On God #14

June 22, 2011

Daniel Gould to Bob Wilson

 

Hi Bob;

It is only my respect for your innate intelligence that prods me to continue this dialog concerning your message to the world.

But I cringe when I think of your scientific naïveté. I no longer recall if you had any elementary courses in either Physics or Chemistry at high school. Myself, I graduated with a Scientific Diploma: four years of science and four of mathematics. At university, we both followed a liberal arts program.

The job which you were instrumental in my obtaining, at Plenum Publishing, was more welcome because it brought me back to a first love than for the financial necessity. I really enjoyed attending the conferences held throughout the year. Sometimes Plenum's booth would be next to a manufacturer of electronic telescopes. During the quiet times, the salesman would show me how it worked and let me peer into another---and to the human consciousness---seemingly invisible world. Spectroscopy, Cryogenics...whatever, they all interested me. As a result, long after leaving the professional scientific community, I have tried to maintain a level of competency in regard to the advances and their meaning.

My background reading is the weekly science page in the Int Herald Tribune; and the New Scientist, a British weekly which approaches the weekly subject matter much in the same style as a TIME magazine; short one or two paragraph articles and three or four feature ones. If you have a basic understanding of scientific terms and the elementary principles you can follow it; and books. 

Sometimes my reading seems to be a useless exercise. It took me two months to read the 180 page tome titled "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking. More often than not I would reread a section four, five, six or more times trying to understand a concept. Ironically, all that I took away from the exercise was an understanding of how gravity works. Several months ago, I was at a lecture and talking with a young 30ish astrophysicist. The subject matter lead to that particular book and I told him what I had got from it. I said I could now explain, to the average person, how gravity comes about. I said, I take a wide rubber band, about 10 inches long, and a ping-pong ball. I put the ball at the middle of the rubber band and stretch it. I hold it in mid-air. The ball remains at the center. The rubber band emulates physically the imagery as well as the force created by the time and light warp when it encounters a rotating spear. He looked at the demonstration and said, "It's a trick...but a clever trick...I like it!"

To you, the "mystery" of "God" is no mystery at all. God is! as you have said. I intend, in this missive, to put that "God" into perspective scientifically. Doing so, I feel will aid you in understanding whatever message is being conveyed to you by whatever entity sending it. Again, I don't doubt this celestial interface you have experienced only your interpretation of the source. Should you be able to understand that, then there is a possibility you can decipher and convey on to the rest of us the message. Galileo said, "In discussion of physical questions we ought to begin not from the authority of scriptural passages, but from sense experiences and necessary demonstration. God is known first through nature, and then by doctrine; by nature His works, and by doctrine in His revealed word [read: Bible]."

Let's start with Quantum Mechanics. Did you know that it was only in 1900 that the electron was discovered? That discovery gave us the essential understanding of the atom. In just over a hundred years we have gone from that primitive state of ignorance concerning our universe to an understanding of how little we do know about the basic building blocks of that universe. And, please, be assured that the universe is the same in all its geography, dimensions and, seemingly, contradictions. It is one thing that theoretical physicist tend to agree with. QM has yet to unlock all its secrets. The new particle accelerator, CERN, in Switzerland---now undergoing final shake-down testing---is expected to reveal the Boson which is theoretically believed to give mass to everything. But, I 'm getting ahead of the story...

Let me explain to you the basic understanding of QM. When I am face to face with someone, I say to them, "You can see me and I can see you and we both assume our presence. But what is there between us?" Invariably, they answer, "Nothing!" WRONG. Very wrong. I then tell them to think of the handheld puzzle, the Rubric Cube. I ask them to imagine that the room we are standing in is completely filled with these tiny cubes but infinitesimally smaller then those within the puzzle. So small that they are not visible under today's most advanced electronic microscope. Another religious/scientific analogy is "How many angels can sit on a needle's point?" Anyway, each of these cubes is composed of 10 dimensions (more about that later). Within each cube there is sort of an off and on button which, incidentally, is similar to the basic premise of computer technology in which everything is based on "0" and "1." The Paulie Exclusion principle is that the on-off feature is a particle/wave duality. They exist in the same space at the same time but never together. It is either one or the other like in the computer, "0" or "1." A physical manifestation of this is can be explained with this example. I was dating a stew and she had on her fireplace mantle a small square  which was either a geometric abstraction or the word "FLY." You sometimes would look at it and saw FLY and nothing else. Turn away and come back to it and it was the abstraction and no matter how hard you tried you could not see the letters F-L-orY. It was either/or (on/off) in the same space.

Now, back to that "empty space" between us. It is composed of hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen not to mention dust motes (perhaps you remember, as a kid, seeing that the clear and empty air wasn't so clear  or empty when sun would stream through the windows and you could see these tiny particles---dust motes---floating in space). The three elements and the dust motes are all made up of those tiny cubes as well since they are elements and have an atomic configuration. The whole room is a grid (matrix) of these cubes and each with its own function and made up of the ten dimensions. But since hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen are all gases they are invisible to the human eye thus the apparently empty space between myself and another person, in the same room, just appears to be empty. But it is very much in motion and substance.

The ten dimensions is a little harder to conceive visually because of its complexity. The first three dimensions are simple: height, width and length. The fourth is dark matter; and the fifth is dark energy. Physicists say that 95+% of the university consist of dark matter and energy. We have yet to "see it" or mathematically define it satisfactorily. But, in fact, we know it exist because of the math. Again, it is hoped and believed that CERN will provide the proof of the existence of both. (Batavia, outside of Chicago---which has just shut down---was the previous high energy particle accelerator.) The sixth, seventh and eight dimensions are time. Time, as we know it, is the result of three dimension in one---and it is here that your apparition most likely occurs. One dimension of time is the past; another the present; and the third the future. The past is pushing us forward and the future is a counter balance pushing against the past to retard its forward motion and the result is a "bubble" which is the present. As in a computer, where there are always unexplained glitches in software programs it is so within the the dimensions of time. It is why some people can perceive the future or conjure up the past. Your vision of being in the presence of "God" is how you related to the understandable God you had been taught to expect in your formative Catholic education. That education implanted the concept. It is interesting to note, here, that the Baltimore Catechism's first two question are: Who made us?  God made us. Who is God?  God always was and always will be. Both are consistent with quantum mechanics and string theory (more about that later).   

The last two dimensions are a little more difficult to either comprehend or visualize. The ninth dimension holds a universe that duplicates all the elements of that tiny cube. Each is like a super-super computer with both capacity and speed that boggles the mind. The tenth dimension consist of a multiplicity of universes, a kind of hyperspace of potentialities. It is speculated that within the tenth dimension there are as many existing or potential universes as there are atoms in this universe. Well, as you can see it is beyond our capacity to comprehend the "world" that exist billions of times in a drop of water.

This leads us up to "string theory." Each "string"---think short cuts of a ribbon or a string---are tiny, tiny and more tiny cubes, in a grid, that permeate the universe constantly oscillating like ribbons or strings in the wind. In essence, each hold the building blocks of all the elements. It is only due to an interaction within the interaction of all of matter does matter take on form in the way of galaxies, suns, planets, moons, comets and within these forms conditions such as location from the power source---read: a sun along with x-rays, infrared, ultraviolet waves, etc---activate the different elements and create reality and life. And what is life is a question that has yet to be answered. The first probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury, 40 years ago, quickly dimmed our hopes of finding "life" on those planets. We knew that water at its boiling point, of 100 degree Celsius, killed both bacteria and viruses. Then, about 15 years ago, ocean-floor' robots discovered springs spewing liquid sulphur at 500 degrees Celsius and aquatic life living and feeding off the sulfur. Big surprise!

So, the "God" that you speak of is no more than an incredibly sophisticated computer soft ware program that is self replicating, always was and always will be. Perhaps if you have followed this accurately you will see that there is no room for the concept of God as an omnipotent entity. The Vatican says He set the fuse for the Big Bang, but as we understand it now the Big Bang was, is and always will be in occurrence. Again, as I said in an earlier e-mail, the ant that invades your picnic lunch has more influence on the earth than the earth has on the universe.

This is a translation from the writings of Galileo:  "I seem to discern the firm belief that in philosophizing one must support oneself upon the opinion of some famous author...Well...that is not how matters stand. Philosophy is written in this grand book, the universe, which stands continually open to our gaze. But it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and recognize the letters in which it is composed. It is written in the language of mathematics and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometric figures, without which it is completely impossible to understand a single word of it. Without these, one wanders in a dark labyrinth." And he said it c. 1615.

Now, then, if you still have doubt about this other world/universe that exists completely in QM let me describe something from sci-fi. One of the more interesting scientific concepts in the Star Trek series is the "transponder" I think it is called. Captain Kirk would radio, "Beam me up Scottie." Ah, yes, workable in the world of science fiction, but just that: fiction. Well, no more. In 1997, a team of scientist, at the Univ of Innsbruck, reported that it had succeeded in transferring the quantum state of a particle from one place to another---in effect, teleporting it.

And this is what Singularity Universe is all about: The future we don't know...and it is at our doorstep trying to get in. To quote from the íts website, "SUs mission is to assemble, educate and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate the development of exponentially advancements to address humanity's grand challenges." The nature of man will change drastically before the end of this century. In fact, 25 years from now it will be unbelievable to us living now. Until 12th December, 1903, an airplane was science fiction. But 66 years later man set foot on the moon. All of that occurred with little help from the computer. The latter was just in its first state of development in 1969. Or how's this example, "Raymond Kurzweil says your average cell phone is about a millionith the size of and a millionth the price and a thousand times more powerful than the computer he had at MIT 40 years ago. Flip forward 40 years and what does the world look like?" And what will the convergence of nano technology, artificial intelligence---not to mention---artificial life all propelled with our understanding of QM do to---and for---the human race?

Even Dan Brown, of "Da Vince Code" fame---a lousy writer, but good story teller---has something to say on the subject. In "The Last Symbol," he states, "We are on the verge of a truly great period of illumination and all of us...are profoundly blessed to be living through this pivotal moment of history...we will see our sciences, our minds and even our religions unveil the truth." Again, to quote Galileo, "Please observe, gentlemen, how facts which at first seem improbable will even on scant explanation drop the cloak which has hidden them and stand forth in naked and simple forms." In a TIME article, "2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal" this quote, "Maybe we'll scan our consciousness into computers and live inside them as software, virtually." I especially like this one because perhaps 15 or more years ago I was telling people that an individual man/woman would achieve immorality by his/her creation of a software program that was self replicating and infinite in its "life" span. 

My major criticism with your assertion that God is talking to us and we are not listening is that "God" has always been communicating with us and we have been listening. The interaction of serendipity on both science and technology proves that. But is it the God that religions have described to us? No! Nor is it the God you seem to try to define by not defining the term. Twice I have suggested that you do a work shop or the ten week course at SU, but you have not responded to it. If you are serious in all this, then you must take the steps necessary to understand what has been communicated to you, what it means and if, in fact, there is a message. But, again, this puts you on thin ice since you have condemned religions for defining and representing God for their own self perpetuating purposes; should you come up with the "message" it will only make you the latest "prophet" trying to lead the human race out of the desert. L. Ron Hubbard and his theory of Scientology is as creditable or more so then your present assertion is.

A further impetus, for the study course, you should find in this quote from Michelangelo, something he said at 87 years old: "I'm still learning." Right on! Me, too.

Sincerely;

Dan

FOOTNOTE:  The quotes from Galileo come from the novel I mentioned in an earlier e-mail, "Galileo's Dream." I found it at a remainder bookshop. Next to it was a book titled, "QUANTUM: Einstein, Bohr and the Great Debate About the Nature of Reality,"  by Manjit Kumar. I bought it at the same time and it was only after I began "GD" that I thought it would make sense to read it as the following book. I am now half way through it and finally have achieved a greater understanding of both "light" and QM. I now understand that the Physics I studied at high school was already being referred to a "Classical Physics" in the early 20th century when one theory after another challenged the Laws of Physics as we had known them up to that point.  

 

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