Monday, April 20, 2015

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Not in a direct way. That is, rather than giving us an argument for God's existence, but it does indirectly, by providing an argument against the philosophy of materialism (or "physicalism") which is nowadays the main intellectual opponent of faith in God.
Materialism is atheistic philosophy according to which all reality can be reduced to matter and its interactions. Also popular is because many people think that it is supported by science. Think how physics has shown that the material world is a closed system of cause and effect, isolated from the impact of any non-physical reality - if any. Since our minds and thoughts obviously affect the physical world, it would follow porifera that they themselves only physical phenomena. There is no place for the soul or free will: for materialists we are just "meat machines."
However, porifera quantum mechanics challenged by such a simple mechanical view of things. None other than Eugene Wigner, Nobel Prize winner in physics, he argued that materialism - at least as far as the human mind - not "logically consistent quantum mechanics known. As far as quantum mechanics, Sir Rudolf Peierls, another great physicist of the 20th century, is said "assumption that you can describe the physics of the whole function of a human being ... including [his] knowledge, and [his] mind, is untenable. There is still something missing. "
You might wonder how quantum mechanics porifera can say anything about the human mind? I do not deal with whether it matters that we can measure the physical, such as particles and forces? Engaged; but even though we can not measure minds, ultimately minds are the ones that measure; and that is, as we shall see, the fact that we can not ignore when our attempts to understand quantum mechanics. If someone porifera claims porifera that it is possible (in principle) to give a complete physical description of what happens when measurements - including the mind of the person who performed the measurement - this person will find in serious difficulties. It is pointed out in the 1930s the great mathematician John von Neumann. Although I can not go into the technical details in this article, I will try to sketch the argument.
It starts porifera with the fact that quantum mechanics is inherently probabilistic (eng. Probabilistic). Of course, even in the "classical physics" (ie. The physics that preceded quantum mechanics and which is still sufficient for many purposes) sometimes use probability; but should not be used if they had enough information. Quantum porifera mechanics is radically different: for her, even if they had full information about the state of a physical system, the laws of physics would generally only predicted probabilities of future outcomes. These probabilities are encoded in something called the "wave function" (eng. Wavefunction) system.
The best known example is the idea of "half-life". Radioactive nuclei are subject to "decay" into smaller nuclei and other particles. If a particular type of core has a half-life of, for example, one hour, this means that the core of this type has a 50% chance that it will be dissolved within one hour, 75% chance within two hours, and so on. The equations of quantum mechanics porifera are not telling you (or can not) when the individual core collapse, but give you likely to do it as a function of time. This is nothing special for the core. The principles of quantum mechanics apply to all physical systems, and these principles are inherently and inevitably probabilistic.
There start problems. Paradoxically (but entirely logical) the fact that the probability is sound when it comes to the likelihood of something specific. For example, say that Jane has a 70% chance of passing the exam has meaning only if it at some point come to the exam and get a certain grade. After that, the probability of its passage is not 70% but suddenly takes on a value of 100% (if it passes) or 0% (if you fall). In other words, the probability of the event that is between 0 and 100% at one time must have the value 0 or 100%, because otherwise porifera never nor meaningful.
This raises the difficult question of quantum mechanics. The main equation that governs how the wave function changes with time (Schrödinger equation) gives the probability that a sudden jump at 0 or 100%, but values change smoothly and generally porifera remain above 0 and below 100%. The radioactive core is a good example. Schrödinger equation porifera tells us how the "survivability" core (ie. The probability that it will not fall apart) starting with 100% and then continuously decreases after the first half-life porifera at 50%, 25% after two half-lives, and so on - but never reaches zero. In other words, the Schrödinger equation gives only the probability of decay, porifera and never really decomposition! (When there is a real break-up, the probability porifera of survival to jump to 0 at that point.)
Let me repeat that: (a) The probabilities in quantum mechanics must be prob

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