The Mind of God

Comments like Albert Einstein's wanting to "understand the mind of God" have always garnered my attention. I've always shared Einsteins sense of awe at the universe. That we are capable of understanding it with our three-pound brains sometimes boggles my mind. Physics and mathematics seem to be the key in understanding the 'hows' of the universe while religion is only capable of addressing the 'whys'. I, personally, don't look to one for answers found only in the other so I am endlessly fascinated by both subjects.

There is an old saying: "Chemists only talk to physicists and physicists only talk to God". Unfortunately I was born without the gene that groks advanced mathematics so there is a whole body of knowledge that lies beyond my grasp. That's never stopped me from reading everything I could get my hands on on the subject. I have come to rely on physicists that are adept at making themselves understood by lay folks. Fortunately there are quite a few that can talk down to my level...when not conversing with God that is!

Physics might be said the be the study of the laws that govern the extremely large, the extremely small...and everything in between.The former would include astronomy and cosmology. The study of the latter is has come to be called quantum mechanics. While physicists like Einstein focused on the Big issues quantum physicists focus on the subatomic world. While both have offered accurate pictures of parts of reality their current theories are incompatible with each other. The Holy Grail of modern physics is finding a theory that unifies both...a theory of everything. The idea that there is one organizing principle that allows us to understand something infinitely large and unimaginably small at the same time is very enticing. The search for it has lead to some fascinating stretches of the human imagination...and to some very advanced mathematics. The history of physics and physicists is a fascinating subject in itself. One has to consider all the known phenomena, and think outside the box, to come up with the formula to tie everything we know into one unified theory. There are some promising theories on the horizon. String theory or M-theory is worth note but the mathematics involved are still years away.

Many Christians balk at some of the dominant theories in physics. Many balk at the Big Bang theory of the beginning of the universe for example. I have no problem with the theory. It seems to me to be completely logical given the evidence available. It also seems to me that the universe had to begin somehow. And, in as far as I know, the only place God wrote down how He did it is in the very fabric of the universe. He certainly didn't intend for the first couple of chapters of Genesis to be a scientific treatise on How He did it. God has given us minds capable of comprehending a great deal of how He did it. Science and mathematics are the tools to do so.

What boggles my mind about the Big Bang is that space, time, matter and energy were all created at that moment. Think about that for a second...there was no space or time before that event! And all that 'is' came from something smaller than a point in space?? The Big Bang is the point where the infinitely large and the unimaginably small converge. Quantum mechanics is the study of the latter and it will really boggle your mind!

Quantum mechanics has completely done away with the 'box' that many physicists used to think in. On our level of reality we are used to some 'laws' being absolute. Gravity, for example, dictates that when I drop an apple it falls to the ground. In the quantum realm it doesn't work that way. In that realm of reality there are only probabilities. Dropping ones apple there might mean that it simply floated there or even fell up! I know, it makes no sense based on the reality we know but QM has been one of the most successful theories in the history of physics. It has accurately predicted results untold numbers of times.

One of the more unusual aspects of QM is called quantum entanglement. Roughly speaking its says that when particles are related, what happens to one automatically affects the other, even if the other is a universal distance away. Think about that one! What happens to a particle right in front of you can affect a change in it's partner on the other side of the universe at the same moment with no discernible connection between them! The quantum realm is a place where weird is normal!

Einstein had a hard time accepting quantum mechanics because he was used to dealing with grand laws that everything obeys. He said of QM that "God does not throw dice!" He may have been wrong as it appears that, on a sub atomic level anyway, God may throw dice!

One of the most fascinating things about the quantum realm is that our observation of things can change them. That is to say that our act of observing say, where a particle is, can actually change where it is. This is something most physicists will tell you they know happens but they are very hazy on why it happens. Most physicists don't even care to address 'whys'.

One quantum physicist who did speculate on the subject was Eugene Wigner. His writings, while very tough on us non-physicists, are worth reading. Wigner speculated on the affects of consciousness on our physical reality. He wrote: "It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness." His work has me speculating now too.

Modern physics recognizes four fundamental forces in nature:1.) the strong nuclear force, that which binds protons and neutrons in the core of an atom. 2.) the weak nuclear force, that which binds electrons in orbit around the core of an atom. 3.) the electromagnetic force, that which causes chemical bonds and holds most things in our world together and 4.) gravity, that which holds the universe together.

I believe it is worthy of note that some Eastern philosophies hold that consciousness is fundamental force in the universe, while modern physics does not. Consciousness, among most Western scientists, is thought to be only a product of chemical interactions in our brains. My question is: if that is so then why would our observation of a phenomenon affect it? I sense on an intuitive level there are some pretty major things here that we don't understand. I also sense that, on some level, space, time, matter and energy are more closely related than we understand. No doubt some of my religious beliefs affect my thinking here. My faith teaches me that there are broad areas of reality that we don't understand because we don't believe in a spiritual realm that interacts with our realm.

Sadly, I don't understand the math that might serve to enlighten me to some of these things...But I have every hope that one day God will teach me both how and why He created the universe the way He did! You know...what was on His mind! And I can't wait!!