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The New Physics and Christianity
| Article
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14179 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1988 |
2,974 Words |
| Author
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J.W.P. Traphagan
J.W.P. Traphagan is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and is
currently studying at Andover Newton Theological School. |
Few developments have so profoundly affected the way scientists view reality as quantum mechanics. While the cause-and-effect worldview of classical or pre-quantum mechanics remains the model for our daily experience, quantum mechanics describes a level of reality too small to be immediately perceived and presents theoretical concepts that often contradict our intuitive sense about how the world works. Some scientists have taken this contradiction seriously enough to suggest that the quantum view of reality has implications beyond its subatomic realm.
Similarities have been shown between these philosophical speculations and Eastern mystical religions. Fritjof Capra, for example, has shown how the more esoteric ideas of quantum mechanics relate to Taoism and Buddhism. But the conceptions of reality proposed by modern physicists have an important message for traditional Christianity as well.
Subject and Object
How exactly does the quantum view of reality differ from the classical view? Consider the world of everyday life, or what scientists call the macrocosm. In a game of billiards, for example, various measuring devices (ruler, stopwatch, etc.) can be used to determine the position and momentum of individual objects in the game. If we then apply the laws of classical mechanics (in this case, Newton's law of motion), it is possible, with a large degree of certainty, to predict the path of a particular ball based upon information about the paths, positions, velocities, and so forth of other objects in the system. Underlying this example rests the assumption that the person conducting the observation (the subject) and each part within the game (the object) are autonomous entities related to each via casual laws, but essentially independent from each other.
In 1925, however, physicist Werner Heisenberg demonstrated through his uncertainty principle that it is not possible to measure simultaneously both the position and the momentum of microcosmic objects such as electrons--in quantum mechanics knowledge of one excludes knowledge of the other. Thus, contrary to classical mechanics, where uncertainty is viewed as a consequence of our inability to build perfect measuring devices, quantum theory introduces a natural, inherent limit to the extent of knowledge available to human observers. This may not seem particularly significant at first, but Heisenberg's uncertainty principle suggests that reality itself is indeterminate, that humans "cannot" overcome uncertainty about its nature. This, indeed, is a radical departure from the
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