So What?

Quantum Puppetry

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August is traditionally the silly season and this year, before it settled down to more serious news, I was delighted to read that Paul Daniels had been hospitalised after Sooty had thrown a pizza at him.  I was not delighted Paul Daniels had been hospitalised, of course but the idea of a little yellow bear throwing a pizza struck me as hilarious and most people I have told this story to also find it hilarious.  Until of course they remember Sooty is a puppet and the pizza was actually thrown from someone's hand.

An article about puppets in today's Metro, about Handspring Puppet Company, is worth a read, the challenge is to make the puppet seem alive.  I read somewhere, and thought it was in this article but I can't find it there, that whereas an actor's role is to get the audience to suspend their disbelief, the challenge to the puppeteer is to get the audience to suspend its belief this is in fact a puppet.

This week's New Scientist's cover story Quantum Minds suggests that the human mind might be described by the same maths as quantum theory.  Note this is not the same as using quantum theory to explain human minds.  It does seem logical that the same maths might explain both, as the maths enables the mind to grasp quantum behaviour in the first place.

I think puppets might help.  One characteristic of quantum mechanics is super-position.  This is where we are asked to understand the behaviour of a particle as both a particle and a wave, two mutually contradictory things.

This is exactly what we all do with puppets.  If you don't believe me, watch this video about the puppets used in the stage play of Michael Morpurgo's 'The War Horse'.  We can see its a puppet and yet we're able to perceive it as if it is a real horse.

 

 

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What Does it Mean to Prove God Exists?

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I wonder whether tacit knowledge might help with the perennial debate about the existence of God?  Although atheists sometimes concede God's existence is not in principle provable, my usual experience, especially online, is a demand for proof.

Crawford, in his book The case for working with your hands, tells the story of his father, who was a physicist, making the claim that it is possible to untie a double knotted shoelace by pulling on one end.  Mathematically this is true, or so Crawford claims.  The point is though in real life, you cannot untie a double knotted shoelace in this way.  The problem is the physical properties of the lace have a bearing on what can be done with it.  Whilst mathematically it might be possible, physically it is impossible because shoelaces are made of something.

So, let us assume I have a proof of God's existence.  How do I know it is in fact a proof?  The rules that determine a scientific proof demand we strip a problem down to its basics, ignoring the realities we encounter when things are apprehended in our lives rather than through our heads.

This claim that only formal proofs are valid, gives away the reality of the radical atheist's position.  It is in essence a requirement for control.  It is not a free encounter with reality but one that is determined by prior ideological constraints.  It is an assertion of imperialism over and against the radical call to freedom.  We are told to sacrifice what we experience as true, to a particular partial understanding of our world.  The point is formal knowledge alone is not sufficient to make a chair or mend a motorbike, lat alone encounter God.

But there is a sense in which radical atheists are right.  if you really want proof of God, you need to do what the scientist does.  Scientific proof requires many hours in the lab, applied to getting experiments to work, in the sense of providing reliable results.  Usually this requires the application of significant technical expertise.  Without this dedication we would have no science whatsoever.

What I find difficult to understand is that anyone who wants proof of God, needs to apply themselves to it, in just the same way as the scientist applies herself in the lab.  It's all very well demanding proof but a little odd to condemn those who claim to be believers as having no proof, when you are unwilling to do what is necessary to find out for yourself.

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The Tao of Who

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I've named this post after the title of a book; The Tao of Pooh was an interpretation of Taoist spirituality through A A Milne's 'Winnie the Pooh'.  It would be an exaggeration to say this book is an inspiration for this series of posts (I haven't read it!) but it makes for an eye catching title.

I'm planning a series of posts about Dr Who.  The plan is to review some of the episodes of the new Who era and reflect on some  emerging themes.  I may from time to time dip into the classic series too but we shall see how it goes.

These posts will not be reviews; their purpose is threefold and I will explain them further in the next three posts.

I watched Dr Who religiously from the very beginning in 1963, although I slowed down  during the late Pertwee era, watching fewer episodes and stopping entirely at the end of the Tom Baker era.  In recent years I've seen a few of the episodes I missed and so I have a fairly good idea of what has happened during the history of the the programme.

William Hartnell is still 'my Doctor' and I tend to compare all the others to him, or him as I remember him.  The point is the Doctor is a hero and at that, a British hero.  He bears comparison with Robin Hood or King Arthur.  So he tells us something about ourselves as a nation, how we understand our role in the world and what we value.  The comparison is sometimes made with Star Trek.  In the Star Trek universe everything is clean, tidy and disciplined.  The muddle and confusion with the Doctor has been there from the beginning.

From the very beginning the programme has been about science but not science as we know it.  It is usually optimistic about science as a means to solve problems.

Finally, I want to use this series as a means to reflect on public spirituality.  It seems our values and our science say something important about our relationship with God.

On Imagination: Science

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Sometimes debates between atheists and Christians can become rather tedious.  The question of whether or not God exists seems to be endlessly fascinating to some.  However, once you clock there's no possibility of proving either way, the argument seems rather pointless.

One argument is science is materialist and doesn't allow for a spiritual dimension to life.  This assertion, often accepted by both sides, has always seemed dubious to me.

Science like all human activity is an act of imagination.  In an earlier post I explained how all our experiences are subjective.  Science helps us agree about what we perceive.  Its bedrock is replicable experiments.  We can take our local experiences and if they are replicable elsewhere we can add them to a resource of objective observations.  It is that they are replicable that makes them objective.

So, when we say science is materialist, what do we mean?  Do we mean we have found a means to accumulate tried and tested observations, hypotheses, theories about the universe?  A method that is extremely successful.  Or do we mean that in some sense science reflects the universe as it really is?  It is worth asking whether the success of science, as a materialist approach, reflects the universe as it is.

Whilst the universe may be material, the means by which we wrestle with our observations and interpret them is through the imagination.  This is the same means by which we write novels and compose symphonies.  

Think of Kerkule, who discovered the benzene ring after dreaming of the Ouroboros, the serpent holding its tail in its mouth.  Or the many interpretations of quantum mechanics.  The first is an example of a feat of imagination leading to a convergent solution on the specific structure of a specific molecule (although we can't see atoms and so any structure is in some sense imaginary).  The second is an example of a divergent system, where speculations about its meaning are unlikely to lead to consensus.

I'm not denying the effectiveness of scientific method.  I am asking us to be careful when we assume a materialist approach reflects all we can know of the universe.

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On Imagination

I have been giving some thought to the nature of imagination and in this, and a few posts following, I will share them.

I have suggested (most recently in my last post) there is far more about the universe than is picked up by our senses and perceived after being processed by the brain.  This is an evolutionary necessity.  Our senses and brains select enough to present a reasonably stable picture of the world around us.

Other species have senses different from our own.  So, birds and insects for example, detect different wavelengths of light.  They perceive colours unknown to humanity.  We cannot conceive of different colours to the ones we know.  But we know they exist because they relate to wavelengths of light and some animals can see light we cannot.

One question philosophers have asked, is whether we all perceive the same thing.  The answer seems to be both yes and no.  Yes because we perceive in sufficiently similar ways to be able to communicate about the things we perceive.  I don't suppose we can ever be certain we all perceive, for example, colours in the same way.  But the chances are we do because we seem to have a similar response to them.  I suspect the major differences are culturally determined.  There was a time when colours were not named and so people compared the colours of things, eg Homer, I think, writes of the 'wine dark sea'.  Some people have a condition called synaesthesia,  where they experience the sense data of one sense from the stimuli of another, eg some people perceive numbers or musical notes as colours.

So, everything we know is inside of our heads.  We cannot know the universe as it really is because we have no access to it as it really is.  We can use instruments to detect things outside the range of our senses but ultimately everything is processed by our brains.

The odd thing is we can agree about so much.  I can describe an object to you and you can locate it and pick it up, I can give you directions to my house, I share a place with my neighbours and we all experience it in a very similar way.

My suggestion is everything we perceive is the work of our imagination.  We distinguish what we call 'real' from what we call 'imaginary' through recognition.  We carry a picture of a place or person in our minds and name what we see according to that picture.  Several descriptions of the same thing will be both different and recognisable. 

Theologically, I suggest we think of recognition as love.  It is recognition this person and this place is unique, something to be treasured because it is unique.  We fall in love when we contemplate the form of a tree, the detail of a beetle, the apparent infinity of the universe.  Each of these things has its integrity, each time we look we see more and yet recognise it as the same. 

Even the thing we hate has this property.  Emotion often accompanies recognition and so it should.  The thing we should fear is not our passions but our indifference.

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Observing the Big Bang

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I recently wrote about the quantum singularity that, it seems, defined the probability of the Big Bang.  Singularities collapse when they are observed and so the question is, who observed the Big Bang? 

It is tempting to jump to the conclusion that God was the observer.  The implications of this for the inflated egos of some Christians is something to be avoided.  Proving God is a preoccupation for those Christians who find faith difficult and so have to bolster it with a dose of triumphalism to help God along in God's relationship with humanity.

This view of God as all powerful is immensely damaging.  It feeds the egos of church hierarchies and anyone who believes the most important thing is to be right.

There are, as I said in the post (link above), other interpretations of quantum mechanics where an observer is not needed.  As ever we are not dealing with certainties.

There is of course another option.  Someone else observed the singularity who is not God.  Of course, there is only one known possibility and that is humanity.

We know humanity has observed evidence of the Big Bang (not the actual event obviously).  Remember Schroedinger's cat; we don't see it die, it is both alive and dead until it is observed.

What if over all the millions of years before humanity, the universe was in a state of neither existing nor not existing?  Until humanity appeared on the scene, aware of their own existence and of the universe around them.

The universe becomes real as we become aware that it is real.  The universe is a construct of human consciousness.  We know that.  Our senses and brains strip out most of the information available to us.  We depend on this for survival.  The world we perceive is constructed by our brains.  There is, of course, a reality we have in common, something we perceive and are able to agree about, otherwise science would not be possible at all.

The Christian story is a story of God becoming human.  We call this incarnation.  This human being was murdered and rose from the dead, ascending into heaven.  So the story goes.  The Body of Christ is the incarnation of God in humanity today.    

Maybe one way of thinking of it is the story of the universe as the story of the birth of God into the world.  This is a God who becomes self-aware though humanity.  Not a God on high but a God who lives as a part of the universe, seeing through our eyes, exploring through our feet and loving through our hands.

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Theology and Science: A New Cosmology?

All civilisations have a cosmology.  I've mentioned this before and noted the Christian faith has recognised several radically different cosmologies, eg first century Palestine, Medieval Catholic, Newtonian and modern.

The problem is, of course, our modern cosmology is rather difficult to understand and so many theologians have ignored it.  They prefer the certainties of Newton's mechanical cosmology, even though it drains life from the faith.  (Leaving aside the intellectually deprived ravings of the creationists and those who favour even earlier cosmologies.)

The new cosmology offers opportunities for Christians because it relates the observer and the observed.  It embeds us in the material world and at the same time transcends it.  It allows for the possibility of a spiritual dimension to matter, which should take us away from the sterile dualism of spirit and matter that has plagued Christian history.

It's odd because so much of our theology denies dualism.  We are invited to understand Jesus as both human and divine.  Matter and spirit are seen to be joined in a seamless whole.  Surely this story tells us something of our own nature? 

And we have the dance of the Trinity, that holds us face to face with something beyond the spirit matter dualism of our sterile dreams. 

So, why do some Christians insist matter is somehow bad?  Why all the hang-ups about sex?  Partly it is to do with economics and human exploitation but at a deeper level it is disgust with matter.  And yet the invitation has to be to embrace life.  If God could live fully as a human, so must we.

Theology and Science: On the Nature of Spirit

Dark matter and dark energy make up 96% of the universe.  So, is God in the dark matter or dark energy?  Well, whatever the truth, it is not true to say there is nowhere in the universe for God to be found.

The problem is, of course, theologians will tell you God the creator is not in the universe; that would be to confuse the creator with the created. 

Perhaps we can search outside the universe?  String theory has 10 dimensions.  Plenty of room for God there, outside the universe as we perceive it.  I'm simply showing it is not illogical to believe in God, there is no evidence for God in any of these places.

For the atheist there is only matter, no spirit.  For the theologian too often matter is inferior to spirit.  This is the old gnostic heresy and is still prevalent amongst many Christians.  Let's look at the theology.

God loves matter.  God is the creator and holds matter in existence - this is part of our foundational belief.  Furthermore, the Christian believes God became incarnate in human flesh. 

This means, whilst the scientist might look for God in dark matter or other dimensions, the Christian seeks God in the stories of Jesus and his followers.  God is not out there somewhere but close by, albeit hidden.

Maybe God is out there somewhere but essentially the God out there is unknowable.  If we want to know God, we must look to the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  This is the only way we can know anything of the nature of God.

Why is God hidden?  Because God is in the here and now.  God inhabits the world of our senses but is found only by accident, by glimpses or revelations.  No-one can produce proof or be categorical; God is revealed now and then, here and there.  All stories are part of a greater story, all words part of a greater conversation.

Theology and Science: On the Nature of Matter

It is interesting the new atheists know so much about matter.  It seems all human experience can be accounted for by matter alone.  It is interesting that matter, which is perceived, accounts for consciousness, that perceives.  It is sort of counter-intuitive - but then that's the nature of faith. 

But how do we know what we know about matter?  We perceive it through our senses.  We see it, hear it, feel it (when it falls on our foot), smell it and taste it.  So, obviously we know all there is to know about matter.

Except that some animals perceive aspects of matter we can only glimpse through our machines.  Ultra violet?  No problem.  Magnetic and electric fields?  None at all.

Our senses have evolved through human evolution.  It is possible to perceive matter in other ways.  If electric eels could describe matter, what would they perceive, that we don't?

The problem is, we don't know what we don't perceive.  Our senses are a gift because they filter out what is distracting - we pick up only that which is important to us (or was important during human evolution).  If our senses picked up everything, it would be a confusing meaningless morass.  And our senses are only part of the story; what they pick up is interpreted by the brain. 

Apparently the image on our retina is upsidedown, compared with what we normally perceive.  How much of what is coherent about the world, is the interpretation laid on the world by our brains?  Most of what we perceive hangs together and our science depends upon this.  But how can we be sure that the picture of reality we see through science is all that is there?

It hangs together and I'm in no way suggesting we can know nothing of reality.  Our senses filter what is there, they don't fabricate it, at least not usually.  The results of experiments are corroborated by other scientists.  There is consistency.

Perhaps quantum mechanics makes little sense because science has been able to pierce beyond the veil of the senses.  Perhaps it gives us a taste of what we would find, were we to perceive all things.

There is another thing we can rely upon and that is scientists are in conversation with matter.  Through science, human consciousness has entered into conversation with the universe.  Ask matter and it responds.  Sometimes it needs close interrogation but as we question, our understanding deepens.  As far as we can tell, the predictive power of science is firm.  

I do wonder.  All that dark matter and dark energy.  We can't perceive it - apparently it is all around us and passes through us all the time.  What secrets does it hold?  Perhaps all manner of things the atheist would rather deny.  Or perhaps there is no dark matter or dark energy - consensus has yet to be reached.

Is Christianity a Materialist Faith?

I've been involved, albeit  peripherally, in a debate about the relationship between psychotherapy and the Christian faith.  It is on the Premier Christian Radio site and as usual the discussion took some unintended twists and turns.  This one included a fascinating discussion about materialism. 

It started as one of those futile exchanges between atheists and Christians about which has caused most violence.  This can get a bit futile as neither side is prepared to accept the other's examples or that all people are prone to violence.

I read this exchange and remarked that the word materialist was being used rather indiscriminately by the Christians to mean in effect atheist (and so the sole cause of the worst of twentieth century wars and persecutions).  I pointed out some Christians are materialists; on reflection I meant Christianity is a materialist faith.

I don't mean materialism in the sense of individuals who care solely for consumer goods and the accumulation of wealth.  Also, I do not mean the philosophical position taken by many atheists that there is a material world that is solely responsible for everything we know.  Consciousness itself cannot be accounted for by matter alone.

I mean there is no distinction, from where we stand as human beings, between matter and spirit.  This is not a denial of some sort of spiritual reality nor is it a refusal to accept the findings of modern science.

It seems to me the doctrine of incarnation is essentially materialist.  God loves matter.  We believe God creates matter and why should God bother if it is evil?  It is the Gnostics who had a dualist view of matter and spirit, where matter is bad and spirit is good.  The Christian Church has always rejected this view, arguing that Jesus is God incarnated as a full human being. 

This puts Jesus, and therefore God, into a unique time and place.  Our faith is still one of here and now, rather than in heaven or the hereafter.

The Liberation Theologians in the 1970s were inspired by elements of Marxism, and found his dialectical materialism is at root a means to interrogate the here and now.  They found, as Christians have found time and again throughout their history, that it is the poor who suffer.  They were rejected by church and state because they sided with the poor.  They pointed out inequalities are anathema for God, and their Marxism was therefore used against them.

So, yes the Christian faith is materialist, unlike atheism which is not noted for its solidarity with the poor.