A Very Unusual Proof for the Existence of God

[Whitney]

I don't even know what a wave function is nor how it can possibly collapse...I have a strong math background but it's focus was not in this direction (and I'm rusty).

But, I can still ask questions because I'm not sure that it matters if I fully understand the science behind the argument (at least not just yet):

From what I have read it did spark another question though.  Even if wave function collapses are only known to express themselves in conjunction with self-thought (which i would presume means that less intelligent animals don't have this if you measure their brain); isn't that simply a correlation that doesn't necessarily lead to causation?  After all, our testing grounds here on Earth are insignificant compared to the universe at large and it would seem naive to presume that just because we have found no other reason for why wave function might collapse that we should always assume a mind is at work (especially when straying from applying it to biological life).

[jfraatz]

How do you get from self-collapse = self-observation to god?  What does this god do if anything?  Is this god a creator? Does this god require worship or obedience?  Will this god make the coffee in the morning?[/quote]

Well like I said before this isn't to speculate about what kind of God we are dealing with -it could very well be a non-religious Deist God just as much as it could be a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu God or perhaps a pantheist God. This is just showing that there is a God -though at this point he's just a "generic God."

Or... are you just trying to support the idea of pantheism?[/quote]

Well that would be compatible with my model yes. Now personally I'm a panentheist rather than a pantheist, but a panentheist God is indistinguishable from a pantheist God if we are dealing with empirical evidence alone. The difference is that while pantheism has the universe being the mind of God, panentheism says that the universe is within the mind of God. So it's the difference between Bishop Berkeley's and Baruch de Spinoza's views of God.

That said pantheism is still a form of theism -just a "bare minimum" form.

[jfraatz]

I find that when one has to STRETCH to prove the existence of a god, then the god isn't worth stretching for.  I still hold out for the simpliest concept, if there is a god, he would have to be fairly simple and easily explained.

Well this is fairly simple. It only posits two premises:

1.) The wave-function of the universe is self-collapsing.
&
2.) Self-collapsing wave-functions are minds.

The obvious controversial premise here is 2.) but it's fairly robust and thus far it seems to be the only model that has really had any success at tackling the "hard problem" of consciousness.  Most of the detractors I have seen of the model are in the eliminativist camp that don't believe there is any "I" in the first place -so their models can't possible explain what they are pretending isn't there in the first place.

[jfraatz]

I'd still like to know what you mean by "wave function of the universe." We use wave functions to determine the location, direction or speed of a particle, how can this be used on the universe?

Well any system that has energy content has an associated wave-function. You can have sets of wave-functions of particles stacking up to produce larger wave-functions.

Now the "wave-function of the universe" concept follows logically from this but is of primary interest in quantum gravity. See they are not just trying to find a location at a point in space with this, but rather are trying to use this to explain space-time as a whole. So it's the same kind of mathematical object that we use to find the probable position and momentum of a particle but it's used in a different sort of way and for different purposes.

In particular (though this is off on a tangent) the solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation are functionals. So the wave-function get's treated like a variable rather than a function and space and time in turn get treated as the functions rather than the variables.

[Whitney]

I'm still not buying that there is a valid reason to think the universe itself is self-aware...it's setting off my bs detector for numerous reasons including that it's not making headlines (the media usually fall over each other trying to cover anything in science that might prove god), it's also setting it off because if this were true it has huge philosophical implications (we are a dream being on of them) and therefore falls under extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence, and because generally people tend to take quantum ideas and misunderstandingly try to show they prove something that they don't since in reality only a few can even understand quantum physics because it's really confusing for even many scientifically minded individuals.

[jfraatz]

Hello, and welcome to HAF, jfraatz.

Your idea is interesting. I'm enjoying this thread, and look forward to your further explanation of the relation between the "wave function of the universe" and a hypothetical deity as you answer questions from members here.

I find it intriguing that Hawking's "wave function of the universe" is used by Quentin Smith in this article to try to show that theism actually has no basis from our current understanding of the universe. Have you heard of this line of reasoning?  If so, what are your thoughts on it?

They basically didn't like it because it used a real live "Cartesian ego" with real actually "Platonic a priori knowledge" as premises. Due to what to be frank seems a sort of peer pressure neither of these things is popular in academia despite both of them being intuitively obvious. When you look out at the world for the first time without getting into clever arguments against it you automatically know that "Cogito ergo sum" and that the stuff you study in your grade school math book really is "there" in some sense and not just a construct made up by humans.

Intuitively obvious to you perhaps.  The question of "is math invented or discovered" (Platonic ideals actually existing  being the basis for "math is discovered, not invented") is not settled, and to act as if it is, and to use the "discovered" position as a premise, is dubious.  Have you tried running your ideas past the fine people at Physics Forums?

All right I'm getting the jist of Smith's article here the catch though is that I'm not a classical theist. So yes if Hawking is right about there being a single wave-function that started the universe (which I think he is) then there is no need for physical laws to break down at the Big Bang singularity (because there really isn't a singularity) and hence no need for a supernatural God to appear.

However I don't have a problem with this, as I do not hold to a "supernatural" as such. There could be what I might call a "supranatural," which would look for all the world to be "supernatural." But the difference is that what we think of as being a "supernatural" is a product of substance dualism. (in this case the view that there is a natural material world and a supernatural spiritual world, and that the two are in no way related) I find dualism to be logically contradictory though. So I'm a monist. Though I'm a neutral monist so I think that if this other category exists (and it exists in a bare minimum form in philosophy of mind anyway) then both the physical/natural and the mental/"supernatural" categories would exist, but they would not be completely disparate. Rather they would both reduce to some third "neutral substance" -information/forms?

This being the case the world could very well have fluctuated into existence in the physical domain the way Hawking was suggesting. It's just that the initial "psi" -though physically always existing- would have a non-physical explanation for it's own existence. So no there would be no necessity for God to violate physical laws or anything like that it would just be that these physical laws (along with the entire physical world) would exist inside God's mind in a logically consistent "nesting Russian dolls" sort of way. God could then control psi (since it's a probability function anyway anything could in principle happen and this would preserve omnipotence) but psi and God would not be incompatible. Psi would simply be a part of God (the part that is extended into the physical category) and God could therefore control it despite being above it. (in the same way that your mind is above whatever ideas you have in your mind)

So it would be like pantheism in that it would be entirely consistent with the laws of the physical universe, it's just that this would be a sort of "pantheism+." Instead of the universe being the mind of God, the universe would be IN the mind of God.

[jfraatz]

and therefore falls under extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence,

Well look that is a logical thing to say, though the entire idea is essentially predicated on Penrose's model. (premise 1. is already fairly trivial). So now Penrose's model DOES have some extraordinary evidence, but the point is that this is no more BS than Penrose's Orch-OR model is BS -because it automatically follows from Penrose's model once you take the collapse the wave-function of the universe into account. If it's BS then Penrose's model is also BS, but Penrose is an eminent physicist and his books on the matter were pretty rigorous and comprehensive.

[Davin]

I'd still like to know what you mean by "wave function of the universe." We use wave functions to determine the location, direction or speed of a particle, how can this be used on the universe?

Well any system that has energy content has an associated wave-function. You can have sets of wave-functions of particles stacking up to produce larger wave-functions.

So the wave function of the universe is really a wave function of every particle in the universe stacked up? I'm also having a difficulty understanding you because at the start you're alluding to the "wave function of the universe" being a huge stack of every wave function for every particle in the universe, then later in your post you say that it's a different function that uses the wave functions as if they're variables which is something completely different. Can you just lay out exactly what you mean by "wave function of the universe?" So far it's just wibbly, wobbly, timey, whimy bits.

Now the "wave-function of the universe" concept follows logically from this but is of primary interest in quantum gravity. See they are not just trying to find a location at a point in space with this, but rather are trying to use this to explain space-time as a whole. So it's the same kind of mathematical object that we use to find the probable position and momentum of a particle but it's used in a different sort of way and for different purposes.

I've seen several wave function algorithms, none of which have been used for any other purpose than determine the position, orientation, velocity or sometimes time of the particle. I've seen extrapolations based off of normalizing wave functions, however these are not called wave functions because they have a different purpose than the purpose of wave functions. I'm not saying that everything I've seen is the be all end all, but I asked a very clear question: "We use wave functions to determine the location, direction or speed of a particle, how can this be used on the universe?" I'd appreciate a clear answer. You said it's used in a different sort of way and for different purposes, what sort of way is it used and for what purposes is it used for?

In particular (though this is off on a tangent) the solutions to the Wheeler-DeWitt equation are functionals. So the wave-function get's treated like a variable rather than a function and space and time in turn get treated as the functions rather than the variables.

I've seen this kind of abstraction effectively used before, however I've also seen this kind of abstraction lead to no where useful. What is the purpose of abstracting wave functions into variables and why must they abstract them into variables? How are the wave functions being converted into variables?

I think that when you abstract wave functions into variables and then variables into functions, then you are no longer talking about wave functions. You can make the functions appear to be similar to wave functions, but they'll never really be actual wave functions. Like when one works with statistics, once functions are used on the data, the results are not longer the data (thought still based on it), but merely a representation of the data. You can no longer call the results of statistics "data", just as you should no longer call a function, treating wave functions as variables, a "wave function".

Edit: Question I forgot to include bolded in the second to last paragraph.

[Dispirited]

Sounds to me like the universe is a giant mind at work and we're just the embodiments of synaptic activity. Dreams, if you will.

[notself]

Sounds to me like the universe is a giant mind at work and we're just the embodiments of synaptic activity. Dreams, if you will.

Your idea makes as much sense as anything else.  

[DropLogic]

Lack of understanding does not mean God is the answer.  I've touched on this point a little in my other posts.  It is human nature to need an answer to everything that we don't understand.  Math has been kind to us, due to it's natural finality.  
I think we are still afraid of the dark.  
"X + Y = God" would make sense by your logic.  Man created this impossible equation, and is now trying to solve it...which is impossible.  Stop reaching.  
By the rules you've created to govern your god, god cannot be discovered.  You are not going to open a door, and god will jump, surprised to see you.

[Sophus]

@Sophus

No this is not New Age stuff. Both of these are based on hard science. Orch-OR is the more debatable of the two but that is an actual model of the mind thought of by Roger Penrose.  I know what you might think it looks like, but both of these premises are based on things that we either already know or things that are currently being debated in scientific circles (ala the Orch-OR model).

Now if it WERE New Age proper it fit into a mentalist "What the Bleep do we Know?" paradigm. This is definitely pseudoscience. We know this because the New Age paradigm makes the outside world dependent on the human mind. If this were the case we could not to science -as all of our experiments would change depending on how we wished them to be. There would be no objective reality in this paradigm.

The difference with this however is that this IS NOT dependent on our minds. Granted it's dependent on God's mind, but because our Orch-OR processes are not identical with the large scale Orch-OR process we can't control stuff directly with our minds. This being the case we can still observe and experiment on a world that is distinct from our minds. So this is compatible with a workable philosophy of science. This is not saying that we can magically use quantum mechanics to think the world into whatever form we want it. There is a mind-independent (of OUR minds) world out there in this model.

This being the case the model hinges on it's two premises:

1.) Penrose's Orch-OR model
2.) The wave-function of the universe being self-collapsing.

2.) has to be right because by definition no particle exists outside of the universe to collapse the wave-function of the universe. If there was such a particle the universe would by definition no longer be the universe -as it would not be the totality of all physical objects.

This means that the model pretty much stands or falls on 1.). Now this is a controversial model to be sure, but it's not pseudoscience (Penrose is up there with Hawking in regards to his scientific credentials) and the model is falsifiable. So the point being though is that if Orch-OR is true then this conclusion also follows. This is not to say that Orch-OR is true from the onset (though I have pretty strong reasons to think that it is), but the larger point is that this conclusion is entirely conceivable within current scientific ideas. (though granted the idea involved is polarizing and very controversial)

I don't mean to suggest there isn't solid science behind it, simply that the conclusions being drawn, that it somehow relates to the existence of a god in any way, seems like the same thing the New Agers do. They misunderstand the "solid science" and somehow insist it means there's a spiritual world. So, personally, I don't see the connection.

Well this is fairly simple. It only posits two premises:

1.) The wave-function of the universe is self-collapsing.
&
2.) Self-collapsing wave-functions are minds.

How would that be explainable or knowable (thus simple) to anyone who was born before quantum physics?

[hackenslash]

Two things:

Firstly, the universe doesn't have a single wavefunction, but constitutes a massive collection of them, all interacting.

Secondly, what constitutes an observer?

[PoopShoot]

I don't see any reason to accept this without you explaining HOW a self-collapsing wave function is a mind.

[Tanker]

Making the broad assumption that the universe is in fact a large mind how does this equate to a god? How could you even tell if such a massive mind were sentient let alone even aware of us. If the Universe were a mind or a being we would be what? Parasites? Symbiotes? If fleas were some how able to gain sentients should they then consider thier dog a god? What about the parasites and symbiots common to man if the had sentients would we then be thier god? A possible great or vast...intelligence....does not equal "god" I'm sorry to say, despite what some bloated egos here on earth may believe of themselves. Lol.