The Philosophical Implications of Quantam Physics

In Ayn Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged, the mysterious protagonist John Galt studies both physics and philosophy at an Ivy League university, baffling his classmates and professors. His attitude suggests that ultimately, both are two sides of the same coin. The fact that they both fall on two opposite ends of the logical-creative spectrum that encompasses human thought is a testimony to their harmony. We associate philosophy with creative, right-brained thinking- the dominant image that comes to mind is a toga-wearing, daydreaming freethinker reclining on grassy plain looking into the sky, wondering whether it is possible to jump into the same river twice. We associate physics with a character that approximates Spock from Star Trek- logical to the point of absurdity and lacking imagination.

The irony is that there are elements of the opposite in both sides of this spectrum. The history of mathematical theory, from Pythagoras to Schrodinger, is littered with fits and bursts of inspiration that completely broke away from everything that came before them. Conversely, order is an integral part of the the most creative processes, which would explain why a deaf Mozart could compose flawless symphonies without being able to actually hear what he was playing.The union of both disciplines, like the union of both hemispheres of the brain, results in a remarkable synthesis that allows us to combine possibility with probability. Reason guides the imagination as to what is both possible and probable; a balanced creative process calls upon both modes of thought.

Einstein wondered what the world would like like if he could ride a beam of light. The answer he came up with is what we know today as special relativity.In essence, the classical definition of philosophy also applies to physics: the rational investigation into all reality in the light of first causes. Can physics fill the gaps that philosophy cannot? The answer is a resounding YES; to glibly paraphrase Kant, I would say that when pure reason fails, experience prevails.Let us see what insights we can gather from the hard sciences.

ON FREE WILL

Our universe is nothing if not counter-intuitive; our Newtonian concept of reality (given the velocity, mass and location of all matter and energy in the universe we can accurately forecast all that will ever be an discern all that has ever happened) is an illusion. We live in a quantam world. At the subatomic level, there is no such thing as an event with a probability of one. The exact same experiment conducted under the exact same conditions lead to different results due to the inherent instability of quantam particles- when unmeasured, they exist in an 'in-between' state of ambiguity- imagine a particle spinning in more than one direction at once, being both here and there, and so on. The mathematical equations of quantam physics reflect this ambiguity by proclaiming that there is no absolute certainty. Ours is a world governed by probability, not determinism, and as such, the element of chance is a fundamental constituent of reality.

This brings us to the quantam measurement problem. Simply put, the very act of observing an experiment affects its outcome. An electron fired from an electron gun is represented by a probability wave in which the electron could be in any of several locations, or more importantly, actually be in several different locations simultaneously. It is only when we attempt to measure the definite location of the electron does it actually assume such a location. With regard to demonstrating wavelike or particle-like properties, a single electron is actually both, but will become dominantly particle-like or dominantly wavelike depending on how we try to measure it- attempt to measure it as a particle, it becomes a particle. Attempt to measure it as a wave, and it becomes a wave.

This is the paradox of Schrodinger's cat, a hypothetical illustration of this phenomena: imagine a cat inside a closed box that, unobserved, exists in a fuzzy mixture of being both alive and dead, only becoming either alive or dead when we peer inside the box. Human consciousness seems to the stimulus that impels these particles, which would otherwise exist in a state that can be best described as raw potentiality, to assume specific values.

Let us recap before we go any further:
1) The element of chance is woven into the mosaic of reality itself.
2) The human mind warps the very thing it pays attention to, though this phenomenon is best observed at microscopic levels.

This amounts to nothing less than an argument in favor of free will, since predestination assumes the ineffectuality of the human will against rigidly deterministic causality. As for the wider implications of this, hic sunt dracones. If awareness is a necessary prerequisite for matter to assume fixed, quantifiable dimensions, then why is it that (and I admit this is not the best example) rooms do not degenerate into an ambiguous aggregations of quantam particles when we walk out of them? If we are staring out of the Hubble telescope into one of several, far flung, uninhabited galaxies, those parts of the universe that we are unaware of or choose not to acknowledge, should by all rights return to their natural, chaotic state of raw potentiality, unless they are under observation by some other sentience. Now inflationary cosmology teaches us that at the gargantuan, macrocosmic level, the universe is symmetric, homogeneous, and most importantly, consistent. There is no evidence to suggest that there are patches of the cosmos that flit back and forth between actuality (having distinct features) and potentiality (being neither this not that, or both this and that).

There are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the known Universe. Each galaxy can contain thousands of solar systems, and each solar system contains dozens of planets. This entire structure is flying outwards at incomprehensible speeds as space itself expands. Now if conscious awareness is a prerequisite for definite actuality, then the only logical reason why the Universe maintains its remarkable consistency is because there exists a Consciousness that is completely aware of the entire Universe and has been from the very beginning. There is no other explanation, otherwise there would be patches of the Universe here and there that, being unobserved by either man or other intelligent being, would revert to a state of quantam ambiguity- disparate particles being both here and there, spinning about more than one axis at once, having no definite shape, and so on and so forth.

Given the totality of space-time as a single entity whereby the equations of Maxwell, Newton, Einstein and Schrodinger agree that past present and future are all equally real, and that time does not 'flow' in spite of our intuition, it must be that if the future already exists, and exists in a definite state though we cannot directly perceive it. Therefore, the consciousness that illuminates all space must illuminate all time as well.

Allow me to borrow a metaphor from Dr. Brian Greene. As a consequence of special relativity's time dilation, for a being billions of light years away walking towards earth at a given speed, that being's present, which is quite real, is actually our future. All time exists. The future Universe is real, and if so, must be illuminated by the same Consciousness that gives the present Universe its remarkable consistency.

If the quantam measurement problem, also known as the collapse of the superposition, is a natural consequence of human sentient awareness, then by a series of logical steps this would imply the necessity of a transcendent, omniscient, timeless Consciousness that bore witness to the birth of the Universe and whose continued presence allows it to retain its current, measurable form.

ON THE UNITY OF THE COSMOS

Scientists have long uncovered a property of quantam mechanics that can best be described as being downright weird, and that is entanglement. Simply put, two particles, regardless of distance, may be mysteriously correlated such that any changes in the properties of one particle is reflected in the other, in spite of the fact that they are supposedly isolated. Entanglement is only one example of the principle of non-locality, which states that what happens here and what happens there are connected by the very fact that they both take place in the same universe. For any two particles that are in a state of quantam entanlement, attempting to change certain characteristics in one affects the other in spite of all attempts to 'isolate' them. Distance makes absolutely no difference whatsoever. They could be millimeters apart, or, theoretically, light years. Attempt to change the direction about the axis that the particle rotates, and the twin particle elsewhere will respond as though it, too, were being directly affected. From this we may conclude that space and distance are of dubious relevance when calculating the independence of two events. Remember that probability theory categorizes two experiments as independent if the outcome of the first does not affect the second.Non-locality and entanglement suggest that no two experiments or events anywhere in the universe are independent. Everything is connected.

Now the next great paradigm shift in physics, or 'natural philosophy' to use the Newtonian denotation, will in all likelihood come from M-theory, the grand unification of the five different variations of String theory. The difference between M-theory and the original String theory is irrelevant for the purposes of this essay, so both may be referred to interchangeably here.

According to String theory, the finest, most basic constituents of reality are tiny, vibrating filaments of string that can be measured in Planck lengths, or 10 to the -34 power of a centimeter. Depending at the rate at which they vibrate, these strings form other basic particles such as quarks, protons, neutrons, etc cetera. These strings also constitute space itself.

All matter, space and energy is ultimately divisible down to these strings. The only difference between the hand that plays upon the ivory keys, the keys themselves and the space between them is that for each of the above, the strings vibrate on different scales, leading to different configurations and densities that consequently respond in different in ways to the different forces- gravitational, electromagnetic, strong nuclear, weak nuclear. We are all connected. In Zen Buddhism, and many eastern mystic traditions, enlightenment entails the ability to feel, on an intuitive level, that we are one with the Universe. Indeed we are.