Quantum mechanics has potentially put an end to one of the most widely adopted atheistic view of Earth – materialism. Therefore in an indirect way it has brought forth the supreme deity ideology, which was wholly rejected by most scientists, back into the frame of science.
In materialism, the material world was seen as a closed system operating on an intricate relationship between cause and effect. It was supported by the physical laws that had cemented their place in the scientific method since Newtonian times. With all the internal dependence and mathematical correlations, it was assumed that the material entities behaved irrespective of outside influence. That a material thing exists without any prerequisites.
However, the advent of quantum mechanics threw a wrench into this seemingly irrefutable notion of the world. It did so by taking matter from being made up of tiny blocks of atoms to be consisting of a wave of possibilities. You see, what quantum mechanics did was take the ingredients of matter from being the physicality of an atom to the unpredictability of its sub particles. Therefore an atom was the manifestation of the state its transient sub particles, electrons and quarks, were in. Thus essentially rendering the idea of a physical, unchanging matter archaic.
To show how quantum mechanics can potentially prove the existence of God, we have to learn about one Earth-shattering experiment – the Double-slit one. It exposed the wave-nature of electrons, a seemingly material thing. In the experiment, a beam of electrons fired through a slit and at a screen replicated a wave like pattern instead of a material splatter. However, most interestingly, when the same beam of electrons was observed it behaved as something consisting of solids! Thus, the electron had several probable quantum events before the observation took place. It could have bounced off the screen, passed from either slit, passed from both slits or just went over the screen. These probabilities were represented by the wave. However, when an observation took place the wave collapsed into one material reality.
So, any physical event in this world of ours is the product of observation. As one of the founders of quantum theory, Erwin Schrödinger, describes in his famed thought experiment of a dead and alive cat. According to him, every possible outcome of an event exists as a combinative wave form before this wave collapses into a material manifestation upon observation. The type of manifestation depends upon its probability and the point in the space-time continuum at which the observation is made.
Schrödinger’s contemporary, Eugene Wigner, further proposed that the things we perceive are dependent upon consciousness more than mere observation. So, consciousness is a prerequisite of observing reality. However, this entails that to verify our own existence there needs to be an observer. Thus an infinite chain of observers begins that terminates into the ethereal observance of God. That is, someone had to be there for the universe to manifest itself. This is the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum mechanics.
However, despite the seeming veracity of the above approach in the proclamation of the existence of a theistic deity, there are some theories within the world of quantum mechanics that still reject the concept of God’s existence.
The Participatory Anthropic Principle negates the dependence of the universe’s existence on God by adopting the approach that the human consciousness is enough to create an event. So, in effect, the universe might have been created when the first human being (or alien) observed it. Effectively, leading to a collapse in its superimposed state.
Another negatory theory revolves around the Abrahamic interpretation of God. In each of the three main Abrahamic religions of the world, Islam, Christianity and Judaism, God is defined as an omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent entity. So, in effect God is observing everything. Consequently, this would mean that all events are predefined, or precollapsed in quantum parlance. That we are only observing what God has manifested. However, this wouldn’t explain the duality observed in the double-slit experiment. If God is observing everything, shouldn’t the electron just behave as a material thing all the time?
Whatever theory you subscribe to, quantum mechanics has been successful in bringing God from the fringes of science, to its core. In effect, His existence might just have been proved.
This article Does Quantum Mechanics Prove the Existence of God was originally published here at isoulscience.com