Seeing God in the Physics Lab

AISH ^ | Fall 2003 | Dr. Gerald Schroeder

[yonif]

	http://www.aish.com/societyWork/sciencenature/Seeing_God_in_the_Physics_Lab.asp

Seeing God in the Physics Lab
by Dr. Gerald Schroeder

That is to say:

The Lord is One. (Deut. 6:4)

There is nothing else. (Deut. 4:35, 39)

"I am wisdom.... The Lord acquired me [wisdom] as the beginning of His way, the first of His works of old." (Proverbs 8:12, 22).

The bit [of information] has given rise to the it [of the item]. (J. A. Wheeler)

E=mc2 (A. Einstein)

On that day the Lord shall be One and His name One. (Zechariah 14:9)

Imagine I could somehow acquire a cookbook of the physics and chemistry of what was going to be a universe -- all the laws of nature. And I was told that for some bizarre reason during the universe's formation, the self-annihilation of particle/anti-particle pairs that form while energy of the big bang creation condenses into matter would not be total. So therefore some particles of matter would survive that annihilation.

Then, based on those laws of nature and the initial conditions of the universe, I could predict that through the alchemy of stellar temperatures and the immense pressures of supernova, the 92 stable elements that would form. I'd know that among those elements would be sodium and chlorine. I could predict that they would chemically react to form sodium chloride, common salt.

All that would be known from first principles -- the reductionist approach to analysis.

But could I predict that in some marvelous combination of the building blocks of matter -- the protons and neutrons and electrons that make up atoms, and then the atoms that combine to form molecules -- that I'd find a mind with its self-consciousness of joy, sentience, awareness of emotions.

Consider: In one mix of protons, neutrons and electrons I get a grain of sand. I take the same protons, neutrons and electrons, put them together in a different mix and get a brain that can record facts, produce emotions, and from which emerges a mind that integrates those facts and emotions -- and experiences that integration as joy.

It's the same protons, neutrons and electrons. They did not get a face-lift, yet one combination seems passive while the other is dynamically alive.

From where does this consciousness arise? Just which proton is feeling the joy or anguishing over the pain as I stub my toe on some unseen object?

From where does the complex order inherent in every form of life arise?

It is not evident in the particles that make up the atoms or in the molecules that those atoms combine to form.

SOURCE OF DNA INFORMATION

Most laypeople are unaware that life started immediately on the once molten earth. The earth formed from the debris of previous supernovae. As that stellar dust was drawn together by the force of gravity into the ball that was to become our planet earth, the friction was so great that the earth melted.

Over time the surface of our planet cooled. The temperature gradually fell to the level at which liquid water could form, and at that time the first forms of life appeared on earth, made from the rocks and water that were once stardust.

There were not billions of years between the formation of the cooled earth and the appearance of life. According to all geological data, life started immediately on earth. How? From where did all the amazing complexly arranged order that goes into even the simplest forms of life arise? The membrane of a cell is an astounding piece of architecture. And the systems that read our DNA genetic code (at 50 operations a second!) to translate that code into the proteins of life boggle the mind.

Yet DNA and those systems arose in the geological blink of an eye. How? What was the source of this information?

There is no clear scientific answer to these questions. Yet all scientists (or essentially all scientists) agree on the data I have just presented. Take five hours and go to a public library. Take a book on human physiology from the shelf. Don't try to study how the body works; that is a lifetime endeavor. Just spend five hours reading about the wonder in the functioning of a single nerve cell. You can weep in joy over the beauty and marvel of the life that is within each of us. And all this wonder occurred in a flash on earth.

We take as givens the forces of gravity, the laws of nature, the ideas that an electron has a negative charge and the protons a positive charge. But these fixed realities do not explain their origins or the order we find in the biological world.

We do not know how energy changes into matter. It took an Einstein to prove that it does, via his equation E=mc2. But the cause that changes matter into energy remains a mystery of nature. As does the cause of gravity. We say there must be gravity waves. We look for virtual photons, those never-seen particles of force and energy, for an explanation.

Eventually a clarification may be found, but even with our eventual understanding of the science behind life, the wonder of life's existence will remain, as will the wonder of existence itself. Why is there a universe, why is there anything rather than nothing?

IN THE BEGINNING

There is an answer in the Torah for all the wonder, for the source of the order that makes up our world. And that answer lies in the very first word of the Bible, Genesis 1:1:

Bereishit bara Elokim et ha'shamayim v'et ha'aretz.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

But there's a problem -- a puzzle in the very first sentence of the Bible! In its literal translation, Bereishit means "in the beginning of." But the Bible has not supplied an object for the preposition "of." Either the reader must fill in that blank by supplying an object for the preposition, or omit the "of" on the assumption that it isn't very important.

If we take the Bible to be the word of God, dropping words is a rather brazen act. Rashi (ca. 1090), the crucial interpreter of the Hebrew words of the Bible, saw the problem and insisted that we seek the deeper meaning. If the verse were "In the beginning," Rashi points out, the Hebrew would have been Be'reshona and not Bereishit.

The solution to this conundrum is found in a 2100-year-old Jerusalem translation of the Hebrew into its sister language, Aramaic. The kabbalist, Nachmanides (ca. 1250), leads into it as follows:

In the beginning from total and absolute nothing, the Creator brought forth a substance so thin it had no corporeality. But this substanceless substance could take on form. This was the only physical creation. Now this creation was a very small point, and from this all things that ever were or will be formed...

If you will merit and understand the secret of the first word, Bereishit, you will know why the Jerusalem translation [of Genesis 1:1] is 'With wisdom God created the heavens and the earth...' But our knowledge of it is less than a drop in the vast ocean.

The Jerusalem translation is not a discovery by itself. It is based on the information brought by Proverbs a thousand years earlier: "I am wisdom... The Lord acquired me [wisdom] as the beginning of His way, the first [reishit] of His works of old" (Proverbs 8:12, 22). Notice the same word, reishit, appears both in Proverbs and in Genesis 1:1.

Wisdom is the substrate, the basis of existence. The biblical claim is that all existence rests on something as intangible as the word of the Divine. As it says: "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made" (Psalms 33: 6).

Substitute the word "information" for "wisdom" and we are into the labs of physics at MIT, Princeton, Stanford, University of Vienna. This is physics, not philosophy, the quantum physics of the 21st century. And it has been the opening word of the Torah for over three millennia.

As the equation of words states:

Suddenly, the source of the complex order that guides every form of life, from bacterium to human, is clear. It is the wisdom of the Divine that forms the foundation of all existence. Our universe, and we ourselves, are built by the word of God. As the Talmud declares: "God looked into the Torah and created the world."

Author Biography:
Gerald Schroeder earned his BSc, MSc and PhD at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is the author of GENESIS AND THE BIG BANG, the discovery of harmony between modern science and the Bible , published by Bantam Doubleday; now in seven languages; and THE SCIENCE OF GOD, published by Free Press of Simon & Schuster, and THE HIDDEN FACE OF GOD, also published by Free Press of Simon & Schuster. He teaches at Aish HaTorah College of Jewish Studies.

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[Right Wing Professor]

Yup, you see a marvel of design which none of us could come even close to accomplishing it.

So why are there 49 cytochrome C pseudogenes, Gore3000? And how do LINE elements contribute to human well-being. And why do we have that broken golonolactone dehydrogenase gene? You see the marvel of design. Explain these things to me!

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply! Indeed, I read the word "revulsion" as a perjorative - hence my reaction.

I think you're mistaking the formal argument for the motivation.

We obviously read Penrose's statements excerpted at post 307 quite differently. I do not see him starting with a "revulsion against the idea that we might not be free agents" and using Gödel's theorem to rationalize it. I see him as realizing from the logic of Gödel's argument that some areas of human consciousness are noncomputable.

We won't convince each other differently, but for the sake of Lurkers - here is what I consider to be the key excerpt from Penrose's remarks about his personal history:

"My reason for presenting this bit of personal history is that I wanted to demonstrate that even the "weak" form of the Gödel argument was already strong enough to turn at least one strong-AI supporter away from computationalism. It was not a question of looking for support for a previously held "mystical" standpoint. (You could not have asked for a more rationalistic atheistic anti-mystic than myself at that time!) But the very force of Gödel's logic was sufficient to turn me from the computational standpoint with regard not only to human mentality, but also to the very workings of the physical universe."

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your post!

I have contended (and often), as have many other qualified individuals, that this question is never really addressed by Penrose. He prattles on at length, but he does not adequately justify his assertion, at least not to the satisfaction of many of the people familiar with the fields of mathematics he discusses on this subject.

I realize that there are a number of experts who disagree with Penrose. IMHO, it is to his credit that he allows a voice for all the rebuttals in The Large, The Small and The Human Mind.

Thankfully, achievements in science and mathematics are not by popular vote.

[Alamo-Girl]

Me: Your example makes a presumption of reality (like metaphysical naturalism) which I do not hold.

You: Well, yes, it is true that I presume the objective. But for most simple models, that can be inferred to exist from the subjective. Which is good enough for me; no point in complicating things needlessly.

If one does not presume that the universe is some manner of finite state machine (no matter how bizarre) then my reasoning does not hold. Given that there is not insignificant evidence that the universe functions in an effectively finite state fashion (c.f. thermodynamics), I see no reason to presume otherwise at this point in time.

I understand your position. But because scientific materialism uses spatial and temporal boundaries, your conclusion will be limited by those constraints.

In a simple albeit extreme example for the Lurkers, a conclusion drawn from looking at a single tree might be false if applied to the entire forest.

Holistic scientists such as Pattee mentioned are concerned with the whole instead of the part. I believe Penrose is of this mindset as well, ditto for Grandpierre.

[gore3000]

So why are there 49 cytochrome C pseudogenes, Gore3000?

This is an argument from ignorance. We do not know what all the DNA is for, however every year, indeed, every month, every week, every day, we find out what some of the DNA called by scientists non-coding DNA is used for. It took us some 50 years to learn what part (but not all) of the 5% or so of DNA which is in genes is for. Nowadays noone would call such DNA useless. We have been looking at what the rest is for for less than a decade. Some of those 'LINE's which evolutionists for long time claimed were nonsense were found to be essential for cell division. They are the ALU DNA which is used as a zipper during cell division. They form some 10% of our DNA. As usual, the evolutionists when proven wrong are just trying to buy some time to formulate another just-so-story not based on any scientific facts but which cannot be refuted with current knowledge. This is what Darwin did, he wrote a long story with absolutely no scientific facts which was refuted and had to be reworked numerous times afterwards.

It is time for evolutionists to start showing real evidence for evolution instead of making rhetorical claims against evidence contrary to their theory. Where's the beef in evolution?

[CobaltBlue]

Are you not going to answer my questions about hitting the abuse button against evolutionists?

What are you hiding?

[Heartlander]

RWP,

I believe I asked you directly if you believed, “Is it all unguided, mindless, and without purpose?”

And you responded HERE

But in response to your analogies…

Peter Ward, Donald Brownlee, and Guillermo Gonzalez argue that advanced life may be extremely rare due to: 1) the many potential hazards in the universe and 2) the stringent requirements for its existence.

So let’s say that we find a rock on a planet and it is ‘exactly’ like a rock we have on our planet (same shape and composition). I believe science can write this off as chance. Let’s say a strange pattern was found on another planet that happens to be the same pattern found on our planet – again, I believe science ‘could’ write this off due to laws of physics, chance and time - just as though we were to discover two identical snowflakes or crystals due to the fact that they follow the same laws of nature due to their chemical properties.

Now let’s say we found another Right Wing Professor on another planet, the exact same genetic structure and personality. We both know, based on solid physics, this cannot be chance and must be design. Please explain… you know, to us lay folk.

Oh, but please don’t use those nasty terms like “specified complexity” and “intelligent design”.

So, you are the scientist that rejects design… Hmmm… what separates you from those who study science? (please don’t use any form of the nasty terms above as you are a ‘bright’)

[Right Wing Professor]

I see him as realizing from the logic of Gödel's argument that some areas of human consciousness are noncomputable.

AG, I have no idea how familiar you are with Gödel's theorem. I myself approach it as a layman, but I can recommend the Gödel, Escher, Bach book, as an excellent exposition which had me, at least, believing I had understood it.

It's just a theorem in symbolic algebra. Like relativity and the uncertainly principle it seems to have some broader meaning, and certainly it has all sorts of people drawing all sorts of conclusions from it. Perhaps some are justified, and no doubt Penrose as a mathematician is immune, but it says nothing directly about the computability of human consciousness. Penrose may be inferring something from it, but it's a long, stretched, deductive argument.

[Heartlander]

Pat,

I’m talking about the assumption science ‘now’ begins with and adheres to…

Speculation only exists within the parameters that science has created.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for the analysis of the Shannon v Kolmogorov implications of the Zombie Mary example!

I believe it was his intention to have Kolmogorov equivalence between Mary and Zombie Mary. Neither would know if they are real or zombie - like B(s) and B(r) wouldn't know which is s and which is r.

In the notes, Vierkant comments:

"The conceivability of a zombie world is a necessary condition for the coherence of the epiphenomenalist position. But epiphenomenalism makes even stronger claims as well: the conceivability of a zombie world only shows that there might be a world in which function and phenomenology are completely separated, but this does not entail that our world has to be such a world, as epiphenomalists hold. As my arguments make use of the weaker zombie argument, every result I achieve counts a fortiori against epiphenomenalism."

I understand your point about Shannon. The Zombie Mary thought experiment looks like it is dealing only with Shannon Channels. But I do not believe that was the intent of the experiment at all; Vierkant is illustrating that the knowledge argument is not compatible with the argument from modality.

[Right Wing Professor]

I believe I asked you directly if you believed, “Is it all unguided, mindless, and without purpose?” And you responded HERE

That's right. I can't explain my personal perceptions deterministically, and since I'm not a solipsist, i assume that holds for everybody. After all, in choosing to respond to you (or at least having the illusion of choosing to respond) I'd be in somewhat a false position, wouldn't I, if I denied volition?

Clearly, socially and philosphically we have to act as if humans have free will. It is possible that at some time in the future the scientific enterprise will put us in the awkward position that we can reliably predict human choices using an algorithm. That will be a distinct problem. I expect something will get us out of it, and I have some sympathy with the betty boop/Alamo Girl project of looking for a way to cut the Gordian knot using present physics, but I don't think the necessities are there yet. As a scientist, I abhor theorizing ahead of the data.

To some extent I think I'm more secure than you believers, except perhaps John Paul II (who said truth cannot contradict truth). I don't think science is incompatible with human freedom; I don't think perception and consciousness and choice are illusions, but I don't think we're at the point yet where we can even think about altering the way we do science to accomodate concepts we don't even really understand. I'm sure there's an answer to all this, i just don't think we've found it yet. In the meantime, in science we have a way of understanding the world that works marvelously; in the ideas of freedom and individual autonomy we have a way of governing ourselves that works OK - well better than most of the previous attempts. There is a potential time in the future when there might be a conflict between them, but we aren't there yet, and by the time we get there, we'll probably have gotten a whole different view of the problem.

It's sort of like quantum mechanics and relativity. They're incompatible, but only on a time and distance scale we can't measure, so why worry?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you for your reply!

I realize that you do not see anything particularly marvelous in Gödel's theorem. You probably don't in the Mandelbrot Set either - or superposition, non-locality, omega, wave/particle duality, dimensionality and so on.

But these are exciting frontiers for many and there are indeed profound implications for theology and philosophy.

I'm sure that the Aristotleans in the field, like Hawking, are much aware of the import of their work. Hawking said as much in his lecture on imaginary time. In this case, he was offering an alternative to this universe having a beginning, i.e. of time.

"But if one knows the state of the universe in imaginary time, one can calculate the state of the universe in real time. One would still expect some sort of Big Bang singularity in real time. So real time would still have a beginning. But one wouldn't have to appeal to something outside the universe, to determine how the universe began. Instead, the way the universe started out at the Big Bang would be determined by the state of the universe in imaginary time."

You may see all this as much ado about nothing. That is the reaction Pattee notes in showing the differences between biologists and physicists and their interest in answering the question: "What is Life?"

[Right Wing Professor]

We do not know what all the DNA is for

So you think the design is marvelous, you just don't understand it. Gotcha. Most people looking at modern art think the same. Me, I think that's mostly junk too.

Some of those 'LINE's which evolutionists for long time claimed were nonsense were found to be essential for cell division. They are the ALU DNA which is used as a zipper during cell division. They form some 10% of our DNA.

Cite?

[gore3000]

Have you actually read any of Penroses' books, Gore3000?

Yes. Now that I have answered your question, let's see your objections against his theory, not a discussion of what his personal beliefs may or may not be which unless you have the ability to read men's minds (and you obviously do not since otherwise you would not have had to ask the question above) you cannot tell us what they are.

[Right Wing Professor]

Yes.

OK, explain to us all Penrose's argument in the Emperor's New Mind.

[gore3000]

OK, explain to us all Penrose's argument in the Emperor's New Mind.

You are the one attacking what he says, it is up to you to substantiate your statements. If you are pleading ignorance of what he said, then you should not be attacking his statements out of a knee-jerk reaction because you do not like his conclusions.

[Right Wing Professor]

I knew you hadn't read it.

[gore3000]

I knew you hadn't read it.

Don't call me a liar and don't make excuses for your going around attacking Penrose with personal attacks when you do not have the vaguest idea about his arguments except that you do not like his conclusions. Do your homework before you open your mouth Professor.

[Right Wing Professor]

It's a good book. You'd be much better off reading it, than posting nasty rants on FR.

[Virginia-American]

no idea how familiar you are with Gödel's theorem. I myself approach it as a layman, but I can recommend the Gödel, Escher, Bach book,

Another good, non-technical exposition is in Rudy Rucker's Infinity and the Mind

He also claims to disprove Penrose's speculations, but I didn't follow the argument. (something to do with Goedel numbers being bigger than people can name...)