Max Planck, the Constant Believer

 

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

Max Planck was the originator of Quantum Mechanics, and gives his name to the Planck Constant, relating energy to frequency and to the Planck Length – the smallest measure of length, below which nothing is knowable. He was a committed Lutheran; like many great scientists, one who questioned the nature of God’s knowability – but not God’s existence. “I am a deeply religious man, but that does not necessarily mean that I believe in a Christian God or even a personal God”.

He took issue with Pauli, Heisenberg and Bohr on their “Copenhagen Interpretation” of the results of quantum mechanical experiments – holding that eventually all matter would be found simply to be wave form. Odd, of course – given that it was his work that showed that photons behave as packets or quanta (it had much earlier been shown that light behaves as a wave). He eventually was proved wrong and the duality of existence at the fundamental level – both material and immaterial has now been proved.

He held that science was capable of answering only so much:

“Religion belongs to that realm that is inviolable before the law of causation and, therefore closed to science”.

And again:

“We might naturally assume that one of the achievements of science would have been to restrict belief in miracle. But it does not seem to do so.”

He most certainly would not have tolerated the current lazy assumption that in some way science and religion are incompatible or opposed to each other:

“There can never be any real opposition between religion and science; for one is the complement of the other. Every serious and reflective person realizes, I think, that the religious element in his nature must be recognized and cultivated if all the powers of the human soul are to act together in perfect balance and harmony. And indeed it was not by accident that the greatest thinkers of all ages were deeply religious souls”.

And:

“the movement of atheists, which declares religion to be just a deliberate illusion, … eagerly makes use of progressive scientific knowledge. It is the steady, ongoing, never-slackening fight against scepticism and dogmatism, which religion and science wage together . The directing watchword in this struggle runs from the remotest past to the distant future: ‘On to God’”.

Why Un-God is Un-Likely (for me)

It is all, let’s admit, unprovable. All – reality, God, no-God, meaning, purpose etc. That’s because there is no independent starting point, no external (to the Universe) objective truth. That is, there may well be – but it isn’t available to us as humans and to our thinking minds. That being so – all is conjecture and belief. I have been irritated by the messaging from materialists and atheists that tries to claim that “science” dis-proves God. They are trying to manipulate, and they do – or should – know better. However, as atheists can’t prove Un-God, neither can other religions prove God.

However there is the small matter of probability, and it seems to me highly unlikely that there is no God. This does not speak to what God might be. Declaring my hand, I do believe in God as personal and loving – but that is belief. However, if God were defined as “that which came before” or ” the ultimate cause outside existence”, then it seems to me overwhelmingly likely that God exists.

Cosmologists agree that the chain of events that have led to this existence are not random. The likelihood that the Universe – with it’s 26 physical constants (eg the exact speed of light etc) – is a random event is vanishingly small. Think of it –  from the “Big Bang” through rapid inflation of the Universe, pausing every now and then just long enough to create stars, the elements, the conditions for life and then an aware and self-conscious mankind. At every stage, if the “laws” of physics were just fractionally different – we wouldn’t be here. You only have to read the discoveries of science – and wipe away the slant that materialists would like to put on them..

In the face of this mountain of evidence that the Universe is not random, atheists and materialists hold up a model of Multiple Universes. This is their line of defence against God, or at least a God as I defined earlier. They do this because they can then say that in an infinity of Universes there would be one that had just the right conditions for awareness and life – and we think that’s special because we happen to be in it. Let me pause here simply to contrast probabilities. All agree that this Universe is infinetly unlikely. Which is more probable? Either that there is a creative impulse that set up the Universe (I define this as God), or that infinite Universes arises all the time and we happen to keep on track with the only one where awareness is possible? Leave aside the question of what was the creative impulse behind setting up the infinite Universes.

The Multiple Universes theory is  the “alternative” explanation to the Copenhagen Interpretation of the observer effect which has been proven in Quantum Mechanics. (There is a third, a kind of fudge called Environmental Decoherence – but that anyway relies on the Universe being singular and everything in it relative).

Revisiting what these theories attempt to address. Experiments show that everything exists (at least at the quantum level) as possibility – until observed. It is the act of observation that collapses possibility into a single reality. This isn’t contentious, simply fact established by experiment time and time again. (For me this leads to the critical role of consciousness, us, as reality engines. We crystallise out reality by our observation.).

” Before observation, a particle is in a superposition state of all possible values. During measurement, what causes the reduction of this state to a single value?” (Hidden in Plain Sight: The fundamental link between relativity and quantum mechanics. Andrew Thomas). Einstein famously could not refute the conclusions of these quantum experiments, but couldn’t accept them because he couldn’t explain them – “What I am really interested in is whether God could have the world in a different way; that is, whether the necessity of logical simplicity leaves any freedom at all”.

The Many Worlds Interpretation states that all the time the world is splitting into infinite Universes. Therefore the collapse of superposition into one state of reality is not caused by the observer, it is that the observer is also splitting infinitely. There is a logical problem with this however. To work – the “observer” has to be in a state of superposition before the observation (so that it can continue to split infinitely as supposedly does the “observed”. Yet the observer is not, the observer is in a single well-defined state.

So, for what it’s worth. This is why I believe that Un-God is overwhelmingly Un-likely. There is one Universe (Uni-verse!). It is agreed by all scientists that it is almost inconceivably un-likely that the conditions within this Universe leading to conscious life is random. It it’s simplest if God is defined as the primal cause, then God exists.

God, then at least as “the Word existing beyond Time and Space”. An implication of this logic is that, here and now, the nature of God is un-knowable (since we exist IN Time and Space). The nature of God, then, and not the existence of God is a matter of belief.

For me anyway…

 

 

 

 

All in a spin?

I quote below from a comment from Tim Staniland. Really interesting. The embedded article on Woff’s theory (all is standing wave..) worth reading in abstract anyway. So – according to this NOTHING is material?

 

In any case – nothing is as it seems, or is it that we are knowledge engines crystallising out this particular reality (see earlier posts). In which case rather – all is as we seem it?

 

“Tim Staniland on September 3, 2014 at 9:42 pm said: Edit

I can’t claim any scientific knowledge as you know G. However I am interested and I know what makes sense to me and I try to keep an open mind on all the topics that you discuss.

Steve – if what I say makes you squirm, I apologise in advance. Feel free to laugh at any point! I do know that computers work because there are little men in them with calculators and coloured torches.

Matter – a universe made up of particles floating around in absolute nothingness, mysteriously acting at a distance on each other, really doesn’t add up. Quantum theory clearly challenges this view, but seems to fall short of answering all the questions. The only theory that, to me, makes sense is a wave theory of matter. That is that all matter is made up of standing three dimensional waves in a continuous field, or aether as it was once coined I believe by descartes (but not his soup of tiny particles, a continuous field). I particularly (no pun intended) like Milo Wolff’s description of the electron. It includes a hypothesis as to how individual electrons “communicate” with the whole universe. The outward waves extend out to the universe, and the inward waves are generated by the entire universe. This helps explain how forces act at a distance and potentially begins to explain how the universe learns (as with the example Sheldrake uses of how new structure crystals are easier to produce the second time they are produced and easier still the third time, regardless of physical location). It is a difficult concept to grasp, and I am struggling to fully understand, but to me it helps answer many questions, and of course generates many questions. There is a growing body of work by many individuals looking at wave theories of matter and I firmly believe that there will be a shift toward this thinking in the coming years. I don’t think that smashing things together is going to deliver the evidence hoped for either. There are no certainties coming out of CERN only press releases to keep the funders digging deeper in the pocket. I am sure that real insights will come from subtle approaches that will take smarter people than me to figure out.

Wolff’s electron http://www.quantummatter.com/beyond-point-particle/

I have also just got but not started reading Steven Rado’s Aethro-kinematics which is again another take on wave theory of matter.

Bring back the aether!

Now – If time is linear, with the future in front and the past behind, the two must join at a point we consider as now. I guess it depends how thick your pencil is as to how much space it takes up. Maybe now is so fleeting, such an infinitesimally small amount of time that it is imperceivable. So maybe now has no power. Maybe the past and future overlap and “now” is a confusion of memories and anticipations and doesn’t actually exist.

Sheldrake – I watched his supposedly banned TED talk and I like his question everything approach. It does seem that science has become a religion with dogma and unquestionable beliefs. If that is untrue, why are we still teaching standard model without teaching that it shouldn’t be taken too seriously. A rigid standard model doesn’t help in genuine leaps forward. But how do we break out of this position when all of the funding fed into universities etc goes to individuals that don’t challenge the status quo and don’t want their careers work questioning.

The Point

The dot was alone. He could only look inward, there was nothing else. Doing so he contracted. In the end he was pointless.

He awoke in time, which made him a line. A path with a here-to-from and a hereafter. For ever after. But where was time before he woke. Because he knew only himself, he called that Big Bang. Important. And there was only the path and his memory and expectation.

But other lines crossed, intersected, joined and diverged. Other became. What was he? Was he a he, or a she, or an it? He was IT, the path. THE path. Those others. The intersections weren’t real like he was. They appeared only as dots, waypoints on HIS path.

But the others, those intrusive arrogant, wrong and other others. Kept coming, twisting around and enfolding him. Was he a string, a super string, a rope or a braid?

Then it was plain. They, she – was a plane. A surface with infinite lines. She was afraid to lose her dottiness. Would she dissolve in the plain plane and cease to exist? She was granular surely. She didn’t want to be a solution.

Her nature had curled with the help of the free “we” into consciousness. She had begun to see the plain as a green field, then saw the blue sky. We were afraid because..

There was depth in us. But we learned to swim in this sea of possibility, to revel in being. Not drowning, but waving.

And the freedom came when we realised that we were all dotty. Pointless alone.  All in all together. Speaking volumes.

(and we’re looking forward to the mysteries of the 6 curled dimensions)

The Number Ladder

This is for “O at the Edges” and for his musings on the number 9. Thank you.

From zero to hero, the world is born with the appearance of 1. The archetypal boundary is right there in the change from nothing to all. But, one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.

From 1 to 2, consciousness is possible. Granularity and separation. We can understand existence because we have edge. A within and without. Quantum mechanics shows that everything exists only as a cloud of possibility – until observed. It is the act of knowing that crystallises out reality from potential. Deliberately to mix language – it is witness that causes wavefunction collapse. It is consciousness that creates reality, and that is only possible when edge is born with the advent of the number 2. Duality appears to be a fundamental property of existence. Energy is the flip side of matter (e=mc2), everything is wave and particle simultaneously. Yin is nothing without Yang. Ich and Du embrace and the world unfolds.

From 2 to 3 – unbalanced materialism. The three dimensions of space, but static – going nowhere without time. The trinity – all male of course! A way point en-route to…

The mystic number 4, Jung’s number. The sacred number of alchemy. The four points of the compass and of course the description of all – space-time (the fourth dimension not separate as imagined until Einstein, but integrated). The alchemists believed that moving from 1 to 2 to 3 and then finally adding one to reach 4, integrating back to one was the route to perfection. Jung worked with Wolfgang Pauli to tease out an interrelationship between quantum mechanics and psychology. What synchronicity then that Pauli’s best know contribution was to discover through the exclusion principle that a fourth dimension is needed to describe reality. The three intuitive dimensions of space plus spin.

Free will and consciousness?

So, apparently…

Physics has found a different state of matter – “perceptronium” – that is conscious. This resonates with Tielhard de Chardin’s postulate that all matter is and has always been  conscious from the outset, and which is coalescing as evolution moves from the physical through chemical and biological to the evolution of ideas – the noosphere.

And it is observation which causes the infinity of potential to crystallise out into the concrete actual. (The collapse of schrodinger’s wave function – thereby forcing the choice between the alive and dead cat).

Who observes? What observes? Is it consciousncess. In any event since the observer causes the collapse or crystallisation it/he/she seems to exercise free will.

And for those who dispute the collapse of the wavefunction – the only way out is to create infinitely splitting universes (Everett’s theory). And this comes to the same thing in relation to free will. It is only that we get to choose which universe we are conscious in. In that case our observation is effectively the point of choice between different splitting universes.

It comes to the same thing surely? Consciousness is. It just is.  Something observes and either creates the actually experienced world through waves function collapse or steers into particular universes by choices at each potential universe fracture.

Consciousness and free will appear then to be related and pertain to the creation of reality. And what is the wellspring of consciousness?

(Thanks to nope@hotmail.com for putting me on to Max Tegmark’s series of articles at Cornell University Press. Am I talking drivel??)

I and Thou (1-2), Martin Buber and Neils Bohr

“Primary words do not signify things, but they intimate relations.Primary words do not describe something that might exist independently of them, but being spoken they bring about existence. Primary words are spoken from the being. If Thou is said, the I of the combination I-Thou is said along with it. If It is said the I of the combination I-It is said along with it. The primary word I-Thou can only be spoken with the whole being. The primary word I-It can never be spoken with the whole being.” Martin Buber

“Einstein, stop telling God what to do! … everything we call real is made of things that cannot be regarded as real.” Neils Bohr

The science says that It is OUR observation of the world that crystallises out this particular reality from the sea of potential within the quantum ocean of possibilities. We are responsible for the universe we create – either materialist (I-It, Ich-Sie) or connected to the underlying spirit (I-Thou, Ich-Du).

I have read that Buber holds that Jesus Christ is the quintessence of what it means to live a fully Jewish life? (I’m not Jewish, nor a scholar and would be interested in feedback on this please).

The number ladder

From zero to hero, the world is born with the appearance of 1. The archetypal boundary is right there in the change from nothing to all. But, one is one and all alone and ever more shall be so.

From 1 to 2, consciousness is possible. Granularity and separation. We can understand existence because we have edge. A within and without. Quantum mechanics shows that everything exists only as a cloud of possibility – until observed. It is the act of knowing that crystallises out reality from potential. Deliberately to mix language – it is witness that causes wavefunction collapse. It is consciousness that creates reality, and that is only possible when edge is born with the advent of the number 2. Duality appears to be a fundamental property of existence. Energy is the flip side of matter (e=mc2), everything is wave and particle simultaneously. Yin is nothing without Yang. Ich and Du embrace and the world unfolds.

From 2 to 3 – unbalanced materialism. The three dimensions of space, but static – going nowhere without time. The trinity – all male of course! A way point en-route to…

The mystic number 4, Jung’s number. The sacred number of alchemy. The four points of the compass and of course the description of all – space-time (the fourth dimension not separate as imagined until Einstein, but integrated). The alchemists believed that moving from 1 to 2 to 3 and then finally adding one to reach 4, integrating back to one was the route to perfection. Jung worked with Wolfgang Pauli to tease out an interrelationship between quantum mechanics and psychology. What synchronicity then that Pauli’s best know contribution was to discover through the exclusion principle that a fourth dimension is needed to describe reality. The three intuitive dimensions of space plus spin.

The Phenomenon of Man – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

De Chardin’s work is scintillating – a brilliant piece of philosophical science. But, oh how difficult to access! It appears as a work of nineteenth century charismatic spirituality, language calculated to repel a positivist scientist. Yet it deals with concepts and theories that bring together quantum mechanics, relativity, geology, evolutionary biology and anthropology. One struggles to absorb the width of his landscape.

And he distils some compelling concepts.

Material evolution started at the big bang with occasional phase-shifts from plasma to atoms, from giant molecules to cellular life, from complex organisms to the birth of ideas. Evolution within the geosphere (the crystallising and polymerising worlds)  leading to the biosphere and now the noosphere.

A duality of material and spiritual, which he calls the “without” and “within”. He traces the development of the “within”, an evolution of consciousness. He names man as a stage in that process associated with the phase-shift from the evolution of biology to the evolution of ideas.

He shows that everything, both material and spiritual in each phase has common properties – plurality, unity and energy.

His ideas have of course been widely adopted, but almost by stealth and by others. He was a Jesuit priest, and the church tried to gag him. He bowed to pressure, because of his vows of obedience, and much of his work came to light after his death. . De Chardin’s work gloriously and selflessly witnesses the growth of God within and between us. What an irony that the entombed treasury of his ideas was pillaged most famously by Richard Dawkins (memes? Noosphere…), who is of course the Ian Paisly of atheism.

It is meat and needs to be chewed, but it is rich meat and will repay the effort.