com/news/physics-qbism-puts-the-scientist-back-into-science-1.14912
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/can-quantum-beyesnism-fix-paradoxes-quantum-mechanics/

Another good video: "Quantum physics and reality"

 

Yes -- this is how people (and machines and the universe in general) make decisions or produce outcomes. Realization of this is the understanding of nature/mathematics. I fully agree with the premise, but it isn't a sufficient/applicable common ground between eastern and western commonly held spiritual beliefs. It's not a fault of the science - it is just that the others are not likely to relate to it because of their standards of specificity.

 

It's not just making decisions: It has a measurable effect on the outside physical reality.

Look at the double slit experiment--looking at the position of the particle before it enters a slit actually changes the wavefunction to the extent that the operator observes a different experimental outcome. Or look at PEAR, Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research--an operator's mental focus has a small but measurable effect on the outcome of a random statistical process.

http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/
http://vimeo.com/4359545
(The Wikipedia PEAR article is broken, so I'd look elsewhere for objective reporting on its findings. The NY Times published two articles that were fair, as did Nature.)

This is more than decision making: It is an individual's consciousness and conscious perception changing the underlying physical reality--because in QM, the establishment of physical reality itself is becomes a contentious issue: What collapses the wavefunction--what is it that allows us to measure the "hidden variables" of pilot wave theory? We still don't have a clue--but it's something mysterious to do with the brain, and this has definite metaphysical and religious implications.

"Nobody understands QM" (Feynman)--yet.

 

I'm impressed by the thoroughness of the experiments in the video. However, their science can't be peer reviewed because there are no peers equipped and willing to pursue the subject like they are.

The measurements they are making are infinitely small. If your organization was set out to prove that people could influence X outcome with their wills, it would likely self-fulfill even if the science was later turned out to be definitely false. Humans tend to err in their favor when doing measurements, intentionally or not. In my experience? I've hosted a sickening amount of random events where parties were willing on the outcome, I've never discerned that anyone's mind was able to influence the $100m+ I've witnessed in wagers and that data from that.

Honestly, I would love to submit my own objective data for them. For example, we've had someone go on a 23 win streak on a 50-50 odds game. We've had people plant two white or black flowers in a row. If our records were more complete, I could test this myself

The irony on this is that the argument can never lose. That doesn't make it automatically false, it just makes it so it's incredibly difficult to believe without good reason, and my considerable firsthand experience doesn't lend me in that direction.

 

I would actually like for them to do a test on something more relatable, such as how a person's mind can measurably affect the random chance of mining a bitcoin (not necessarily BTC, but you get the idea). If whatever force is at work actually does compound, our technology should be able to confirm it if the theory holds up.