{Quantum Muddle}[6th August 1983]

[Redbook2:296-299][19830806:2330b]{Quantum Muddle}[6th August 1983]

19830806.2330

[continued]

It is perhaps time for a layman's report on his half-baked view of the quantum approach. Clearly the quantum physicist would turn round and say: 'Yes, of course, you are an old-style classical determinist (and an ignorant one at that)' – but that does not answer the questions.

Einstein seems to have started the trend which he would not follow through[,] by saying that Time is what you measure by clocks: if the identical clock runs faster, time runs faster where it is. But is it? '“No phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon.”' 'Not only must human experimenters give up ever knowing when a particular atom is going to radiate or a particular nucleus undergo radioactive decay, but these events are unknown even in the perfect mind of God.'*

It seems the summit of conceit to limit what exists to Man can possibly measure**. The God mentioned is the Physicists' God – 'the God of the physicists is the cosmic order' – the Immanent or Universal aspect of God. This God of Materiality might well be unable to predict the reality – in fact, must be unable to predict it all, one suspects, if the Universe is to have internal consistency – but the reality may still exist.

It is exactly the 'random' and uncertain distribution of individual particles of that material reality that would enable the Transcendent or Total aspect of God, who would operate 'outside' the material Universe, to affect the outcome of material events within it without contravening its internal 'laws'. It is this aspect of God, 'mystics' believe, who is known deep within their essential beings, beyond materiality, as the ultimate Reality – and so can influence Men's minds directly.

*(Pagels, 'The Cosmic Code'.)

**(cf. Nietsche, God is Dead, and Superman?)

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