In this thread, I will suggest the identity of Intelligent Designer of life.

Why waste nearly 2300 words if three letters would have sufficed?

Earth As The Center Of The Universe – image
http://docs.google.com/Doc?doc.....QydzV2OGhz

The Known Universe – Dec. 2009 – very cool video (please note the centrality of the earth in the universe)
http://www.youtube.com/v/17jymDn0W6U

I realized in a thought experiment, after trying to maintain 3 dimensional (3-D) symmetry, for the entire universe, from radically different points of observation in the universe, that the only possible way for such 3-D spherical symmetry to be maintained is if the quantum waves actually do collapse, instantaneously, to their “uncertain” 3-D state for each individual point of “conscious observation” in the universe. The 4-D expanding hypersphere of the space-time of relativity was not sufficient to maintain 3-D integrity, especially given the accelerated expansion of the dark energy of the universe. And in fact the problem, in the thought experiment, became so acute that I realized the “uncertain” 3-D particles were also necessary to maintain 3-D symmetry from radically different points of observation in the universe since the 3-D geometric contortion visited on the problem is so drastic.

“It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” Eugene Wigner (1902 -1995) laid the foundation for the theory of symmetries in quantum mechanics, for which he received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugene_Wigner
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C.....s_collapse

Quantum Measurements: Common Sense Is Not Enough, Physicists Show – July 2009
Excerpt: scientists have now proven comprehensively in an experiment for the first time that the experimentally observed phenomena cannot be described by non-contextual models with hidden variables. http://www.sciencedaily.com/re.....142824.htm

(of note: hidden variables were postulated to remove the need for “spooky” forces, as Einstein termed them—forces that act instantaneously at great distances, thereby breaking the most cherished rule of relativity theory, that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light.)

Oddly, the opposition has come from some creationist and secular quarters. A view somewhat representative of dissident theories is Stochastic Electro Dynamics (SED). Creationists and a minority secular scientists have proposed either SED or some variant thereof. A website defending the SED view can be found here:

http://www.Calphysics.org

It would of course be satisfying if we had all the answers, but all that can be offered at this time are competing, but well-reasoned, speculations.

My concern is that theistic ID proponents shouldnt jump on any such bandwagon without critiquing.

By all means we should be skeptical, on the other hand it would seem to me (on purely philosophical grounds) that designer doesn’t want to make His existence too difficult to detect.

Actually, it would be easy to conceal things if that were His intent. In such case, even if Design were true, the search for it would be futile.

If this round is unsuccessful maybe another?

Although Relativistic QM includes wavefunctions that propagate backward and forward in time, this does NOT mean that earlier events are determined by later events.

Thank you for your response, but don’t delayed choice experiments (like the double-slit delayed choice and quantum erasure experiments) suggest future observations determine past properties?

Wheeler’s experiment is described thus:
Wheeler’s Delayed Choice Experiment

But as we both know it is possible for illustrious men (even physicists ) to make fools of themselves. I dont think that consciousness is a necessary part of explaining QM, (except in the sense of explaining the mathematics) but it does seem to be compatible at least.

My concern is that theistic ID proponents shouldnt jump on any such bandwagon without critiquing. For example, some of Tipler’s statements are nonsense. Unitarity does not equal teleology in any sense. Although Relativistic QM includes wavefunctions that propagate backward and forward in time, this does NOT mean that earlier events are determined by later events. I first encountered this idea in one of Paul Davies’ books, but nothing I know about QM supports it. Causality is not violated. The law of Entropy is also obeyed.

The bottom line is, QM is weird, but not that weird. One lesson from history: before the discovery of DNA, the illustrious Schroedinger invoked mysterious QM as a magical power that could be the cause of inheritance in organisms, but now that theory seems absurd. The answer turned out to be much more accessible: inheritance is due to a ‘written’ code. Likewise, we need to hold modern QM-mystics to a certain degree of common sense.

Because we cannot predict the properties of matter, we cannot predict the improbabilty of any event.

That’s not correct. QM helps us compute various probabilities.

Quantum mechanics suggests that life arising solely from unaided physical forces is possible.

I don’t think QM says that, however I could be wrong and you’re invited to take Schrodinger’s equation and derive something to the contrary.

Unless I’m reading the post crooked, it looks to this general reader as if science — kicking and screaming — is nudging toward the idea that there has to be a deity, or at least an incorporeal intelligence of some sort that designed the universe.

Yes. That is my take as well.

1. It is reasonable to say that the root of intelligence is incorporeal. This argument was put forward by Physics Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner. He claimed only get consistency if out of quantum mechanics if he supposed the existence of non-physical, non-material entities. The argument is quite involved and the math deep. I don’t have Wigner’s original paper, but it is mentioned by other physicists. The fact the some one of Richard Conn Henry’s reputation echoes Wigner suggests that many accept Wigner’s derivations. Physics professors like Kuttner and Rosenbulm’s book attempts to make the argument in plain English. This is controversial, but considered reasonable in various physics circles.

2. The idea of a Deity proceeds easily from the Kalam Cosmological Argument (quite easy to understand in plain English). Adding the language of Quantum Mechanics gave the argument teeth, and that the Deity is a non-material conscious intelligent being. This of course is roundly rejected, even though, as Tipler noted, it would seem to follow naturally from the laws of physics!

To be exact, in Quantum Mechanics the Cause can be a Final Cause (where future observations have effect on past events!).

As a physicist, I am aware that quantum mechanics, the central theory of modern physics, is even more deterministic that was the classical mechanics of which Darwin was aware. More than this, quantum mechanics is actually teleological, though physicists don’t use this loaded word (we call it “unitarity” instead of “teleology”). That is, quantum mechanics says that it is completely correct to say that the universe’s evolution is determined not by how it started in the Big Bang, but by the final state of the universe. Every stage of universal history, including every stage of biological and human history, is determined by the ultimate goal of the universe. And if I am correct that the universal final state is indeed God, then every stage of universal history, in particular every mutation that has ever occurred, or ever will occur in any living being, is determined by the action of God.

Notes:

Tipler quietely came to this conclusion in a papers he published in Nature (of which he has published 8).

Tipler has a respectable Curriculum Vitae which he describes:

PAPERS:
58 papers in refereed journals, including 2 (single authored) papers in Physical Review Letters, 8 papers in Nature (6 of these single authored), and 1 (single authored) in Science. The papers which I personally consider the most important are

1. Rotating Cylinders and the Possibility of Global Causality Violation, Physical Review D9, 2203-2206 (1974).

2. Causality Violation in Asymptotically Flat Spacetimes, Physical Review Letters, 37, 879-882 (1976).

3. Energy Conditions and Spacetime Singularities, Physical Review, D17, 2521-2528 (1978).

4. General Relativity and Conjugate Ordinary Differential Equations, Journal of Differential Equations, 30, 165-174 (1978).

5. General Relativity, Thermodynamics, and the Poincaré Cycle, Nature 280, 203-205 (1979).

6. Extraterrestrial Intelligent Beings Do Not Exist, Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society, 21, 267-28 (1980).

7. Interpreting the Wave Function of the Universe, Physics Reports, 137, 231-275 (1986).

8. Traveling to the Other Side of the Universe, Journal of the British Interplanetary Society 49, 313-318 (1996).

9. How Far Out Must We Go to Get Into the Hubble Flow? Astrophysical Journal 511, 546-549 (1999).

10. Intelligent Life in Cosmology, International Journal of Astrobiology 2, 141-148 (2003).

11. Structure of the World from Pure Numbers, Reports on Progress in Physics 68, 897-964 (2005).

12. The Star of Bethlehem: a Type Ia/Ic Supernova in the Andromeda Galaxy? Observatory 125, 168-173 (2005).

APPOINTMENTS AT OTHER UNIVERSITIES:
Postdoc (Math, UC Berkeley) with Abraham H. Taub, himself a postdoc of John von Neumann

Postdoc (Astrophysics, Oxford) with Dennis Sciama, the student of Paul Dirac, and the dissertation professor of S. W. Hawking and the current Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, PRS.

Postdoc (Physics, UT Austin) with John A Wheeler, the dissertation professor of R. P. Feynman.

But that is not “poof” as it is supported by Quantum Mechanics, (QM), and thus MN.