Copenhagen Universes
There is a claim which runs essentially like this: “Quantum mechanics says that the universe can create itself from nothing.” I have previously addressed the implications of this claim from the perspective of the universe’s contingency–a universe which can come uncaused form nothing can also return uncaused to nothing, and hence any guarantee of its continued existence must come from an outside source. There is a somewhat popular appeal of the scientistic worldview to quantum mechanics as the source and cause of all existence. There are, of course, some problems with this reliance on quantum mechanics.
The first problem is that “Quantum mechanics” does not say that a universe can create itself from nothing, or really that any amount of matter or energy can create itself from nothing. Rather, the Copenhagen Interpretation (among others) of quantum mechanics attempts to say this, though even then there is a problem in translation.
To understand how this is so, consider the following statement: “The universe can create itself from nothing because of the laws of physics.” Before the universe can create itself, we have to posit laws of physics–which are ultimately the set of laws which govern the existing universe! The statement therefore must pre-suppose that laws which have meaning only in the context of an existing universe can generate that universe (and themselves) before either exists–a logical contradiction. Ex nihil, nihilo fit.
Moreover, there are alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics, not all of which can be ruled out. Meanwhile, the Copenhagen Interpretation is often an attempt to do metaphysics under the guise of physics, all the while sneering cynically at those who correctly state that metaphysics is more properly a branch of philosophy and not of science. That is to say that although quantities may appear within certain topics of metaphysics, the field itself is not governed by nor based upon quantities.
We do not live in a world which is reducible only to numbers, however hard the reductionist may try. And the very dogmatic assertion that we do flies in the face not only of reason but of simple common human experiences. As Fr Stanley L Jaki notes, the experience of now is not itself quantitative, and yet it is a real experience which all conscious minds are constantly undergoing.
Jaki further notes that the Uncertainty Principle is an epistemological and not an ontological statement. It places a limit as to how much information we can simultaneously know about, say, the position and momentum of a particle. But this does not actually mean that the particle lacks both a definite position and a definite momentum: only that it is impossible to know anything about either. To assert that we cannot measure or otherwise know a precise position for a particle whose momentum is known exactly is an operational and epistemological statement. To declare that this means that the particle does not actually have a precise position is an ontological and metaphysical statement, and it is an unproven (and unprovable) declaration at that.
Similarly, we cannot know an exact energy at an exact time with infinite precision–but this does not mean that energy is appearing and disappearing within a system if we look at sufficiently short time intervals–and certainly not that the energy for a large collection (or statistical ensemble) of such particles is collectively and steadily increasing in time, as it would need to be in order for new particles to form. That is, however, beside the point since the creation of a universe out of nothing begins not with a single particle (or photon), but with nothing. A universe which begins even as a single very energetic particle which self-annihilates and then reforms as more less-energetic particles is not a universe which is created from nothing.
The debate here often turns to the supposed creation and annihilation of virtual particles from nothing. The problem is that these particles do not actual come from “nothing” even in a purely physical sense, and they are moreover generally very short-lived. Not to mention, they are exchange particles between two or more real particles, meaning that if our universe is to be treated as a virtual universe, we must now posit the existence of two or more real universes–which, being inherently outside of our own universe, must be unobservable and undetectable to us–for which it may act as an information carrier.
Finally, none of this actually addresses what is meant by nothing. There is more than one sense in which we might say that “God can create the universe out of nothing.” We can mean that He literally created the universe out of nothing, meaning no-material existed to create it from until He created it, and that it came into existence in time.
I believe that this is a true statement, but it doesn’t really encompass all that is meant by creation from nothing. As Dr Edward Feser notes in explaining both the Cosmological Argument, God’s creation of the universe does not require that the universe have a beginning in time (Aquinas, for example, believed that it did but assumed for the purpose of constructing his argument that it didn’t). Thus, he writes that
“Any of us can easily actualize the potential of the oxygen in the air around us to move, simply by waving our arms. Only someone with the relevant expert knowledge could take oxygen and hydrogen and synthesize water out of them. It would take greater power still to cause the prime matter underlying oxygen, hydrogen, or water to take on the substantial form of a tree. But creation out of nothing requires more power even than that, in fact unlimited power. For it is not a case of drawing out the potentialities that are already there in a thing, but rather causing a thing to exist entirely, together with its potentialities, where nothing at all had existed before. It isn’t a case merely of modifying what already exists, but rather of causing to exist in the first place that which all mere modification presupposes.”
The Rev. Dr John Polkinghorne, an Anglican priest and physicist, likewise notes that quantum cosmologists who try to point to vacuum fluctuations or any other quantum mechanical effect as being creatio ex nihilo miss the point. In his book Science and Theology, he writes that:
“The thought of the Creator’s sustaining the world in being has traditionally been expressed in Christian theology by the phrase creatio ex nihilo, creation out of nothing. It does not mean that God used some peculiar sort of stuff call nihil from which to make the universe, but that the universe is at all times held in being, rescued from the abyss of nothingness, by the divine will alone. When quantum cosmologists gaily characterize their notion of the universe as an inflated vacuum fluctuation…as being the scientific equivalent of creatio ex nihilo, they entirely miss the point. A quantum vacuum is not nihil, for it is structured by the laws of quantum mechanics and the equations of the quantum fields involved, all of which the theist will see as exiting because God decrees that this should be so. There is no area in which the interaction of science and theology is more bedevilled by theological ignorance on the part of scientists than in the discussion of the doctrine of creation.”
If scientists may fairly complain about philosophers or theologians who don’t bother to “learn the science” before commenting on it, then the metaphysicians can just as fairly complain about the scientists who don’t bother to “learn the philosophy” before beginning their own indefatigable pontifications.
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Image from The Daily Galaxy.
JC,
As always, great stuff. Thank you. Your final sentence is my summary critique of our friend Hawking. It is the error of craftsman in Plato’s Republic: to know one thing well and to assume you know all things well. The law of non-contradiction will always burn the “out of nothing” materialists.
Credit where it’s due: Dr Edward Feser also says something similar to my closing paragraph (see the link above about quantum vacuum fluctuations). It’s my critique of Hawking, but it’s also and to a greater extent my critique of Prof Weinberg, a man who is showered with praise for his supposed philosophical insights by the great atheist echo-chamber. Both Hawking and Weinberg deserve every praise as regards their work as scientists; neither deserves so much as the sound of a single hand clapping for their excursions into philosophy. Both have long since pontificated that the Big Bang is of no help to theists, because both seem to operate under the assumption that every theistic argument for God’s existence is based on the idea that the universe had a definite beginning in time. Neither seems to notice that–although a beginning in time certainly could help the theistic case–no such beginning is required by Aristotle, nor (for that matter) by St Thomas Aquinas. This is because both physicists think that they have refuted such theistic philosophers without having bothered to read and understand what said philosophers (and/or their modern-day disciples and defenders) have said.
JC, just echoing Brent–this is great stuff, and the final sentence is terrific.
We’re Star Trek fans here, which affords hours of campy plots but not a lot in the way of solid philosophical material.
I’m amused (and usually incensed) by the entire franchise’s dogmatic rule of increasing species’ religious fervor in inverse proportion to the amount of interstellar exploration they’ve done. Like the rest of the observation-bound scientific world, Star Trek writers are determined to ignore the inexplicable nature of the universe, no matter how thoroughly their characters are exposed to it. (Black holes, edge of time, bent space, parallel universes…all manner of phenomena which should have, logically, swallowed up the entire shebang in a fit of randomnymity long before Enterprise arrived. And yet it remains fundamentally ordered and in existence…hmmm.)
I used to be a pretty big Star Trek fan, too (still am, but I don’t have a television anymore, so…). I sometimes wonder how much more awesome Star Trek would have been if it had been written by (say) Murray Leinstar or Michael Flynn or Gene Wolfe or John C Wright. I’m having fun imagining the plotline: “The USS Icarus, commanded by Captain Jason the Aeronaut sets out for the distant reaches of the spiral arm to hunt for the Fleece of Gold and the ‘Lungen Ring of Power, ancient pre-human artifacts which will confer great wealth and power on their possessor. He is accompanied by the unflappable Dr Calhoun and the logical ship’s chaplain Fr Dietrich Angelos, and the cool and calculating ship’s security chief Severius. On the way, they will face down pirates and plagues, a rival empire, and the dark secrets which one of them has long been harboring.” Or something like that.
Unfortunately, unfortunately, the actual creators and much of the cast were atheists and/or atheist-leaning agnostics, so those will be the kinds of themes which appear in most of the episodes and even movies. It makes the sci-fi nerd in me sad to see that a genre which was more-or-less launched by a Catholic is so heavily dominated by secularists today: though I suppose the same could be said about the field of science.
Excellent post, JC. I also have a deep love for the connection between theology and science (I have a few recent posts on it too, one on the theological metaphysics underlying science and one on some ethical aspects of science) and your point about atheists assuming the laws of the universe before the universe exists has always bothered me. Their ex nihilo first requires laws.. that’s not “nothing”! Should be a rather obvious fault to them, but humans will be blind when necessary to protect themselves from light. And therefore we must point to it all the more! Thanks for writing this. This is my first comment here at VirtuousPlanet, you all run an awesome site!