Does God Think Digitally?
From that day when Abram & Sari encountered that burning bush in the desert, his descendants have strove to comprehend the mind of God. Through revelations tested against prophecies and divine promises and by studying the cosmos around them, Jews, Christians and Muslims have sustained a multi-millennial project of inquiry and learning that may have finally brought them to the point of achieving what their scriptural parents failed to possess: an understanding the very thought of God.
Religiously this quest has led us to conclude that God sustains all creation through mere thought. He does not require some machine or technology to create or destroy. An omniscient being, omnipotent and eternal in existence, He ‘wills’ creation into existence and possesses the capacity to end it all. In fact, believers know that He has promised to do exactly that. He will return in the ‘end times’ to pronounce a final judgment and remake a new, perfect paradise where the saved/chosen will live with him.
At this point in our scientific evolution, the discoveries of Einstein, Neils Bohr and Erwin Schrödinger have brought us two different sets of formula to explain the essential nature of our universe. One set has given us Relativity; laws which explain the world of the very big. The other plumbs the depths of quantum reality to learn the rules that govern the world of the very small. Their computations work well in their own province where they've been tested via experimentation, but they yield absurd predictions that bear no resemblance to the observed data when applied to the opposite scale.
These two sets of mathematical formula could accurately provide many answers, but they could not be blended together into one grand unified theory. Such a holy grail still eludes the greatest minds in human science.
Then came the announcement in September 2011 that according to Stephen Park, head of the theoretical physics department at the U.S. government-run Fermilab in Illinois would “rock the foundations of physics.” The discovery of ‘crazy neutrinos’ that travel faster than the universal ‘speed limit’ predicted by Albert Einstein changes everything. "If things travel father than the speed of light, A can cause B but B can cause A". This realization nullifies our previous assumptions about 'causality'. For the first time we have discovered a particle that answers quantum physics challenge to explain what Einstein called the 'spooky action at a distance'. It could be the missing link that is needed to unify the various formulas that explain the universe of the large and small into one unified theory of everything.
Once the issue of causality is addressed (which these ‘crazy’ neutrinos may do) we have the means of looking at all quanta (infinitesimally small particles) as being a trigger than transmits a simple command: turn on or off. For energy to exist as matter, it’s quanta must be told what element of the periodic table to exist as, establishing its essence and accidents. The culmination of billions and billions of repetitions of this one simple act (turn ‘on’ or ‘off’; ‘1’ or ‘0’ in computer language) determine and sustain the existence of all matter in the universe. Everything can be turned on or off with the 'flip of a switch'.
Scientific discovery does more than just adds to the canon of knowledge of creation. It also enriches and illuminates our understand of the plan of the creator. Looking at creation as a divine digital program fits almost perfectly with the position proposed by religious scholarship: that all exists by the grace of God's will alone. That the universe itself is the canvas upon which is wrote the very thoughts and mind of the Divine Creator. Such a conviction is the foundational premise for the Catholic concept of the 'Natural Law'.
What’s exciting is that if there is a ‘language,’ then there exists the possibility to decipher and comprehend it. If that happens, then we can begin to exert control and mastery over it. We would be able to ‘read’ the very ‘mind of God’ in so far as we would possess the same ultimate power to create and control space, time and matter itself.
From that day when Abram & Sari encountered that burning bush in the desert, his descendants have strove to comprehend the mind of God. Through revelations tested against prophecies and divine promises and by studying the cosmos around them, Jews, Christians and Muslims have sustained a multi-millennial project of inquiry and learning that may have finally brought them to the point of achieving what their scriptural parents failed to possess: an understanding the very thought of God.
Religiously this quest has led us to conclude that God sustains all creation through mere thought. He does not require some machine or technology to create or destroy. An omniscient being, omnipotent and eternal in existence, He ‘wills’ creation into existence and possesses the capacity to end it all. In fact, believers know that He has promised to do exactly that. He will return in the ‘end times’ to pronounce a final judgment and remake a new, perfect paradise where the saved/chosen will live with him.
At this point in our scientific evolution, the discoveries of Einstein, Neils Bohr and Erwin Schrödinger have brought us two different sets of formula to explain the essential nature of our universe. One set has given us Relativity; laws which explain the world of the very big. The other plumbs the depths of quantum reality to learn the rules that govern the world of the very small. Their computations work well in their own province where they've been tested via experimentation, but they yield absurd predictions that bear no resemblance to the observed data when applied to the opposite scale.
These two sets of mathematical formula could accurately provide many answers, but they could not be blended together into one grand unified theory. Such a holy grail still eludes the greatest minds in human science.
Then came the announcement in September 2011 that according to Stephen Park, head of the theoretical physics department at the U.S. government-run Fermilab in Illinois would “rock the foundations of physics.” The discovery of ‘crazy neutrinos’ that travel faster than the universal ‘speed limit’ predicted by Albert Einstein changes everything. "If things travel father than the speed of light, A can cause B but B can cause A". This realization nullifies our previous assumptions about 'causality'. For the first time we have discovered a particle that answers quantum physics challenge to explain what Einstein called the 'spooky action at a distance'. It could be the missing link that is needed to unify the various formulas that explain the universe of the large and small into one unified theory of everything.
Once the issue of causality is addressed (which these ‘crazy’ neutrinos may do) we have the means of looking at all quanta (infinitesimally small particles) as being a trigger than transmits a simple command: turn on or off. For energy to exist as matter, it’s quanta must be told what element of the periodic table to exist as, establishing its essence and accidents. The culmination of billions and billions of repetitions of this one simple act (turn ‘on’ or ‘off’; ‘1’ or ‘0’ in computer language) determine and sustain the existence of all matter in the universe. Everything can be turned on or off with the 'flip of a switch'.
Scientific discovery does more than just adds to the canon of knowledge of creation. It also enriches and illuminates our understand of the plan of the creator. Looking at creation as a divine digital program fits almost perfectly with the position proposed by religious scholarship: that all exists by the grace of God's will alone. That the universe itself is the canvas upon which is wrote the very thoughts and mind of the Divine Creator. Such a conviction is the foundational premise for the Catholic concept of the 'Natural Law'.
What’s exciting is that if there is a ‘language,’ then there exists the possibility to decipher and comprehend it. If that happens, then we can begin to exert control and mastery over it. We would be able to ‘read’ the very ‘mind of God’ in so far as we would possess the same ultimate power to create and control space, time and matter itself.
Still in the early stages of control and mastery though.There are still often times we can't even master and control our need to go for a poop!
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim,
ReplyDeleteon a more serious note. Can you describe the concept you have of "God's Mind?" Is God's mind a part of God? Is it the mind of a very wise man? Is it the mind of a very wise woman? Is it a mind? Is God powerful? Does God come exalted riding into town on a team of white horses? Does God come exalted riding into town on a baby donkey? Is God weak? Is God vulnerable? Does God live in a palace or does God live in a filthy dump? Does God smell like expensive perfume or does He/She smell dirty? Is He/She a King of winners or a King of losers? Are not predications of God, essentially God? Does God Love every individual human being just as they are? Is God a “controlling” entity in the universe? Is God a source of inspiration in humanity? Does the essence of God transcend human comprehension? Is it possible to look into the ‘eyes’ of God and live?
I believe that the world is growing ever increasingly in love and unity and this is what I find exciting. It is an obvious mistake to regard the progress of science and technology as meaningless and in opposition to the notion of a God and it is also an obvious mistake to regard it as “ the king (the power) of this world” in the very same way most of those who followed God on this earth thought and hoped He was.
Is having the “power” to control and create matter ,time and space greater than the “power” to say to someone who’s values are different from mine “you are precious and I love you just the way you are?
I heard you Fr Tim ,and it had a profound effect on me, on one occasion at a parish council meeting say (with conviction and a sense of awe and wonderment like a child) we are a mustarded. It was a beautiful sight.
I have the right answer to one of the questions. For sure God lives in the dump, in the centre of the dump.And He is waiting.
ReplyDeleteLarry: Huh? In the 'centre of the dump'? I don't understand your point.
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim
Larry: As to your previous post... I absolutely agree with your concluding statement that the greatest power is to love others 'just as they are'. Is that necessarily the same thing as agreeing with everything they do or believe? No. People can disagree and still be loving and accepting of each other. You MAY BE conflating love of person with acceptance of what someone else believes. I say "may be" because I don't actually think that is the conclusion you are drawing.
ReplyDeleteFr. Tim