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Concept of 'hypercosmic God' wins Templeton Prize (Quantum Mechanics meets Metaphysics?)
New Scientist ^ | 16 March 2009 | Amanda Gefter

Posted on 03/16/2009 4:29:12 PM PDT by GOPGuide

Today the John Templeton Foundation announced the winner of the annual Templeton Prize of a colossal £1 million ($1.4 million),

snip

D'Espagnat boasts an impressive scientific pedigree, having worked with Nobel laureates Louis de Broglie, Enrico Fermi and Niels Bohr. De Broglie was his thesis advisor; he served as a research assistant to Fermi; and he worked at CERN when it was still in Copenhagen under the direction of Bohr.

snip

Third view

Unlike classical physics, d'Espagnat explained, quantum mechanics cannot describe the world as it really is, it can merely make predictions for the outcomes of our observations. If we want to believe, as Einstein did, that there is a reality independent of our observations, then this reality can either be knowable, unknowable or veiled. D'Espagnat subscribes to the third view. Through science, he says, we can glimpse some basic structures of the reality beneath the veil, but much of it remains an infinite, eternal mystery.

snip

Unconventional 'God' So what is it, really, that is veiled? At times d'Espagnat calls it a Being or Independent Reality or even "a great, hypercosmic God". It is a holistic, non-material realm that lies outside of space and time, but upon which we impose the categories of space and time and localisation via the mysterious Kantian categories of our minds.

"Independent Reality plays, in a way, the role of God – or 'Substance' – of Spinoza," d'Espagnat writes. Einstein believed in Spinoza's God, which he equated with nature itself, but he always held this "God" to be entirely knowable. D'Espagnat's veiled God, on the other hand, is partially – but still fundamentally – unknowable. And for precisely this reason, it would be nonsensical to paint it with the figure of a personal God or attribute to it specific concerns or commandments.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Front Page News; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: award; creation; faithandphilosophy; god; johntempleton; metaphysics; physics; quantummecahnics; quantummechanics; quantumphysics; science; stringtheory; templetonprize
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To: Carry_Okie

Thanks CO.


61 posted on 03/16/2009 8:18:28 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/____________________ Profile updated Monday, January 12, 2009)
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To: workerbee
Here's a shot of God passing through time and space, but in a bad mood:


62 posted on 03/16/2009 8:20:57 PM PDT by Mad_Tom_Rackham (The inmates are now officially running the asylum.)
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To: Carry_Okie
We know of God because God gives us the limited ability to understand God as God sees fit to allow us to know God. We are not omnipotent or omniscient. We are creations of a Creator. A Creator that has manufactured a reality that allows us to know just so much, but not reality enough to know enough to comprehend what will most likely forever be incomprehensible. Locked within a "body", our consciousness or "spirit" can only comprehend what the body and mind is capable of understanding. When the vessel which holds the "spirit/consciousness" eventually fails, the "S/C" is released, perhaps to join with the Creator or Cosmic intelligence which is the Creator of all that is and has been.

No......I've not smoked anything stronger than a cigarette. ;-)

63 posted on 03/16/2009 8:22:09 PM PDT by Thumper1960 (A modern so-called "Conservative" is a shadow of a wisp of a vertebrate human being.)
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To: grey_whiskers

Thanks for the ping!


64 posted on 03/16/2009 8:38:24 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: UCANSEE2

Here’s a summary:

“BS pays well”


65 posted on 03/16/2009 8:44:37 PM PDT by bigbob
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To: GOPGuide

Out of the great, broad spectrum of eletromagnetic energy is this little sliver of a wavelength we call “visible Light.” Yet, we are chastised for even thinking about “paranormal events” which may be nothing more than what normally occurs outside this little sliver of EME we call “visible Light.”

Why is it part and parcel to the scientist/nonbeliever that unless God manifests at least a tiny, visible part of himself within the narrow band of light, He cannot exist?

Visible matter represents only 4 percent of the universe, which also is made of 23 percent dark matter and 73 percent “dark energy.”

Yet it is this 4% that the existence of God must be demonstrated to a statistically significant degree before the scientist/nonbeliever will admit to a knowable God.

Can God be among the 23 percent of dark matter, or the 74% of dark energy?

God can reside outside of space/time but still cause quantum effects within it?

The Jewish kabbalists of the 11th, 12th, & 13th Century had estimated the age of the Universe to be 15 billion years old.


66 posted on 03/16/2009 9:02:08 PM PDT by Polarik ("A forgery created to prove a claim repudiates that claim")
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To: ETL

Why isn’t this guy smart enough to see that the DNA molecule isn’t ‘willing’ anything? It was designed from the start to do all that the designer knew had to be done.

Evolution:
The ‘science’ of Dumbness.


67 posted on 03/16/2009 9:11:52 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: Carry_Okie; DannyTN; LomanBill; SunkenCiv

A god of one’s own creation is not so fearsome.


68 posted on 03/16/2009 9:14:20 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: 1010RD
"Yet, if time is the issue and the final anomaly is discoverable only at death, the results of which cannot be reported, then what?"

As Paul so eloquently said, We see darkly until that day when we know as we are known. Nobody has transcended that except the Apostle John, and he was forbidden to write it.

69 posted on 03/16/2009 9:21:40 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: wildandcrazyrussian

Ok.

Instead of matter expanding from one central location in (what is now) 3 dimensional space, how about matter arriving from still only one point...but arriving everywhere, at the same moment?

If "nothingness" surrounded what energy (entity?) was there (ok, a big assumption)...then expanding into it, could well enough put it "everywhere", following somewhat your example of the distances on a sheet of paper folded upon itself.

Under this manner of thinking, the "big bang", was both centralized (all matter in one very small "location") yet simultaneously widely universal.

Doing the metaphysical induction thingy, is funner than all 'git out...

70 posted on 03/16/2009 9:27:50 PM PDT by BlueDragon (the "Bakersfield bump" had nothing to do with disco...)
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To: editor-surveyor

John the Beloved is still walking the earth, no? At least until Christ comes for the final time.

I thought Moses and Elijah transcended it, too.


71 posted on 03/16/2009 9:29:19 PM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: 1010RD
"Breakthroughs come when someone can relate it out, no?"

I prefer to think that the great breakthroughs come by the will of God, when it fits his perfect plan. Newton's awareness of the Calculus for example, allowed a tremendous cascade of technology that went unimagined for millenia. Did Adam have this knowledge but just not a need for it? Or Enoch?

72 posted on 03/16/2009 9:33:29 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: 1010RD

I see nothing in scripture to indicate that.


73 posted on 03/16/2009 9:34:52 PM PDT by editor-surveyor (The beginning of the O'Bummer administration looks a lot like the end of the Nixon administration)
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To: Mad_Tom_Rackham

Zardoz!

One of the greatest flicks of all time!
Well, maybe not, but at least we got to see Charlotte Rampling nekkid...


74 posted on 03/16/2009 9:40:28 PM PDT by djf (Sara Haines finally confessed her love... sorry, sweetheart, I already lost interest...)
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To: editor-surveyor

Clearly Adam had more knowledge than that which is written of. He could not survive outside the Garden without it.

I believe we live in a world of lost knowledge. History certainly bears this out. People keep falling for the same old tricks. We rediscover what was known before, even in a scientific sense.

Enoch is an interesting case. His name means initiated and he is associated with all kinds of learning - astronomy and mathematics among them.

Why did you choose those two?


75 posted on 03/16/2009 9:43:18 PM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: editor-surveyor

I forgot to add Enoch. Your mentioning him in your previous post, reminded me.

There is no record of Moses dying in the OT, no? He and Elijah appear physically on the Mt. of Transfiguration with Jesus. Jesus is transfigured, they must be also, no?

Didn’t John the Beloved ask to tarry until Christ returns? I can look up the exact verses for you.


76 posted on 03/16/2009 9:46:56 PM PDT by 1010RD (First Do No Harm)
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To: GOPGuide

All this bother, but still nothing I can see about Divine Intelligence, Divine Will, right and wrong, good and bad, or what is our purpose in the world. Just that there is a Creator that stands outside of nature, but not really. It’s a start, I guess, but not really.


77 posted on 03/16/2009 9:47:11 PM PDT by rightwingcrazy
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To: Kermit the Frog Does theWatusi

""Independent Reality plays, in a way, the role of God – or 'Substance' – of Spinoza," d'Espagnat writes. Einstein believed in Spinoza's God, which he equated with nature itself, but he always held this "God" to be entirely knowable. D'Espagnat's veiled God, on the other hand, is partially – but still fundamentally – unknowable. And for precisely this reason, it would be nonsensical to paint it with the figure of a personal God or attribute to it specific concerns or commandments."

78 posted on 03/16/2009 9:55:42 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: 1010RD
There is no record of Moses dying in the OT, no?

There is a record of his death, but no record of his body ever having been found.

79 posted on 03/16/2009 9:56:15 PM PDT by Carry_Okie (The environment is too complex and too important to manage by central planning.)
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To: ETL
Some (perhaps) supporting material, for the ideas expressed in;
On the Foundations of Metaphysics in the Mind-like Background of Physical Reality from Gerald Shroeder;

I won't link to Shroeder's pages here at this time, since Google has taken into their minds to block access to him, due to claims of malware being present on his site. But I did go there, copied and pasted [here] text found there, in the posted prologue to is latest book. I sure hopes he doesn't mind too much...no pun intended. <$^)

80 posted on 03/16/2009 10:01:17 PM PDT by BlueDragon (the "Bakersfield bump" had nothing to do with disco...)
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