Strelnieks

On another forum, totally unrelated to religion and atheism, I mentioned that I was an atheist and got this as part of the reply:

"I wonder how athiests handle the implications of Aspect's, et al, experimental violation of Bell's inequalities or the success of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum electro-dynamics. Any athiests care to rise to bait?"

As I don't know what he's talking about, I thought someone here might be willing to "rise to bait". Should I return to the other forum and pass on a challenge?

Strelnieks

Jobar

Strelneiks, point him to our Science&Skepticism forum. I think he'll find that he's outgunned from the get-go!

Normal

Actually, those are some of the biggest unanswered questions in modern physics. I'm not quite sure how it relates to atheism at all though.

T. E. Lords

Somebody answer. I'm facinated now.

Philosoft

Well, the Uncertainty Principle and Bohr's Complimentarity are certainly counter-intuitive and not well encompassed by strict materialism. Positing a God, however, adds precisely nothing to my already meager understanding. Why does wave-particle duality make any more sense under a God-defined physical model?

PandaJoe

Because they get to say "Goddidit" without presenting any kind of reasoning or explanation at all? Unfortunately, that's how some people think. If something hasn't been explained yet, it's undeniable proof of God.

HRG

"Wave-particle duality" isn't at all the big problem that some people have made out of it.

Quantum systems in toto behave neither like particles nor like waves. It's just that in some situations, their behavior can be approximated by the behavior of (classical) particles, while in other situations it can be approximated by the behavior of (classical) waves. No big voodoo!

regards,
HRG.

lpetrich

Quantum mechanics has several features that are very odd by the standards of macroscopic physics, like wave-particle duality, Bell's inequality, etc. Some features of QM, like those you've listed, are considered by some to demonstrate that a physical system does not have a well-defined state until it is observed -- as a result of the observation causing "the collapse of the wavefunction".

From this, some people derive a sort of metaphysical idealism, where matter exists only because of mind, and some apparently go even further to conclude that there must be some Master Mind that thinks about the entire Universe in full detail.

To me, this seems like an unsupportable "mystic physics" interpretation, however.

As to the collapse of the wavefunction, here's an introduction:

Imagine that you are doing a two-slit experiment where you send some light through two slits and record their interference pattern with some photographic film. To produce that pattern, the light must go through both slits, but when it exposes the film, each quantum of light ejects an electron from a silver grain in the film emulsion.

So a photon has to be big as it travels through the apparatus and very tiny when it exposes the film. That change in size is the collapse of the wavefunction.

Jinto

Actually, these experiments have been quite a boon to atheism. In particular, the Copenhagen interpretation of QM proves the inexistence of omniscient beings, given that it proves that not even an omniscient being could know the position and momentum of a particle at the same time, thus rendering them unable to predict the future. Now granted, other interpretations such as the DeBroglie-Bohm model or many-worlds have not been ruled out, and under these systems it would be possible for an omniscient being to exist, but the Copenhagen model firmly disallows it. Other possible objections include a "limited omniscience," where the being has access to all information that exists, and where information about a particle's exact position and momentum would simply not exist in the first place, a lack of knowledge of it would not invalidate omniscience, but this model of God includes the implication that God cannot predict the future with certainty, and so not many theists are willing to defend it.

Given that the Copenhagen interpretation is the foundation of one of the strongest atheological arguments in existence (since it would, if the premise is correct, eliminate all omniscient beings), I cannot concieve of why he thinks that it is a challenge to atheism.

NonHomogenized

I was wondering about that, myself...