While it is intriguing to postulate possibilities not only for man AND God based on quantum theory, the Copenhagen Interpretation is fast approaching postmortem status. The metaphysics of the German contingent led by Bohr has been overwhelmingly documented – they wanted a quantum that was “neither wave or particle” before “collapse”. But most have inferred that the quantum, “before collapse” was in an “either or” state that was only determined probabilistically. At present, there is a growing community of scientists that have peered behind the curtain of the mystical quantum and realized that a better and more consistently demonstrable model of the quantum was proposed by de Broglie. Bohr’s contingent was successful in shouting down de Broglie’s Pilot Wave Theory at the 1927 Solvey conference. It wasn’t until 1950 when David Bohm, who wrote a textbook on Quantum Theory, still being dissatisfied with the Copenhagen Interpretation of the double slit experiments that he revisited de Broglie’s Pilot Wave and with some modification has given a more intuitive model of the quantum. That is, the de Broglie-Bohm model of the Pilot Wave Theory where the quantum has a field associated with it. That model satisfies the relevant equations of motion without the invocation of the “mystery” state of the quantum.
Bohr wanted a way to change epistemology and found it in the ambiguity of the mathematics of the equations of motion for the quantum. The de Broglie-Bohm model has situated the quantum back in the world where causality is uniform and intuitively explained.
Some in the Open Theism community have thought to press the case for “free-will” base on the putative “quantum indeterminacy” between wave or particle . The truth is, that the postulation that the quantum is both wave and particle is not founded on a purely scientific, or at least metaphysically free, scientific method. Consequently, Open Theism derives no help in their affirmation of the freedom of the will, and runs the risk of compromising the legitimacy of the “open theism” position per see by invoking metaphysically disguised scientific claims.
That and, it behoves even the academic professors of open theism to make sure they actually understand the mechanics of Quantum as formulated before they make metaphysical assumptions.
I disagree here. It is not the issue of wave or particle, but rather the randomness of Quantum Mechanics. That is, the following state of any system is not calculatable from the previous state, down to the sub-atomic level. This is done purposely by God so that the Universe cannot be predicted exhaustively. Since God, by design, cannot perfectly predict the future of the Universe to some level, it would be of interest to him. Otherwise it would be like a deterministic program the He wrote Himself and of no real interest.
The most fundamental definition of free will is for with the same inputs, two different outputs are possible. The quantum level of randomness, that ‘leaks’ up into the macro world, would make things to some level unpredictable to God.
While I like Abernethy’s view of the world as created by God with man possessing the attribute of free-will I can’t agree with his metaphysics. I think he has mischaracterized the quantum postulate as a random phenomena when in fact “the state of a quantum mechanical system is completely specified by the wave function which evolves in time according to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.” Every quantum in transit is postulated to be distributed as a wave according to a probabilistic density function which obeys the rules of probability.
Wave collapse is not at all suited as a model of the phenomena of human willing. Wave collapse is an event that occurs when it comes in contact with other material phenomena, e.g. other quantum or physical boundaries. There is nothing in that process that comes close to the phenomena of the incipiency of human willing. And that’s the issue here. Man is a duality of flesh and blood body and a spiritual identity. When Paul spoke of a man that he knew that was caught up to heave, whether in body of no he could not say, that is language that shows the persistence of identity whether a body is present of not. And it is that spiritual identity that is imbued with the attributes of personality in that man is made in the image and likeness of God. God Himself is Spirit.
The incipiency of the will is the final frontier of unknowability. It is not a physical phenomena or part and parcel of a materialistic world view. It is that aspect of man that is aware of the conscious love of the free exercise of their own will, the ability to create his own purposes, and create things that are new and the interaction of his own imagination. Incipiency is that aspect of man that God is most interested. It is that aspect of a decision that may or may not chose one thing or another. It’s not what happens in the little pieces of matter where the kingdom of God is, but rather in is “very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart that thou mayest do it.” Deut 30:14.
To expand upon what I wrote. I think it is obvious that unpredictable free will is also found in the angels. IE Lucifer as seen in Ezekiel 28:15
You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created,
till unrighteousness was found in you.
God allows angels to exercise their free will as found when the angels were to give Daniel his answer to prayer and were hindered by the Prince of Persia. Meaning, God left it up to the angels how to carry out His command. And when God asked the Host what the best way was to kill Ahab. Daniel 10:10-14 and 1 Kings 22:19-22.
Don’t forget the heart of what free will is: The possibility of two different actions resulting from identical circumstances.
Yes, Schrodinger’s equation gives a probability wave function, but can only give the odds of the object being at one particular position. Through trillions of trials, we know that sub atomic particles/waves are absolutely random but to tend to follow attractors. Human brain waves are like this, random, but do follow attractors.
To expand further, Schrodinger’s equation only gives probabilities, to simplify, like a 50% chance to go straight, 25% to go right and 25% to go left.
As each object reacts, it is absolutely random and there is no way to tell which direction the object will go. It is only after looking at dozens of readings, can the rule be seen. But, looking at previous results etc. will in no way give you better insight in where the next object will go.
I submit that this aspect of free will is in the spirit realm as well as the physical. There is a UTUBE channel called ‘inspiringphilosophy’ that is amazing. The guy has a few videos on human consciousness that prove it is to some extent independent of the brain, but does depend on the brain too, they work together.
Remember, the whole purpose of free will is to make us of interest to God, where our relationship and love to Him is real and spontaneous, not forced or programmed or predictable. And as I wrote, the unknowable aspect of free will is by design of God, not due to Him being limited or stupid or blind etc. But rather an infinite God being able to genuinely enjoy fellowship with a creation is quite the miracle in itself.
God is Open 
This is deeeeep stuff…. But for some reason it makes me think of New Age (which might be sadly mixed with science more and more in the future)…
While it is intriguing to postulate possibilities not only for man AND God based on quantum theory, the Copenhagen Interpretation is fast approaching postmortem status. The metaphysics of the German contingent led by Bohr has been overwhelmingly documented – they wanted a quantum that was “neither wave or particle” before “collapse”. But most have inferred that the quantum, “before collapse” was in an “either or” state that was only determined probabilistically. At present, there is a growing community of scientists that have peered behind the curtain of the mystical quantum and realized that a better and more consistently demonstrable model of the quantum was proposed by de Broglie. Bohr’s contingent was successful in shouting down de Broglie’s Pilot Wave Theory at the 1927 Solvey conference. It wasn’t until 1950 when David Bohm, who wrote a textbook on Quantum Theory, still being dissatisfied with the Copenhagen Interpretation of the double slit experiments that he revisited de Broglie’s Pilot Wave and with some modification has given a more intuitive model of the quantum. That is, the de Broglie-Bohm model of the Pilot Wave Theory where the quantum has a field associated with it. That model satisfies the relevant equations of motion without the invocation of the “mystery” state of the quantum.
Bohr wanted a way to change epistemology and found it in the ambiguity of the mathematics of the equations of motion for the quantum. The de Broglie-Bohm model has situated the quantum back in the world where causality is uniform and intuitively explained.
http://phys.org/news/2009-06-quantum-mysticism-forgotten.html
W Scott Taylor, how would this affect Open Theism? :-)
Some in the Open Theism community have thought to press the case for “free-will” base on the putative “quantum indeterminacy” between wave or particle . The truth is, that the postulation that the quantum is both wave and particle is not founded on a purely scientific, or at least metaphysically free, scientific method. Consequently, Open Theism derives no help in their affirmation of the freedom of the will, and runs the risk of compromising the legitimacy of the “open theism” position per see by invoking metaphysically disguised scientific claims.
We shouldn’t put all our cards on this quantum theory you want to say? :-)
That and, it behoves even the academic professors of open theism to make sure they actually understand the mechanics of Quantum as formulated before they make metaphysical assumptions.
yes indeed :-)
I disagree here. It is not the issue of wave or particle, but rather the randomness of Quantum Mechanics. That is, the following state of any system is not calculatable from the previous state, down to the sub-atomic level. This is done purposely by God so that the Universe cannot be predicted exhaustively. Since God, by design, cannot perfectly predict the future of the Universe to some level, it would be of interest to him. Otherwise it would be like a deterministic program the He wrote Himself and of no real interest.
The most fundamental definition of free will is for with the same inputs, two different outputs are possible. The quantum level of randomness, that ‘leaks’ up into the macro world, would make things to some level unpredictable to God.
While I like Abernethy’s view of the world as created by God with man possessing the attribute of free-will I can’t agree with his metaphysics. I think he has mischaracterized the quantum postulate as a random phenomena when in fact “the state of a quantum mechanical system is completely specified by the wave function which evolves in time according to the time-dependent Schrödinger equation.” Every quantum in transit is postulated to be distributed as a wave according to a probabilistic density function which obeys the rules of probability.
Wave collapse is not at all suited as a model of the phenomena of human willing. Wave collapse is an event that occurs when it comes in contact with other material phenomena, e.g. other quantum or physical boundaries. There is nothing in that process that comes close to the phenomena of the incipiency of human willing. And that’s the issue here. Man is a duality of flesh and blood body and a spiritual identity. When Paul spoke of a man that he knew that was caught up to heave, whether in body of no he could not say, that is language that shows the persistence of identity whether a body is present of not. And it is that spiritual identity that is imbued with the attributes of personality in that man is made in the image and likeness of God. God Himself is Spirit.
The incipiency of the will is the final frontier of unknowability. It is not a physical phenomena or part and parcel of a materialistic world view. It is that aspect of man that is aware of the conscious love of the free exercise of their own will, the ability to create his own purposes, and create things that are new and the interaction of his own imagination. Incipiency is that aspect of man that God is most interested. It is that aspect of a decision that may or may not chose one thing or another. It’s not what happens in the little pieces of matter where the kingdom of God is, but rather in is “very nigh unto thee, in thy mouth, and in thy heart that thou mayest do it.” Deut 30:14.
To expand upon what I wrote. I think it is obvious that unpredictable free will is also found in the angels. IE Lucifer as seen in Ezekiel 28:15
You were blameless in your ways
from the day you were created,
till unrighteousness was found in you.
God allows angels to exercise their free will as found when the angels were to give Daniel his answer to prayer and were hindered by the Prince of Persia. Meaning, God left it up to the angels how to carry out His command. And when God asked the Host what the best way was to kill Ahab. Daniel 10:10-14 and 1 Kings 22:19-22.
Don’t forget the heart of what free will is: The possibility of two different actions resulting from identical circumstances.
Yes, Schrodinger’s equation gives a probability wave function, but can only give the odds of the object being at one particular position. Through trillions of trials, we know that sub atomic particles/waves are absolutely random but to tend to follow attractors. Human brain waves are like this, random, but do follow attractors.
To expand further, Schrodinger’s equation only gives probabilities, to simplify, like a 50% chance to go straight, 25% to go right and 25% to go left.
As each object reacts, it is absolutely random and there is no way to tell which direction the object will go. It is only after looking at dozens of readings, can the rule be seen. But, looking at previous results etc. will in no way give you better insight in where the next object will go.
I submit that this aspect of free will is in the spirit realm as well as the physical. There is a UTUBE channel called ‘inspiringphilosophy’ that is amazing. The guy has a few videos on human consciousness that prove it is to some extent independent of the brain, but does depend on the brain too, they work together.
Remember, the whole purpose of free will is to make us of interest to God, where our relationship and love to Him is real and spontaneous, not forced or programmed or predictable. And as I wrote, the unknowable aspect of free will is by design of God, not due to Him being limited or stupid or blind etc. But rather an infinite God being able to genuinely enjoy fellowship with a creation is quite the miracle in itself.