February 6, 2006
NO SCHRODINGER, NO CAT:
Not Matter, but Form (Christopher Dawson The Modern Dilemma)
But today we realise that the materialistic theory of the nineteenth century was no more final than the scientific theories that it superseded. Science, which has explained so much, has ended by explaining away matter itself, and has left us with a skeleton universe of mathematical formulae. Consequently the naive materialism that regarded Matter with a capital M as the one reality is no longer acceptable, for we have come to see that the fundamental thing in the world is not Matter but Form. The universe is not just a mass of solid particles of matter governed by blind determinism and chance. It possesses an organic structure, and the further we penetrate into the nature of reality the more important does this principle of form become.And so we can no longer dismiss mind and spiritual reality as unreal or less real than the material world, for it is just in mind and in the spiritual world that the element of form is most supreme. It is the mind that is the key of the universe, not matter. In the Beginning was the Word, and it is the creative and informing power of the Word that is the foundation of reality.
The development of quantum mechanics (WERNER HEISENBERG, Nobel Lecture, December 11, 1933)
Classical physics represents that striving to learn about Nature in which essentially we seek to draw conclusions about objective processes from observations and so ignore the consideration of the influences which every observation has on the object to be observed; classical physics, therefore, has its limits at the point from which the influence of the observation on the event can no longer be ignored.
MORE:
-LECTURE: Physics and Philosophy: The Development of Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes in Comparison with the New Situation in Quantum Theory (Werner Heisenberg, 1958, Gifford Lectures)
-POEM: Schrödinger’s Cat: The Straight Dope (Cecil Adams)
Can't go wrong with Dawson.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at February 6, 2006 9:42 PMBut though Mr. Needham accepts the legitimacy of religious faith he is no less critical than Bertrand Russell of the attempts of writers like Professor Eddington and Sir James Jeans to effect a reconciliation between religion and science. "Scientific deism," as he terms it, is in his opinion nothing but "a barren stirring together of immiscible opposites." The mystical experience, the sense of mystery and numen, which is the essence of religion, cannot be forced into agreement with the complete rationalization of the world that is the end of science. "The incomprehensibility of God is the fundamental basis of religious mysticism; the comprehensibility of the universe is the cornerstone of scientific thought."
Then why has religion tried to dominate the investigation of worldly phenomena from time immemorial? If you don't want science encroaching on your turf, stay off of theirs.
The problem with Dawson's analysis is that most religious people are not mystics. They don't look at God as incomprehensible, they see him as a father figure with all the attributes of a human male. They see Heaven as a vacation resort. If preachers harangued their flock with this mystical drabble about the unknowability of God, the pews would be empty. People look to religion to tie it all together, this world and the next, in one easy to understand vision.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at February 7, 2006 8:09 AMRobert:
You identify a dicotomy where none exists. Sciencism is just another religion.
Posted by: oj at February 7, 2006 8:27 AMWhat exactly are the tenets of Sciencism? I'm not sure that I've seen any of these people around.
Posted by: Robert Duquette at February 7, 2006 9:27 AMThe belief that the Universe is best explained by creating new theories to fit the latest observations.
Posted by: oj at February 7, 2006 9:32 AMWhat is meant by materialism? How do you distinguish between material objects and immaterial ones?
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at February 7, 2006 12:30 PMAs opposed to creating new theories that don't fit the latest observations? So why does that make it a religion?
Name another religion that can design a supercomputer or put a man on the Moon.
Robert:
Yes. The Judeo-Christian worldview doesn't have to be rejiggered every time a new technology produces new observations. It just stays the same and waits for the sacientists to come back to it--a la the Big Bang, anthropocentry, saltation, etc..
Those are just technology.
Posted by: oj at February 7, 2006 1:14 PM