At the same time cosmologists are looking for God in a particle, quantum theory concludes the ultimate substance of the universe is not a particle, but a wave equation. As Heisenberg famously said, “atoms are not things.” Stephen Hawking, in The Grand Design, questions whether an objective world of particles even exists independently of theory. Rather, he says that our view of reality depends upon the governing model. Today that governing model is materialism, the view that at the core of existence is not spirit or God but tiny things and the elusive God particle. But what we need is not a new particle (there are already 26-odd fundamental particles in the Standard Model of particle physics), but a new model of reality. I would guess that when science finally brings consciousness fully into the next worldview, they will no longer be looking for God in a particle, but...
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In War of the Worldviews, Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow (perhaps best known for co-authoring The Grand Design with Stephen Hawking) debate, through dueling essays, the question of whether a spiritual consciousness should play a part in our current scientific worldview. Mr. Mlodinow adopts the staunch materialistic standpoint, constantly arguing that only what can tested, weighed and measured is real. According to him, this invisible spiritual element, advanced by Mr. Chopra, is simply an illusion; a nice thought without scientific credibility. Taking out his ruler and compass, Mr. Mlodinow finds he cannot measure “consciousness” and therefore concludes it does not exist. One of Mr. Mlodinow’s often repeated attacks in his essays is that metaphysics and philosophy are worthless, too malleable, and of no use for science. What is real is what we see, and what we see is a world independent of our brains. Who needs metaphysics? He...
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The multiverse — the notion that our universe is simply one among trillions— is currently in vogue in modern cosmology. The multiverse is the subject of the best-selling books, The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, and The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene, as well as others by popular science writers, John Barrow and John Gribbin. It is the topic of numerous articles in the leading scientific magazines, and has even caught the attention of The Wall Street Journal, which has published an excerpt from The Grand Design, interviewed Brian Greene on the topic, and published John Gribbin’s review of The Hidden Reality. As is so often the case, the difficulty is in determining whether this latest cosmological theory warrants our attention. The answer is yes. To begin with, the multiverse is important because it is the product of today’s scientific thought leaders, which is to say...
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As widely reported, Stephen Hawking announced in a recent interview with the Guardian newspaper that there is no heaven, and that any such notion is simply a fairly tale. At the same time Mr. Hawking holds this negative thought in his mind, he also concludes that the body is a machine, the brain is a decaying computer, the universe mysteriously arose from background vibrations, and our universe is simply one of roughly 10500 other ones. The only distinguishing feature of our universe is that it just so happens to possess exactly the right conditions and physical laws to support life. The other 10500 – 1 universes are not so lucky. So Mr. Hawking, like so many materialists, trades a world of hope for one of dire speculation. What evidence does Mr. Hawking have for the multiverse? None. What evidence does he have for universes popping out of...
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The mind calls out for a third theory to unify all of physics, and for a simple reason, Nature is in an obvious sense “unified. . . But in both quantum theory and general relativity, we encounter predictions of physically sensible quantities becoming infinite. This is likely the way that nature punishes impudent theorists who dare to break her unity. Lee Smolin, The Trouble with Physics In The Trouble with Physics, Lee Smolin presents a powerful critique of the state of modern physics. http://www.thetroublewithphysics.com/ The cause of the “trouble with physics” is that the two leading theories of physics— quantum theory and the general theory of relativity (i.e., gravity) — are mutually incompatible. The standard explanation for this incompatibility is that quantum physics, with its wave-particle duality and uncertainty principle, governs the world of the very small, while gravity, which by definition is proportional to mass, governs the...
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The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos is the new book by Brian Greene, the best-selling author of The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos. Hidden Reality describes nine different ways modern scientists reach the theoretical conclusion that there is actually more than one universe out there. According to the multiverse concept, there is anywhere from 10500 to an infinity of other universes, in dimensions we cannot see and in regions of space we will never encounter. To his credit, Professor Greene acknowledges that “the subject of parallel universes is highly speculative. No experiment or observation has established that any version of the idea is realize in nature.” (p. 8). He’s “laid out a general prescription for how a multiverse proposal might be testable, but at our current level of understanding none of the mutliverse theories we’ve encountered yet meet the...
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The aids to inference that lead scientists to the fact of evolution are far more numerous, more convincing, more incontrovertible, than any eye-witness reports that have ever been used, in any court of law, in any century to establish guilt in any crime. Proof beyond reasonable doubt? Reasonable doubt? That is the understatement of all time. Richard Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth Understatement — or overstatement —of all time? That is the question this blog will explore. According to modern evolutionists, Darwin’s theory of natural selection is as “incontrovertible as any fact in science,” supported by evidence at least as strong as that proving the truth of the Holocaust. (R. Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth, Preface). If you don’t believe in evolution, according to these modern thinkers, you are “inexcusably ignorant” (D. Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, 46), insane (R. Dawkins, Ancestor’s Tale, 13), or perhaps some...
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Brian Greene is undoubtedly one of the finest science writers at work today. His books, The Elegant Universe and The Fabric of the Cosmos, are both well written and provide, for the most part, clear and entertaining accounts of modern cosmology’s cutting-edge theories. Many of these theories may, in fact, turn out to be wrong, but Professor Greene keeps the reader in mind as he makes his way through the confounding theories of modern cosmology, including quantum theory, the inflationary Big Bang, and Greene’s personal favorite, string theory. Professor Greene has recently published a new book, entitled, “The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos” (for which a longer comment will be forthcoming), and to promote the book, agreed to an interview with David Gelernter in today’s (Jan. 31, 2011) Wall Street Journal. This interview (along with the book) will, with luck, mark the end of the road for scientific theorizing within a materialistic framework. The...
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The majority of people accept the teachings of scientific materialism without question. If a Nobel prize-winning scientist tells us the universe was created in the Big Bang, it was; if he tells us the early universe inflated trillions of times in blink of an eye, it most certainly did; if tells us the picture perfect universe evolved from the Big Bang chaos with no intelligent guiding force we believe that too; if a Harvard professor tells us life arose from a primordial swamp and then evolved from primitive bacteria to structured order of the DNA molecule and all life forms, we buy into that as well. And we buy in so strongly that anyone who disagrees with these established truths is misguided, if not ignorant.
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Radicalness is relative. What we today call radical may tomorrow be the unchangeable truth. Calling the world a dream streaming from the one mind of God is a radical thought. But the question is whether it is true. Compare it to modern science's current world theories -- the inflationary Big Bang, the multiverse, dark matter, dark energy, the Higgs field, and so on -- and then judge what theory is more radical -- the dream of God or the wild speculation of modern, materialistic scientists? ...