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As a gravitational physicist, I've heard rants like this quite a bit and they generally represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what is currently 'known'. Many well known physicists have overlooked the finer details and depth of what we have already established, not because they are dim-witted, but because the concepts involved stretch the capacities of human cognition to it's breaking point. It is only after many years that we even begin to fully understand the Great Theories postulated and largely proven decades before.

One example of this relates directly to the notion of a God, and what science can say about it. Few people realize that the scientific method itself has already recursively demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that it is insufficient for a complete understanding of Nature. But this is only unambiguously understood when one understands the full implications of Quantum Field Theory, especially what is known as Objective State Vector Reduction (R. Penrose) and the fact that some quantum coherent states evolve into classical systems in a matter that is non-algorithmic and inherently unpredicatable. Let's be clear: this means that there are Natural processes, clearly identified by the scientific method (they DO occur naturally), that can yield outcomes that cannot, in principle, be predicted in advance. This defeats the notion of scientific objectivism and predictability entirely. It matters not what technology you possess, what great minds you apply, or how lucky you get, the very Laws of Nature forbid such predictability.

This is the very essence of what we regard as 'mind', and 'consciousness'; that is, it possesses the quality of being non-deterministic, at least partly. Where does the 'decision' for a truly 'random' (as humans measure it) come from. It isn't human, as it occurs in Nature. Are these shadows of the mind of God? There has never been a more powerful, damning and thorough argument for the existence of a God than this, yet only in the last couple of years have some of the brightest physicists begun to catch on to this revelation and fully appreciate it's implications. It was only because I've been working directly on the unification issue that I became aware of this profound fact about non-deterministic behavior, and studied it carefully. Most mathematical physicists don't bother with unification: it's too damn hard. But some of us fools keep pressing. But for me, at least, it's about the journey, not necessarily reaching the destination.

In fact, it is amazing how few physicists, or people for that matter, even understand what it means to state a principled truth vs. a practiced truth, yet confusion continues, even in the highest levels of academia. Something weird is going on in the universe and we don't fully understand what it is yet. QFT suggests we probably never will. Any complete theory of Nature will be, in some sense, incomplete, inasmuch as it will necessarily restrict it's scope to those Natural phenomenon that are principally predictable. It's not a huge loss, it could explain the VAST majority of all Natural processes humans are capable of observing, but it leaves just one titillating scintilla of weirdness for which the puny minds of man can only ponder.

But this is only unambiguously understood when one understands the full implications of Quantum Field Theory, especially what is known as Objective State Vector Reduction (R. Penrose) and the fact that some quantum coherent states evolve into classical systems in a matter that is non-algorithmic and inherently unpredicatable. Let's be clear: this means that there are Natural processes, clearly identified by the scientific method (they DO occur naturally), that can yield outcomes that cannot, in principle, be predicted in advance. This defeats the notion of scientific objectivism and predictability entirely. It matters not what technology you possess, what great minds you apply, or how lucky you get, the very Laws of Nature forbid such predictability.

This is the very essence of what we regard as 'mind', and 'consciousness'; that is, it possesses the quality of being non-deterministic, at least partly. Where does the 'decision' for a truly 'random' (as humans measure it) come from. It isn't human, as it occurs in Nature. Are these shadows of the mind of God?

I kinda doubt you'll get many of the Discovery Institute types following you down this road. They may not be hard core fundies like your classical "creation scientists," but I suspect they are still way too theologically conservative to cozy up to the idea of a God "in process" (and therefore not absolutely omnipotent or omniscent) suggested by your musings.

I'm with you, though. I don't understand these physical theories, but have long believed on other grounds that it is not possible for God to be both a conscious persona AND absolutely omniscient and omnipotent, or at least that the idea of such a Diety is severely incoherent. God is the supreme being, and the source of all being, but if conscious and personal then He is capable of learning, of being suprised, of experiencing novelty, etc. In some sense God is evolving.

Indeed I find the notion of "panentheism" (the world is in God) to be the most logically consistent and plausible formulation of theism. Contrary to both classical theism, which holds that the world is totally noncoincident with God, and pantheism, which holds that the world is God, panenthiesm holds that the creaturely universe is part of (but not all of) God. On this view the evolution of the universe is part of the evolution of God Himself, and its laws may indeed be viewed as "shadows of the mind of God".

It may also be, though, that God is not completely conscious of the laws of nature, somewhat as we are not conscious of the processes governing the operation of our own human bodies. It may be that God discovers these laws by a process of "introspection," so that in granting being to universes (I suspect ours is only one of many that have, will or do exist) God is eternally investigating the possibilities of being.

Any complete theory of Nature will be, in some sense, incomplete, inasmuch as it will necessarily restrict it's scope to those Natural phenomenon that are principally predictable.

Isn't it true that the act of theorizing is the act of predicting? And that what we know as the most personal component of our personalities is that which we perceive as undetermined, or un-caused? So that, by definition, a theory of nature, as a description of a matrix of causes and effects, cannot by definition perceive personality?

The personal slips out of the theory, epistemologically, like water in the fist.

But, then, the hand is, afterwards, wet.

This is the very essence of what we regard as 'mind', and 'consciousness'

I whole-heartedly agree with you here. If all physical processes were deterministic, then intelligence and free-choice are illusions. Well, maybe they are, but I don't think so.

From a (deterministic) physics perspective, we are nothing more than a very large collection of mutually interacting particles. The particles of which we are made don't have minds of their own, and must obey the laws of physics. Although it is beyond our comprehension to know the precise state of every particle, every atom, every electron, etc., in our bodies (and the surrounding nvvironment), in principle, every action, every thought, every decision is pre-determined. Because the interactions between every particle of which we are made must obey the laws of physics. That is, in a deterministic perspective.

Maybe, when God said he gave us free-choice, this is what he meant. maybe he could easily have made a perfectly deterministic universe, but instead he included these few non-deterministic interactions precisely for this reason.

In any case, I agree that 'mind' and 'consciousness' are manifestations of the randomness of which you speak.

"This is the very essence of what we regard as 'mind', and 'consciousness'; that is, it possesses the quality of being non-deterministic, at least partly."

See my private freepmail.

I am in the position of wanting to believe in free will, but believing so strongly in causality that I cannot.

Of course everybody--including me--behaves as if free will is the case.

As I have said before, when someone claims to have free will, my translation is: "My outputs are not functions of my inputs," a remarkable claim. The natural rejoinder: "Very well, what are your outputs functions of?"

Randomness and Heisenberg do not rescue free will: a random robot is still a robot.

I order chocolate; you order vanilla. Why? "We chose our flavors." But a hide-bound determinist (sort of, like, well, me) would ask: "Did not your entire past history conspire to ensure that you would order vanilla today?" And that past history stretches in an unbroken chain back to the big bang.

Can causality and free will coexist? I cannot imagine how. If there is a realm or subset of reality in which causality is not regnant, then how can there be any subset in which one is certain that is is regnant?...

Just more confusion from a confused mind.

--Boris