Quantum physics can't network us to the cosmos, physicist insists

In his recent book, Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos and the Search for Meaning, physicist and philosopher Victor J. Stenger, proposes to set the lay public straight, that our minds are not connected to the cosmos via quantum mechanics.

Stenger, who is also the author of God: The Failed Hypothesis, proposes

... a new kind of deism, which proposes a God who creates a universe with many possible pathways determined by chance, but otherwise does not interfere with the physical world or the lives of humans. Although it is possible, says Stenger, to conceive of such a God who "plays dice with the universe" and leaves no trace of his role as prime mover, such a God is a far cry from traditional religious ideas of God and, in effect, may as well not exist. Like God: The Failed Hypothesis, this new work presents a rigorously argued challenge to many popular notions of God and spirituality.

Now, why oh why do I think that that was the point of the project?

From "New Book: Does Quantum Mechanics Show a Connection Between the Human Mind and The Cosmos?" in Medical News Today (27 June 2009).

One difficulty, of course, is that there are a number of interpretations of quantum mechanics, and some may suit the views he deplores better than others.

Here's a new journal that explores the issue, hopefully with an open mind.

Here are physicist Henry Stapp's reflections, which offer another view.

Quantum theory and faith: A physicist’s thoughts

This from theoretical particle physicist Stephen M. Barr in “Faith and Quantum Theory” at First Things:

My own opinion is that the traditional Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory still makes the most sense. In two respects it seems quite congenial to the worldview of the biblical religions: It abolishes physical determinism, and it gives a special ontological status to the mind of the human observer. By the same token, it seems quite uncongenial to eastern mysticism. As the physicist Heinz Pagels noted in his book The Cosmic Code: “Buddhism, with its emphasis on the view that the mind-world distinction is an illusion, is really closer to classical, Newtonian physics and not to quantum theory [as traditionally interpreted], for which the observer-observed distinction is crucial.”

If anything is clear, it is that quantum theory is as mysterious as ever. Whether the future will bring more-compelling interpretations of, or even modifications to, the mathematics of the theory itself, we cannot know. Still, as Eugene Wigner rightly observed, “It will remain remarkable, in whatever way our future concepts develop, that the very study of the external world led to the conclusion that the content of the consciousness is an ultimate reality.” This conclusion is not popular among those who would reduce the human mind to a mere epiphenomenon of matter. And yet matter itself seems to be telling us that its connection to mind is more subtle than is dreamt of in their philosophy.

For many years, the fact that quantum mechanics destroyed the vulgar materialism we hear shouted on all sides as “science” has been an awkward topic. Maybe we need more bulls in the china shops. For why it only gets worse, go here.

My other blog is the Post-Darwinist, detailing events of interest in the intelligent design controversy.

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), anoverview of the intelligent design controversy, and of Faith@Science. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).

Quantum physics: Goodbye to reality?

This from PhysicsWeb

Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra "hidden variables". Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871).

Of course, I suspect that it is not "reality" that quantum physics bids us say goodbye to, but a simplistic materialist idea of how reality works. What if mind comes first, and is not an illusion created by the random fluctuations of matter in our brain. We discuss, in The Spiritual Brain, why that is a reasonable view, based on evidence.