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GOD AND

QUANTUM MECHANICS
Is the Material World Truly Real?
Is the Entire Universe Just a “Simulation” in a
Supercomputer?
An Eastern Orthodox Christian Interpretation

by Bogdan-John Vasiliu

February, 2018
Bogdan.John.Vasiliu@outlook.com
Constructive feedback is welcomed and appreciated.

Most Scripture quotations are taken from the St. Athanasius Academy Septua-
gint™. Copyright © 2008 by St. Athanasius Academy of Orthodox Theology. Used
by permission. All rights reserved. (Also known as The Orthodox Study Bible).

Some Scripture quotations are taken from the New King James Version ®. Copy-
right © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Table of Contents

Table of Contents ........................................................................................ 3

God and Quantum Mechanics ....................................................................... 4


Short Story .................................................................................................... 4
1. General Things ........................................................................................... 4
2. Quantum World .......................................................................................... 6
2.1. Introduction .................................................................................................... 6
2.2. First Surprises ................................................................................................. 6
2.3. Quantum Entanglement ................................................................................... 8
2.4. The Double-Slit Experiment ........................................................................... 12
2.5. What Is an “Observation”? ............................................................................. 16
2.6. Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics .......................................................... 21
3. The Simulation Hypothesis ....................................................................... 28
3.1. Real and Unreal ............................................................................................. 30
3.2. Who is the Creator? ....................................................................................... 34
4. Conclusion ................................................................................................ 48
God and Quantum Mechanics

Short Story

During the past hundred years, the study of elementary particles (protons,
electrons, photons, etc.) has led to the discovery of some phenomena that are in-
compatible with classical physics and with our way of seeing the material world.
In order to explain these phenomena, science’s options are totally unusual, and
they seem outright supernatural:
Retrocausality: the idea that a present event can modify the past;
Superposition of macroscopic objects: the idea that Schrödinger’s famous
cat can indeed be in a non-determined state, that is, neither alive nor dead, or
both alive and dead, till somebody looks at her;
The many worlds hypothesis: the idea that Schrödinger’s cat is indeed both
alive and dead, but in two separate universes;
The simulation hypothesis: the idea that our universe is just a simulation in
a super-alien’s supercomputer.
But none of these options are necessary anymore if we agree to accept the
fact that science is not all-powerful, and that it has reached some limits imposed
by the Creator of the universe. Maybe a part of the laws of physics established by
God, though impersonal, has been endowed with a certain level of pseudo-
intelligence, and they were placed outside time and space, thus giving the im-
pression that they can modify the past or that they can predict the future.
For this electronic edition footnotes had to be transformed into endnotes.
Most of them are not essential for a correct understanding of the text, but a few
are, however, important, and they should be read when they are encountered. In
order for the reader to be able to tell them apart, links to important notes are
displayed in a somewhat larger font and in bold. For example: Important note 123;
not so important note123.

1. General Things

“In Darwin’s time,” Michael1 said, “nothing was known about the complexity
and the interdependence of the molecular mechanism inside living cells. Only

1 Details
about the two characters can be found in the first part of their conversation:
Bogdan-John Vasiliu, Dialogue with a Nonbeliever, available in electronic and paper for-
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 5

during the past several decades did the researchers discover these things, and
the theory of atheist evolution has proven to be clearly impossible: complex
mechanisms cannot be formed by themselves, and also, they cannot evolve from
simpler life forms.2 But this is not all. Not only has living matter been proven to
be extremely complex and hard to understand, but dead matter has, too. I’m talk-
ing about elementary particles: electrons, protons, neutrons, photons, and even
about the very space and time we’re living in.”
“Space and time are complex, too?” Daniel asked, incredulous.
“Very complex, at least for our level of understanding. At first sight, the mat-
ter in front of us seems simple: the water is just water, the air is just air, a stone
is just a stone and nothing more. And time goes on as it has always done, and it
never turns back. What can be complex here?”
“Yes, really, what is so complicated?”
“Well, till the end of the 19th century, things were indeed simple looking. But
now, after more than a hundred years of research in the fields of relativity theo-
ry and quantum mechanics, scientists are way more astonished and even dis-
turbed by the simple dead matter. New expressions, never heard of before in his-
tory, have made their way into physicists’ way of speaking. New and never-
before-encountered ideas have been taken into consideration. Here are just some
examples of such hypotheses:”
Time passes at different speeds for moving persons.3

Gravity curbs space and time.4


An electron, or any other elementary particle, can pass through two distinct slits
at the same time.5
Particles behave like waves when nobody is looking at them, and like classical
particles when they are observed.6
A particle can go back in time and it can change its “decision” to pass like a wave
through two slits at the same time, and pass like a classical particle through a
single slit.7
A particle can be in several distinct and incompatible states at the same time, till
it is observed or measured, and then its wave function collapses, and the particle
will be in only one observable state.8
The factor that causes the collapse of a particle’s wave function is the human
conscience.9

“It already sounds very weird,” Daniel noted.

mats. In short, Michael is an ordinary believer, and Daniel is an atheist who starts ask-
ing himself questions about the existence of God.
2 Ibid, chapter 5.1 (Complexity of Life).

3 Special Theory of Relativity.

4 General Theory of Relativity.


5 Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics.

6 Classical interpretations of quantum mechanics.


7 Retrocausal interpretations of quantum mechanics.
8 Superposition principle of quantum mechanics.

9 Von Neumann–Wigner interpretation of quantum mechanics.


6 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

“Yes, and the ideas above are not the aberrant statements of mentally ill peo-
ple. No, they belong to famous scientists like Albert Einstein, Niels Bohr, or John
von Neumann.”
“And what does this have to do with the existence of God? Is dead matter so
complex that it requires a Creator?”

2. Quantum World

2.1. Introduction
“Quantum mechanics deals with the study of quanta, that is, of individual el-
ementary particles: electrons, protons, photons, and so on. And this study has led
to unimaginable discoveries, the complexity of which surprised even the greatest
researchers in the field. For example, here’s a statement by Niels Bohr, one of the
pioneers of quantum mechanics:”
If you are not confused by quantum physics then you haven’t really understood
it.

“Or Richard Feynman, one of its greatest practitioners:”


I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

“And this is no wonder,” Michael went on. “Quantum mechanics uncovered


new laws of physics, totally inexplicable from the point of view of classical phys-
ics. These new laws of physics seem to be endowed with intelligence, and more
exactly, they seem to have the ability to differentiate the absence of information
from the presence of it; even more, according to some researchers, these new
laws seem to have the ability to detect the presence of a human observer. And
even more still, these new laws of physics seem to be located outside time, more
exactly, they seem to have the ability to go back in time and modify the past, or,
most likely, to see into the future and preemptively change the behavior of mat-
ter.”
“You’ve made me curious,” Daniel said. “I’m listening.”

2.2. First Surprises


“Everything started at the end of the 19th century, when physicists started to
note that matter exhibited certain behaviors that seemed weird to them. An ex-
ample would be the light emitted by electric discharges in certain gases. That
light, passed through a prism, reveals that it contains only a few discrete fre-
quencies, and nothing more. Then followed the photoelectric effect, which is the
basis for photoelectric cells, which transforms light into electricity. Physicists
observed that the apparition of this effect depends on the quality, more exactly
on the frequency of light, not on the quantity of it. For example, the photoelectric
effect did not occur regardless of how much infrared light was shed on the pho-
toelectric cell. Instead, it was occurring even in the presence of a very small
amount of ultraviolet light. For a comparison from the real world, think about a
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 7

sailboat in the middle of the ocean. The temperature is 25° C10, the wind is strong,
but the boat does not move. Then the wind strength decreases, but the tempera-
ture increases to 30° C11, and the boat starts moving.”
“I think I have heard of this, too; it takes a single high-energy photon, from
ultraviolet light, in order to free an electron and to produce electricity. Low-
energy photons, like those in the infrared light, cannot do this even if there’s
many of them.”
“Then other surprises followed. For example, around the year 1913, Niels Bohr
discovered that in an atom, the electrons cannot occupy just any orbit they want
around the nucleus. No, the electrons are located only on certain discrete orbits,
corresponding to their energy levels. An electron can move, not to just any loca-
tion, but only to a superior or inferior pre-defined orbit, and only through the ab-
sorption or the emission of an energy quantum, that is, a photon. This seems ab-
surd from the point of view of the macroscopic reality that we know. For exam-
ple, we can stay at any distance we want from that building in front of us. At 15
meters, at 15.1 meters, at 15.234 meters, and so on. But electrons can’t. For elec-
trons, it’s like they were forced to stay either at a 10 meter distance, or at a 20
meter distance, or at a 50 meter distance, and nowhere in between these discrete
positions.”
“I understand,” Daniel said, “it’s a little bit weird, indeed. However, it re-
sembles the rows of seats in a bus or a plane. You can sit in row 1, in row 2, 3,
etc., but you cannot sit in row 1.5.”
“That is an acceptable example, but it needs an observation: The division of
the bus into rows implies an intelligent person, a designer, who calculated the
available space, the maximum number of passengers, the order of the seats, and
so on. And since you mentioned the seats in a bus, which are identical and ar-
ranged in a certain order, maybe we should also think about another thing. Why
are all electrons, protons and neutrons in the universe identical?”
“Are they all identical?”
“It’s obvious that there’s no way for us to know this with certainty, since we
can’t even analyze all the neutrons in our body to see whether they are absolute-
ly identical. However, science says that it has never found two different ones,
although it hasn’t even tested a millionth of a millionth of the total 1080 atoms that
exist in the universe. But let us suppose that it is so. How is it then, that all of
them are identical? The atheist Big Bang theory claims that everything started
with a huge explosion, with no need for a Creator. But if you blow up something,
a rock for example, you won’t get even two identical pieces of rock. Look through
the microscope at several hundred or thousand grains of sand. Will you ever find
two identical ones? I doubt it. Therefore, how is it that all elementary particles in
the entire universe are identical?”
“Yes, interesting…”
“Moving on, the next amazing discovery would be the Stern-Gerlach experi-
ment12, carried out in 1922. In this experiment, particles are used that are electri-
cally neutral, like silver atoms. These particles are beamed through a magnetic
field, which can deviate their trajectory, depending on their angular momen-

10 77°F.
11 86°F.
12 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern–Gerlach_experiment
8 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

tum13, a characteristic similar to the angular momentum of a macroscopic object


that rotates around its axis. And the result is surprising: A particle’s angular
momentum, measured on the axis of the magnetic field, has only two possible
values, regardless of how that magnetic field is oriented. In simple words, re-
gardless of the orientation of that magnetic field, when someone measures the
magnetic orientation of a particle compared to it, the resulting value is either +90
degrees, or -90 degrees, but nowhere between these two values. From the point of
view of macroscopic reality, this result makes no sense. It is like if I chose ran-
dom points from our world, building corners, planes in the sky, etc., and every
time I chose such a random point and I look at you, I find you oriented either per-
fectly facing it, or perfectly facing the opposite direction, but never in an inter-
mediary position.”
“Yes, this is weird enough,” Daniel admitted.
“The next amazing discovery is the tunnel effect14. In this case, a particle can
pass through a thin wall, and appear on the other side, without creating a hole in
the wall. This is about very thin walls, with thickness around 1 - 3 nanometer,
that is, about several dozen atoms thick. However, as I was saying, the particle
appears on the other side without puncturing the wall, without leaving a hole be-
hind.”
“This makes no sense from the point of view of macroscopic reality, either,”
Daniel noted. “If I throw a tennis ball at a window, then the ball is either reflect-
ed back, or it breaks the window and passes through, but it doesn’t appear on the
other side without creating a hole in the window.”
“And one of the most bizarre discoveries, from science’s perspective, is the
quantum entanglement phenomenon.”

2.3. Quantum Entanglement


Michael waited a few seconds, then he went on:
“This is what this is about. In certain conditions, two particles get to be tied
to one another by an invisible and inexplicable bond. Even more, they can com-
municate with one another through that bond, at an enormous speed, much
greater than the speed of light, possibly even instantaneously. And that bond per-
sists even if the particles are thousands of kilometers apart from each other.
Here’s an example: We need a beta barium borate15 crystal and a laser with ultra-
violet light. We point the beam of the laser to the crystal, and some of the ultra-
violet photons will be split in two, each one being split into two infrared photons.
Well, each pair of photons resulted from the splitting of an ultraviolet photon ex-
hibits the famous behavior named quantum entanglement.”
“And how is this behavior manifested?” Daniel asked.
“In multiple ways. For example, photons have a property named polarity,
which, for simplicity, let’s say it can only have two values, 0 or 1. In a pair of en-
tangled photons, at the moment of measurement, it is observed that every time
one has the polarity 0 and the other one has the polarity 1, or the other way

13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angular_momentum

14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_tunnelling
15 The chemical formula of the substance is BaB2O4 or Ba(BO2)2. In specialty literature,
it is also abbreviated as BBO.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 9

around. I mean they are complementary values, it never happens that both of
them have polarity 0, or both of them polarity 1. But this is not all, only now
comes the really surprising part. The polarity of the entangled photons is in an
undefined state till the moment of measurement. I mean it is both 0 and 1 at the
same time, a phenomenon that in quantum mechanics is called superposition.
And in the moment a measurement is taken of any one of them, its polarity im-
mediately takes a clear value, either 0 or 1, and the polarity of the other one im-
mediately takes the complementary value, that is either 1 or 0.”
“This sounds rather weird,” Daniel objected. “Isn’t it possible that these po-
larities are determined in advance, from the moment of the formation of the pho-
tons by the splitting in two of the source photon? I mean, isn’t it possible that the
two entangled photons are actually like a pair of gloves, and when you look at
one of them and see that it is for the right hand, then you immediately know that
the other one is for the left hand, even if it is thousands of kilometers away?”
“This hypothesis is called the hidden variables hypothesis. This phenomenon,
this action at a distance, looked unbelievable to many researchers, so they pro-
posed an explanation similar to the gloves example given by you. And one of
those skeptics was Albert Einstein himself. This phrase from him, ‘spooky action
at a distance,’16 by which he manifested his mistrust in this unusual phenomenon,
became famous. But look, this time at least, it seems that Einstein was wrong. At
that time, in 1947, technology was not sufficiently advanced to be able to verify
who was right. But a few years later, in 1964, John Bell17 designed, though only
theoretically at that time, a mechanism18 by which one could verify whether this
property of photons is set at the moment of their formation in the BBO crystal, or
if it is a ‘decision’ made at the moment of measurement. And after another few
years, in 1972, 17 years after the death of Einstein, a young PhD candidate named
John Clauser19 managed to put those tests into practice and, to his surprise,
demonstrated that quantum mechanics was right and that Einstein was wrong.”
“So even experts get it wrong sometimes…”
“Yes, and this shouldn’t surprise you. Think about Isaac Newton, for example.
Although the law of universal gravity he formulated is still valid, generally
speaking, and is used by engineers and astronauts all over the world, many of his
other theories proved completely wrong. For example, Newton’s ideas about al-
chemy and about the substances in comets’ tails which, he used to say, maintain
life on earth, are not correct at all. And since we’re talking about mistakes, New-
ton is also famous for losing a big part of his fortune investing in the South Sea
Company, a firm that was dealing in, among other things, the slave trade with
South America. Asked how he was explaining the huge increase of the market
value of this company, Newton replied: ‘I can calculate the movement of stars,
but not the madness of people.’ ”
“Yes, this is interesting to know. Let’s get back to our photons. What are the
implications of this discovery?”

16 Spukhafte Fernwirkung was the expression used by Albert Einstein in 1947.


17 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Stewart_Bell
18 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_theorem

19 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clauser
10 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

“The implications are huge. This discovery is the first clue that the micro-
scopic world, better called nanoscopic or even picoscopic20, does not resemble the
macroscopic world at all. Think a little about these two aspects. First, the photon
is in two states at the same time, it is both polarized 0, and polarized 1, though
the two states are mutually exclusive. And this situation can also be encountered
in the case of electrons and other larger particles. Some physicians might object
and say that the particle is in a non-determined state, not in two states at the
same time. But the two possible states must also exist, separated from one an-
other, otherwise the observation of the particle could not take place. If the two
states were combined, like two waves, their separation would not be possible an-
ymore. I hope you understand what I mean; if you have the number 1,234, result-
ing from the addition of two other numbers, there is no way for you to know
what the two original numbers were. So, the two states of the particle must
somehow exist in an intact form. And the second aspect: The photon ‘realizes’
that it is observed, it realizes that its polarity is being measured, and it makes a
‘decision,’ 0 or 1, and it instantaneously communicates this decision to its pair,
which can be even thousands of kilometers away. To use technical terms, this
‘decision’ of the photon, this ‘resolution’ to be either 0 or 1, is called the wave
function collapse.”
“So, is it possible for even larger systems to be in multiple incompatible
states at the same time? What is the maximum size for which this can happen?”
“Physicist Erwin Schrödinger gave us a theoretical example, an example
which now is known by all physicists as ‘Schrödinger’s cat.’21 In a few words, the
integrity of a vial with toxic gas is tied to the undetermined state of a radioactive
atom, all these being locked together with a living cat in an airtight box with
dark walls. When the unstable atom decays, the vial is broken and the cat dies. In
his theoretical example, Schrödinger suggests that because the radioactive atom
can be in both states at the same time, both intact and decayed, till somebody
measures its state, this uncertain state, called superposition, can propagate in
time to the macroscopic systems, and thus the cat gets to be both alive and dead
at the same time, till someone opens the box and looks inside. Then the cat is
forced to become either alive or dead. I hope you understand the idea. An atom
both decayed and not decayed at the same time immediately makes the vial with
toxic gas become both broken and intact at the same time, which immediately
makes the cat become both dead and alive at the same time.”
“This sounds outright absurd,” Daniel objected.
“I agree. Schrödinger himself did not believe such a thing; he came up with
this example during his discussions with Albert Einstein, with the purpose of
criticizing the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which was not
setting a clear limit up to which the combination of quantum states, that is, su-
perposition, was possible. Einstein himself had suggested, ironically, that a keg

20 Nano: prefix that designates a thousandth of a millionth (a billionth part of some-


thing).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-
Pico: prefix that designates a millionth of a millionth (a thousandth of a billionth
part of something).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pico-
21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schrödinger%27s_cat
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 11

of gunpowder can thus become both exploded and unexploded at the same time.
But, though Schrödinger’s thought experiment was at its time more of an irony,
in our time, various physicists proposed interpretations of quantum mechanics in
which there is the real possibility that the famous cat is truly both dead and alive
at the same time.22”
“How is it possible that serious physicists, with PhDs, claim such aberrant
things?”
“We’ll talk about this more when we get to analyze the process of ‘observa-
tion’ in quantum mechanics and the interpretations of quantum mechanics. In a
few words, now I’m only telling you that scientists get to such conclusions be-
cause quantum phenomena seem to be unexplainable through rational methods,
which don’t involve anything supernatural.”

Graphical representation of Schrödinger’s hypothetical cat, in which it can be


seen the switch both not-triggered and triggered at the same time, the poison
bottle both intact and broken at the same time, and the cat both alive and dead
at the same time.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/ )

“Let’s get back to our entangled photons,” Daniel said. “How fast do they
communicate with each other?”
“The exact speed could not be calculated, but experiments have proven that it
is at least 10,000 times greater than the speed of light.23 It is even possible that the
phenomenon is instantaneous, but at this moment we don’t have the technology
necessary to measure this.”
“Is there a maximum distance for this phenomenon?” Daniel asked.
“A maximum distance could not be determined, so theoretically it’s possible
that it works even if the two photons are at the extremities of the universe. The
greatest distance was tried in 2017, when the Chinese satellite Micius sent two en-
tangled laser beams toward two ground stations located 1,200 km24 from each oth-
er.25”

22 J. C. Polkinghorne, The Quantum World, Princeton University Press, 1985, p. 67.


Philip Tetlow, Understanding Information and Computation: From Einstein to Web
Science, Gower Publishing, Ltd., 2012, p. 321.
23 https://newatlas.com/quantum-entanglement-speed-10000-faster-light/26587/

24 1,200 km = 746.73 miles.


25 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/quantum-satellite-shatters-entanglement-

record
12 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

“And how does this communication between photons take place? If I want to
communicate with someone 1,200 km away I need a very expensive radio trans-
mitter, which also consumes a lot of energy, because it has to be very powerful.
So how do two simple photons communicate with each other? And how is it that
they communicate instantly, or at speeds far greater than the speed of light?”
“There is no answer to this question. However, I’m also telling you that
though elementary particles can communicate with each other so fast, we cannot.
The mechanism of quantum entanglement cannot be used to communicate from
point A to point B by us humans.”

2.4. The Double-Slit Experiment


“Now,” Michael went on, “we get to the most famous experiment of them all,
namely the double-slit experiment. Imagine a large and solid plate, in which
someone has cut two slits large enough to allow the passing of a tennis ball,
without touching the plate at all. Behind it there is a large and solid screen, with
no holes at all. Now, if we launch tennis balls toward the afore-mentioned plate,
we notice that the balls hit the back screen in two distinct places, corresponding
to the two slits.”

Launching of tennis balls through two large enough slits. The balls hit the back
wall only in two distinct areas, exactly behind the two slits.

“Next,” Michael went on, “if the plate were placed in water, or in any other
liquid, we would notice that a wave propagates differently. More exactly, the
wave seems to be passing through both slits, and then it interferes with itself on
the other side. In other words, it is like two new sources of oscillation are
formed at the two slits, which produce two new perfectly synchronized waves.”

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/global-quantum-communication-top-science-
stories-2017-yir
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 13

Propagation of waves through two large enough slits. Each of the two slits be-
comes a new source of waves, which then interfere with each other. When it hits
the back wall, the level of the liquid will be variable.

Michael went on:


“Now let’s see what happens if the plate is much smaller, and the two slits
are also smaller and closer to each other, having dimensions comparable to the
wavelength of elementary particles. A beam of light or a jet of elementary parti-
cles, electrons, atoms or even small molecules, is sent toward these two slits. On
the other side, at a certain distance, there is a solid screen with no openings. If
the experiment is carried out as it is described above, without adding anything,
on this screen we don’t get two distinct spots, as in the case of the tennis balls,
but interference fringes, as in the case of waves. The explanation is very surpris-
ing: Elementary particles, photons, electrons, protons, and even some molecules26
travel through the air as a wave, and thus they produce (on the screen) effects
similar to wave interference.”

Interference fringes for light (the two above), and electrons (the two below).

“But maybe some particles hit the edges of the slits, and deviate a little to the
left or to the right, and maybe this is how the vertical lines pattern is formed…”

26 For
example, this one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckminsterfullerene
14 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

“If things were the way you say they were, then the vertical lines behind the
plate would look more random and scattered. Anyway, physicists thought of this,
too, and they covered one of the slits with a small object. If the result on the back
screen was produced by the bumping and deviation of the particles, then by cov-
ering a single slit, the vertical lines should only decrease in intensity. But in real-
ity, something else happens: When we cover a single slit, the vertical lines disap-
pear completely, and only one remains instead, corresponding to the slit left
open.”
“Isn’t it possible that the particles interact with each other? I mean, isn’t it
possible that they bump into each other, and thus they produce those apparent
interference fringes?”
“Physicists thought of this, too, and they performed experiments in which
they launched only one particle at a time. The result was the same, after a while,
the interference fringes became visible.”
“Ok, ok,” Daniel said, “I’m trying to understand… So, elementary particles are
actually waves? Waves of what? Waves of ether? I thought the ether theory was
abandoned about a hundred years ago… Waves need a medium in which to prop-
agate, right? Actually, waves are not even real objects; waves are just defor-
mations of the medium in which they propagate, or contractions and dilations of
it. In the real, macroscopic world, waves have no physical existence of their own;
they are not standalone objects, the same way as the words uttered by me and
you are not real physical objects.”
“Physicist Max Born, in 1926, answered your question thus: When they are not
observed, particles behave like waves of probabilities.27 I mean the particle is not
a small microscopic sphere invisible to the naked eye, but actually a wave of
probabilities, of a much larger size. This means that a particle can be all over
that wave, like it was in many places at once. But when you try to locate it, when
you try to observe it, to look at it, you will find it at only one exact location, and
it will look like a minuscule fragment of matter, having a diameter of 8.768 x 10-16
meters in the case of protons, and maximum 10-18 meters in the case of electrons.”
“Something is not right here… If every time I decide to look at an electron I
see it only as a minuscule sphere, how do physicists know that the rest of the
time it is actually a wave, large and confuse?”
“That’s easy, because it behaves as a wave, and it leaves behind persistent,
visible effects proper to waves. In the double-slit experiment described before, as
long as you don’t look carefully at the particles, they behave like waves and pro-
duce interference fringes. But when you add a particle detector and you try to see
exactly where they pass through, particles don’t behave as waves anymore, but
as real physical objects: The interference fringes stop being formed, and in their
place, appear only the two distinct spots, corresponding to the two slits.”
“What exactly do those fringes mean? If every particle hits the back screen in
only one place, according to the probability wave, then it means that that wave is
of a very weird shape… It is not even a sphere or a cloud, it probably looks like a
string of sausages.”

27 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probability_amplitude

Max Born was awarded the Nobel prize in 1954 for this theory.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 15

Graphical representation of the probabilistic wave.

“I have warned you, the quantum world seems to make no sense from the
point of view of the macroscopic reality. But let’s move on. As I just told you, if
you add a particle detector, the waves disappear and are immediately replaced by
classical particles. This happens even if the particle reaches the detector after it
has passed through the two slits. But this is not all. Have you ever heard the
phrase ‘quantum eraser’?”
“Never,” Daniel said.
“Physicists carried out the following experiment: They passed the ray of a la-
ser through a BBO crystal, and thus they got two entangled rays, let’s call them
R1 and R2. The first of them, R1, was then passed through the two slits mentioned
before and, obviously, it produced interference fringes. Then they added behind
one slit a device that polarizes photons in a certain way, and behind the other slit
a device that polarizes them in the opposite way. Now, the photons were marked,
so one could clearly tell which way they passed, through which slit, because they
were polarized differently. In dedicated scientific terminology, it is said that the
photons had ‘which-path information,’ that is, information about the path they
traveled. Obviously, after this polarization, the interference fringes disappeared,
being replaced by only two vertical lines, corresponding to the two slits: photons
stopped behaving like waves that were passing through both slits at the same
time and started to behave like classical particles that were passing either
through one slit or through the other. But here comes the surprise. Using the
second ray, R2, whose photons were entangled with the photons in the first one,
physicists changed the polarity. Because the photons were entangled, the forcing
of a certain polarity on those in R2 caused the opposite polarity to be applied to
the photons in R1. Thus, all photons in R1 got the same polarity, and the which-
path information disappeared. And what do you think happened? The erasing of
the which-path information caused the re-emergence of the interference fringes.
But this is not all. The erasing of the which-path information can take place even
after the photons in R1 passed through both of the slits and through the polarity
changing devices and which, theoretically, were forcing them to re-become clas-
sical particles.”
“Do you mean that the erasing of the which-path information can modify the
result of events that already happened?”
“I know this sounds absurd, but this is exactly what seems to be happening;
I’ll explain it to you in detail when we talk about observations and about the ret-
rocausality hypothesis. I used the word ‘seems’ because retrocausality is only a
hypothesis, a supposition that was arrived at because of our limitations, I mean
16 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

because we cannot know exactly what happens there. This kind of experiment is
called ‘Quantum eraser’28.”

2.5. What Is an “Observation”?


“Ok,” Daniel said, “I understand that in quantum mechanics the observation
has a special role, and it changes the behavior of particles. But what exactly is an
observation?”
“You’re going to be surprised, but despite decades of talks and debates, phys-
icists still have not managed to clarify either what exactly constitutes an obser-
vation in quantum mechanics, or why this changes the behavior of particles.
Here’s two quotes from a known physicist:”
The role of measurement in quantum mechanics is so critical and so bizarre that
you may well be wondering what precisely constitutes a measurement. Does it
have to do with the interaction between a microscopic (quantum) system and a
macroscopic (classical) measuring apparatus (as Bohr insisted), or is it charac-
terized by the leaving of a permanent ‘record’ (as Heisenberg claimed), or does it
involve the intervention of a conscious ‘observer’ (as Wigner proposed)?29
This view (the so-called Copenhagen interpretation) is associated with Bohr and
his followers. Among physicists it has always been the most widely accepted po-
sition. Note, however, that if it is correct there is something very peculiar about
the act of measurement–something that over half a century of debate has done
precious little to illuminate.30

Michael went on:


“I’d like to emphasize the last words: more than half a century of debates
among scientists did almost nothing to elucidate the problem of observation, of
measurement, in quantum mechanics.”
“I still don’t realize why it’s so complicated. I understand that in order to ob-
serve, in order to measure a property of an electron, I have to detect the electro-
magnetic field produced by it, or I have to hit it with at least one photon. Then I
have to intercept that photon and analyze it, to see what it tells me about the
electron it just collided with. And maybe this interaction of the photon with the
electron causes the latter to be transformed from a wave into a particle. Where
am I wrong?”
“It’s not that simple. First, why would the detection change the behavior of
the particle? Why doesn’t it just change its direction, and that’s it? Second, these
experiments are also carried out in the presence of the atmosphere. Yet still, the
interactions of the particles with the nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the air
don’t cause the changing of their behavior from wave to classical particle. Third,
the double-slit experiment can also be carried out with mirrors. Yet still, the re-
flection of the photon by the mirror does not change its behavior from wave to
classical particle. Fourth, in the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, the

28 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser
29 David J. Griffiths, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, second edition, Pearson Edu-

cation Limited, 2014.


30 Ibid.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 17

light that has already passed through the two slits was then passed through a
BBO crystal, and was split into two rays of entangled photons. But this didn’t
change their behavior either; the photons continued to produce interference
fringes. Therefore, not even an act so traumatizing as the ‘breaking in two’ of the
photon, is an observation.”
“So then what is an observation?”
“As I was telling you, the greatest scientists in the field have not succeeded in
agreeing and providing a universally accepted explanation. However, most argu-
ments lead in one direction: In quantum mechanics, an observation, that is, the
factor that cancels out a particle’s wave-like behavior, is any process that pro-
duces information. For example, in the double-slit experiment, adding the which-
path information, or more exactly, the marking of the photons with different po-
larities depending on the slit behind which they are detected, cancels out the in-
terference fringes and causes the photons to behave like classical particles. And
then the deletion of this information causes the re-emergence of the wave-like
behavior.”
“Does dead matter know what information is?” Daniel asked.
“As I was telling you, these new laws of physics seem to be endowed with in-
telligence. What is, actually, information? In the example I just mentioned, in-
formation is something that tells us which path a photon went through. In this
case, it is polarity, but it could also be something else. If we intercept a photon
and observe its polarity, we’ll know immediately whether it was set immediately
behind slit 1 or immediately behind slit 2. This makes the wave-like effect disap-
pear. But if we erase the afore-mentioned information, the wave-like behavior
re-emerges.”
“Ok, ok, and how does dead matter know whether photons carry information
or not?”
“This is a good question. We, humans endowed with intelligence, can tell the
presence of information from the absence of it. But animals can’t. A photon with
polarity 0, a photon with polarity 1, and a photon with no polarity at all, have ex-
actly the same effect on the ‘intellect’ of a fish or a bird. How then can dead mat-
ter, or the laws of physics, which scientists presume are blind and devoid of rea-
son, detect the presence of information and change the behavior of a particle?”
“That’s right, how?”
“We’ll address this topic when we talk about the interpretations of quantum
mechanics. Now let’s focus our attention on another aspect, one equally im-
portant. These new laws of physics seem to be located outside of time, and thus
they seem to be able to foresee events that are going to be happening in a few
fractions of a second. Again, I use the word ‘seem’ because this is just a hypothe-
sis, not a certainty. We have a clear example in the quantum eraser and the de-
layed choice quantum eraser experiments. It seems that something foresees that
the information will be erased, and thus restores in advance the wave-like behav-
ior of the particle.”
“This really is totally unusual,” Daniel said.
“That’s right, indeed. You’re not the only one who’s astonished by these phe-
nomena. These conclusions, however, are neither the interpretations of ama-
teurs, nor the opinions of simple believers who don’t understand scientific re-
search. Let’s see what scientists who have dedicated their lives to the study of
18 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

these topics have to say. The only difference is that they explain these things the
other way around, that is, by retrocausality, by the changing of the past, not by
the prediction of the future. In the secular article dedicated to the quantum eras-
er on the Wikipedia website we read:”
A key result is that it does not matter whether the eraser procedure is done be-
fore or after the photons arrive at the detection screen.31, 32, 33

“So even if the erasing of the information takes place after the photons reach
the back screen, the effect is the same. Further on:”
In delayed-choice experiments quantum effects can mimic an influence of future
actions on past events.34, 35
While delayed choice experiments have confirmed the seeming ability of meas-
urements made on photons in the present to alter events occurring in the past,
this requires a non-standard view of quantum mechanics.36

“Here’s another researcher who’s an advocate of retrocausality, Dr. Matthew


S. Leifer, from Chapman University:”
The reason I think that retrocausality is worth investigating is that we now have
a slew of no-go results about realist interpretations of quantum theory, includ-
ing Bell’s theorem.37

“Let’s pay attention to the words,” Michael said. “Realistic interpretations


lead to a slew of no-go results, therefore scientists began to consider absurd, un-
real options, like retrocausality. Further on, other opinions of other scientists:”
A future event causes the photon to decide its past.38

“Someone else, Dr. Kater Murch, from Washington University:”


In the quantum world, the future affects the past: Hindsight and foresight to-
gether more accurately “predict” a quantum system’s state.39
But in the quantum guessing experiment, time symmetry has returned. The im-
proved odds imply the measured quantum state somehow incorporates infor-
mation from the future as well as the past.40

31 S.P. Walborn et al., Double-Slit Quantum Eraser, Physical Review A, 65, 2002.
32 Englert,Berthold-Georg, Remarks on Some Basic Issues in Quantum Mechanics, 1999.
33 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment

34 Xiao-song Ma, Johannes Kofler, Anton Zeilinger, Delayed-choice gedanken experi-

ments and their realizations, Reviews of Modern Physics, 88, 2016.


35 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_eraser_experiment

36 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_choice_quantum_eraser

37 Physicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influ-

ences the past


https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html
38 Wheeler’s delayed-choice gedanken experiment with a single atom

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3343.html
39 In the quantum world, the future affects the past

40 https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209083011.htm
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 19

“Here’s another researcher, Asher Peres, from Israel Institute of Technology,


a pioneer in quantum information theory:”
If we attempt to attribute an objective meaning to the quantum state of a single
system, curious paradoxes appear: quantum effects mimic not only instantane-
ous action-at-a-distance, but also, as seen here, influence of future actions on
past events, even after these events have been irrevocably recorded.41

“Next,” Michael went on, “Andrew Truscott, professor of physics at Australi-


an National University:”
It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not
exist if you are not looking at it […]

If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a particular path or paths
then one has to accept that a future measurement is affecting the atom’s past.42

“Is retrocausality the only possible explanation?” Daniel asked.


“There are other explanations, too. Let’s pay attention to Professor Truscott’s
words I just quoted: ‘If one chooses to believe that the atom really did take a par-
ticular path or paths…’ The alternative would be to believe that the atom did not
take any path, in a clear and definitive way; more exactly, the alternative would
mean for us to believe that the atom, actually the entire system of which that at-
om is a part, is in a superposition of multiple possible states at the same time:
State 1: the atom passed like a classical particle only through slit 1; state 2: the
atom passed like a classical particle only through slit 2; and state 3: the atom
passed like a wave through both slits. So, the alternative would be for us to be-
lieve that the atom and the system that contains it is in all these three possible
states at the same time, and an observation (a measurement) causes the defini-
tive ‘selection’ of a single state of the three just enumerated, and this gives the
impression of retrocausality, because it is like the atom is waiting for the com-
pletion of the experiment in order to ‘decide’ which of the three possible ways to
select.”
“Honestly, this alternative seems to me like even more science fiction than
retrocausality,” Daniel said.
“I’m not going to contradict you. Some physicists might tell you that actually
the mathematical equations describe exactly this thing—the superposition of the
entire macroscopic system. But I say that things are not that simple. First, an
equation is just a mathematical model, it does not describe reality completely;
for example, a second-degree equation can correctly describe your trajectory
when you jump over an obstacle, but it offers no explanation for the energy
needed for that jump, or for the way your muscles use that energy in order to
perform that jump, or for the origin of your organism (creation or evolution). So,
let’s be careful, mathematical models are extremely limited. Second, the equation
of such a macroscopic system should contain about 1028 terms; if it were written

41 Asher Peres, Delayed choice for entanglement swapping


http://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9904042.pdf
42 Experiment confirms quantum theory weirdness

http://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/experiment-confirms-quantum-theory-
weirdness
20 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

on A443 paper, 500 terms on a page, then the sheets would form a stack a billion
billion kilometers44 high, and would weigh almost 50 billion billion metric tons,
that is, about two-thirds of the weight of the moon; the memories of all the com-
puters in the world taken together would only be able to store a hundredth of a
millionth of all those terms. So, it is obvious that nobody has ever written such
an equation, and maybe nobody ever will; it exists only in theory, in the imagina-
tion of physicists.”
“Indeed, a rather large equation,” Daniel said. “On the other hand, retrocau-
sality seems unbelievable, too…”
“That’s true, I can’t really believe in retrocausality, either. I presented all
these details just so you can see that these phenomena can’t be explained in a
‘realistic,’ classical way. Look, for example, theoretically, in the case of the de-
layed choice quantum eraser, the time interval can be increased from eight nano-
seconds to several full seconds. It is not easy at all, but it can be done, and in this
case the human observer has enough time to see the initial result, about which it
is supposed that it is changed through retrocausality. Well, I wonder, does any-
one really believe that after those several seconds the image on the detection
screens will ‘magically’ change? I doubt it. I wonder, is it possible now, in the
year 2018, that someone can do something that changes the outcome of the last
world war, which ended in 1945? I doubt it. Therefore, I’d be more inclined to be-
lieve that science reached some limits imposed by the Creator of the universe,
and that we’re probably dealing with laws of physics endowed with a certain in-
telligence (impersonal if the laws themselves are impersonal), located outside of
time, which can thus see into the future and can act preemptively. Anyway, even
this opinion of mine is just a supposition and nothing more.”
“If there is indeed the possibility to change the past, then maybe in that case
what the human observer saw at that moment will also change, so for him there
will be nothing that will seem ‘magic.’ To the human observer it will seem that
actually this was the initial result of the experiment. By changing the event in
the past, all subsequent events caused by it will be changed, too; therefore, the
human observer’s memory will be changed, too.”
“I don’t know…” Michael said, skeptical. “This starts looking like the old
philosophical question: ‘If a tree falls in a forest, and there’s no one around, nei-
ther humans, nor microphones, does it still make a sound?’ ”
“Yes,” Daniel approved, “the type of question for which it’s impossible to give
a scientific answer. Let’s get back now; are there any other problems with this
alternative to retrocausality?”
“Yes, pretty big problems. As I said, in order to avoid retrocausality, many
physicists claim that in the case of the delayed choice quantum eraser, the entire
ensemble, which includes the laser, the plate with the two slits, the mirrors and
the crystals, must be treated as a single quantum system, which is in an unde-
fined state, more exactly, in a superposition of multiple valid states, till the mo-
ment an observation is performed. But this supposed superposition of macro-
scopic objects opens the door to a bunch of other problems. If this possibility
does exist, what happens then to Schrödinger’s cat? Can she truly be both alive

area of a sheet of A4 paper is only 3% greater than the area of a sheet of letter
43 The

sized paper.
44 About 622 million billion miles.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 21

and dead at the same time? What about Einstein’s keg of gunpowder? Can it truly
be both exploded and unexploded at the same time? The main problem is obvi-
ous: Where does superposition stop? Does it stop at the human observer, when
he or she looks at the cat or at the gunpowder keg? If so, why exactly? Atheist
science considers that the human being is just a bunch of atoms and molecules,
without a soul, so what’s so special about a man that makes quantum superposi-
tion stop at him? And if superposition does not stop at the human observer, then
he or she, too, gets into a superposition of two valid states: In the first state, he’s
looking at a living cat; in the second state, he’s looking at a dead cat. Can you im-
agine yourself in this state, more exactly, in these two states at the same time?”
“This is absurd,” Daniel said. “I can’t be in two places at once, there’s just one
Daniel, not two or three.”
“Exactly. And from here on, physicists who went this way have but a single
escape: the many worlds hypothesis, which we’ll talk about in a few moments.”
Michael stopped for a few moments, then went on:
“You see now that scientists have encountered very serious obstacles in the
study of elementary particles; not finding any classical solution for those prob-
lems, some of them appealed to retrocausality, others to the superposition of
macroscopic objects, and others to multiple universes, as we’ll see immediately.
But such absurd interpretations are not necessary at all. If we accepted the fact
that God established certain limits up to which scientific research can advance,
and that these limits might include laws of physics endowed with a certain im-
personal intelligence, placed outside of time, then all these phenomena would be
easy to explain. Such laws of physics, being endowed with intelligence and locat-
ed outside of time, as God too is outside of time, would have the ability to detect
in time future events and act accordingly. But, obviously, the existence of such
laws, though impersonal, imply the existence of a personal Creator, more exact-
ly, the existence of God, Who created them and made them take care of the mate-
rial world. And the existence of God is something that is very hard for many sci-
entists to accept. Let’s move on now, and talk about the interpretations of quan-
tum mechanics.”

2.6. Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics


“So there’s several interpretations?” Daniel asked.
“Of course; quantum phenomena are so surprising, so unusual, so supernatu-
ral I’d dare to say, that scientists did not manage to agree on their significance.
For comparison, there are no interpretations for the width of the building in
front of us, there are no interpretations for the speed of sound, there are no in-
terpretations for the depth of a lake or an ocean, there are no interpretations for
the distance from the Earth to the Moon, and so on. These are clear things, easy
to measure and analyze. For quantum mechanics, we have multiple interpreta-
tions because, although elementary particles are always in front of us and we can
analyze them at any time, the results of the experiments seem to make no sense
from the point of view of the macroscopic reality that we live in. As I was saying
above, scientists encountered several roadblocks in this field, roadblocks that can
only be solved by appealing either to the supernatural (more exactly, to limits es-
tablished by the Creator, including probably laws of physics endowed with a cer-
22 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

tain intelligence), either to exotic and absurd theories, like retrocausality, or


multiple universes, that is, the duplication of our entire universe. And this is how
the interpretations of quantum mechanics emerged.”
“So things are not clear?”
“Not at all. The mere fact that there are multiple interpretations is very good
proof of the fact that there is no clear proof for any of them. All these interpreta-
tions are just opinions of the scientists, opinions that cannot be proven in any
way; they can only be believed and nothing more. Something inside of us is at-
tracted toward one or toward the other, but it is impossible to scientifically
prove any of them, so that all the others will be proven clearly and definitively
wrong.”
“Ok, but there are arguments for each of them, right? There are functional
mathematical equations for each of them, right?”
“Mathematical equations are just theoretical models; the fact that they’re
functional doesn’t prove anything. There are mathematical equations for each of
these interpretations, yet it can’t be clearly proven if any one of them is true or
not. Simple logic tells us that two contradictory statements cannot be both true
at the same time: They can be both false, or one false and the other one true, but
they can’t be both true, because they contradict each other. Many of these inter-
pretations contradict each other, so even simple logic tells us that they are
wrong, despite the fact that all of them have functional mathematical models and
equations. So, the fact that a mathematical model is functional does not mean
that it truly describes reality. For example, you can mathematically approximate
a man with a cylinder made from a certain material, with a certain density. You
can thus calculate with great accuracy the speed at which the man would fall
from a height of one meter, the percentage of him that would be submerged in
water and the percentage that would remain above the water, and so on. But if
you try to pass the cylinder through a round hole, you’ll notice that the mathe-
matical model, though very good in some cases, does not reflect reality anymore,
and that the real man does not fit. In the same way, when calculating the orbit of
an object, astronomers consider satellites, asteroids, and sometimes even planets
as being of negligible size, that is, just points. And this mathematical model
works very well in those cases, but it is obvious that it does not reflect reality at
all: A satellite is not a point of zero size. Even more, if you use this model to cal-
culate the probability for a satellite (considered to be a point) to be hit by cosmic
dust or meteorites, you’ll get a fundamentally wrong result, despite the fact that
the mathematical model works very well in other cases. So, even if a mathemati-
cal model can correctly predict certain phenomena, it can still be extremely far
away from reality. If a man runs and jumps over an obstacle, Newtonian mathe-
matical equations will predict very well the maximum height he is going to
reach, and the distance after which he’ll touch the ground again; but those equa-
tions won’t tell you anything about the inner structure of the man, about how
complicated even a single cell of his is. Those equations won’t explain in any way
the man’s existence, they won’t tell you whether he was created by God or
whether he evolved from primitive life forms. So, although they can predict al-
most exactly certain events, mathematical models are extremely limited.”
“Yes, I agree,” Daniel approved.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 23

“I, too, could express my height in complex numbers, I could imagine some
extra dimensions, and the result of my equation would say that in those dimen-
sions I can reach the moon with my hand.45 A real aberration, isn’t it?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“Next, most of these interpretations of quantum mechanics treat matter, ele-
mentary particles and even macroscopic systems as if they were just waves of
probabilities, or just equations. But an equation is not a real, tangible object, but
only a representation, an abstract notion. It’s the mathematical equation that
tries to describe, to imitate, in a partial and limited way, the real world, and not
the other way around. The real world does not care about our equations, and it
does not try to imitate them in any way; if sometimes it gives this impression, it
is only because physicists have managed to describe, by that equation, a small
part of reality, but that’s it. The difference between a mathematical model and
the reality it models is like the difference between a photograph of an object and
the object itself, or like the difference between a character in a computer game
and a real man. Yes, I agree, the photograph is real, too, it is made of real atoms
and molecules, but still, there is an enormous difference between it and the real
photographed object. Quantum mechanics suggests thus that the material world
is not truly real, that it is only an equation.”
“Ok, let’s get back. Which are those interpretations of quantum mechanics?”
“First conflicts among researchers began to arise at the beginning of the 20th
century. By then, it was becoming clear the idea that quantum mechanics was
non-deterministic, more exactly that, as long as it is not measured, a particle be-
haves like a probability wave, and that there is no way to calculate where exactly
that particle will be found when its detection will be attempted. Unlike classical
physics, in which trajectories of planets, for example, can be calculated with pre-
cision, in classical mechanics such a thing is impossible. A particle behaves like a
wave of probabilities, and a point on that wave seems to represent only the like-
lihood of finding the particle in that place, and nothing more. Einstein was a
great skeptic regarding this interpretation. However, he did not claim that quan-
tum theory was completely wrong, only that it was incomplete. Einstein especial-
ly didn’t like the idea that particles behave in a non-deterministic way. This
statement of his became famous: ‘I don’t believe that God plays dice with the
universe.’ And so did the reply he got back from Niels Bohr: ‘Einstein, stop telling
God what to do.’”

45 Ironic allusion to Stephen Hawking, well-known British physicist, author of the


book A Brief History of Time in which he supports the idea of “imaginary time,” which
would eliminate the need for a cause for the Big Bang. His idea is absurd, obviously, as
there is absolutely no proof that time has two dimensions. Therefore, even if the Big
Bang were real, it would still need a cause from outside space and time to precede it and
to cause it (there is no effect without a cause).
24 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

Niels Bohr (left) and Albert Einstein (right), debating the problems of quantum
mechanics in December 1925.
(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/ )

Michael went on:


“So, the most widespread interpretation is named the ‘Copenhagen Interpre-
tation,’ and it was developed (mainly) between 1925 and 1927 by Niels Bohr and
Werner Heisenberg. According to this interpretation, particles behave in a non-
deterministic way, like waves of probabilities, till the moment they are observed.
But the Copenhagen interpretation is not a complete interpretation, it does not
give a clear definition for the observation process, so various researchers, with-
out deviating too much from the essence of this interpretation, offered their own
interpretations for what exactly ‘to observe’ means. Therefore, we have two
types of interpretations: interpretations that start from zero, ignoring the Co-
penhagen interpretation, and interpretations that only try to make the Copenha-
gen interpretation complete, trying to explain what exactly an observation is.”
“For example?”
“I already gave you an example, namely the emergence of information in the
analyzed system. This interpretation partially explains the behavior of particles,
but it does not explain at all who or what exactly, and especially how exactly, de-
tects the presence of information. Other researchers came up with a revolution-
ary idea: The human conscience, more exactly, the presence of a human observer,
causes the change of the particle from a wave into a classical particle. This inter-
pretation suggests that man is something special. However, this interpretation
does not explain at all who or what exactly, and especially how exactly, detects
the presence of a human observer.”
“And did the scientists take this idea seriously, I mean the presence of the
human observer?” Daniel asked. “I’m asking because it seems a little bit super-
natural, at least for an atheist scientist, who believes that man is just a bunch of
atoms and molecules.”
“The idea according to which the human conscience causes the wave-function
collapse was advocated by a very well-known scientist named John von Neu-
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 25

mann46, and also by the physicist Eugene Wigner.47 The latter added one more el-
ement to the cat thought experiment: A human observer, named ‘Wigner’s
friend,’ who opens the box and gets to look at a cat that is both alive and dead at
the same time, and who thus gets, theoretically, to be both happy (because the
cat is alive) and unhappy (because the cat is dead) at the same time. Wigner was
thus trying to suggest that that state of superposition must end before or when it
gets to the conscious human observer. The other advocate of this idea, von Neu-
mann, was considered to be the greatest mathematician of his time, and one of
the greatest mathematicians of all time. Although he lived for only 53 years, he
published more than 150 scientific papers, in fields such as mathematics, physics
and informatics. But their idea was treated with skepticism by many scientists,
because it suggests that only the non-material mind is a true observer in quan-
tum mechanics. You get the idea: the problem was that this interpretation
seemed to advocate the existence of a ‘non-material mind,’ which probably could
have also been called a soul, although it is said that von Neumann was not neces-
sarily a religious person, being considered more of an agnostic than a faithful.
But you do understand the religious implications of his idea, don’t you? Anyway,
the fact that someone of von Neumann’s caliber appealed to such a supernatural
explanation shows that quantum mechanics phenomena can’t really be explained
through classical, natural means.”
“Yes, I understand, an atheist researcher probably wouldn’t like to consider
this hypothesis.”
“However, regarding the non-deterministic behavior of particles, in my opin-
ion, this behavior only exists from our perspective, only at our level. I mean it is
only us humans who are unable to anticipate exactly where an electron will be
found when its wave-function collapses, for reasons we’ll discuss immediately.
But for God, I think there’s nothing non-deterministic in a particle’s behavior. I
believe God can calculate exactly where an electron will be found, although to us
it appears to be just a wave of probabilities.”
“What about the interpretations that start from zero, ignoring the Copenha-
gen interpretation?”
“Here things become really bizarre. Though the Copenhagen interpretation is
still the most widespread one, a 1997 poll found that only 42% of scientists still
believed in it.48 The rest had adopted other interpretations. For example, an in-
terpretation whose acceptance is growing rapidly these days is the many worlds
interpretation.”
“You mean the idea that there are multiple parallel universes?” Daniel asked,
thinking about sci-fi movies.
“Yes, this theory claims that there are billions, probably an infinity of parallel
worlds; even more, the theory claims that every second there emerge out of the
blue millions of new universes. But let’s take it step by step. Generally speaking,
this is the interpretation: In the case of Schrödinger’s cat, there comes a moment
when the radioactive atom has to ‘make a decision,’ that is to decay or not. At

46 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_von_Neumann

47 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann–Wigner_interpretation

48 Known as the “Max Tegmark poll.”


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretations_of_quantum_mechanics#History_of_i
nterpretations
26 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

this moment, the advocates of the multiple worlds theory claim, there’s no su-
perposition state involved, like in classical quantum mechanics, which claims
that the atom is both intact and decayed till the moment someone looks at the
quantum system. At this moment, those advocates claim, the universe is dupli-
cated, partially or even totally. Yes, you heard that right, somehow, out of the
blue, there appears a new almost-identical copy of the universe. Between the two
copies there is only one small difference: In one universe the atom is intact, in
the other universe the atom has decayed radioactively. From now on, they say,
each universe goes its own way. In the first universe the cat stays alive, for now.
In the second universe the cat dies, very quickly. In the first universe, the one in
which the atom remained intact, the cat is alive only momentarily: In a few sec-
onds, or microseconds, the atom may ‘decide’ again to decay, causing a new fork
and a new universe. And so on, every atom has the potential to duplicate the uni-
verse, thousands, or even millions of times per second. There are several vari-
ants of this interpretation, and some of them claim that the duplication of the
universe happens only when there is an observation, a measurement.”

Graphical representation of the many worlds interpretation. The interpretation


claims that at the moment the radioactive atom “decides” whether to decay or
not (the down pointing arrow), an entire identical universe appears out of the
blue. In one of the two universes, the atom is intact and the cat is alive; in the
other universe, the atom has decayed and the cat will soon die. (Adapted after
https://en.wikipedia.org/ )

Michael pondered for a few seconds, then he went on:


“The explanation gets a little bit complicated in the case of the double-slit ex-
periment. According to David Deutsch, who is said to be the most notable propo-
nent of the many worlds theory in modern physics, the process goes on like this:
When the photon, or another particle, gets in front of the two slits, the universe
duplicates: in one universe, the particle goes through one slit; in the other uni-
verse, it goes through the other slit. Notice that the particle stops going through
both slits, like a wave. But the two universes are not completely separated yet. If
there’s no measurement, no observation of the particle in any of them, then the
two universes recombine, and they become one again, and this is how the inter-
ference fringes are generated. But, in both cases, the implications are the same:
duplication of the universe also means the duplication of us. So, according to this
theory, billions of Daniels and Michaels already exist, each almost identical to us.
Although there are several variants of this theory and some advocates will claim
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 27

that actually only the wave-function gets duplicated, the implications are the
same: the duplication, millions of times per second, of the world we live in and of
us.”
“An entire brand-new universe, just like that, out of the blue?” Daniel asked,
incredulous.
“There are several variants of the interpretation. Some of them claim that for
the moment, the duplication is only partial, local, that is, the duplication affects
only what needs to get duplicated, I mean only what is different between the two
universes. But even this way, in time, the duplicated part grows. Imagine a paral-
lel universe in which the September 11 attacks were thwarted. It is obvious that
in a maximum of a few hours our entire planet would have found out about this
and had to be duplicated entirely: a copy in which the terrorists had succeeded
and all seven billion people on earth knew that, and a copy in which the terror-
ists had failed and all seven billion people on earth knew that.”
“Is this a serious theory? I mean, is it taken seriously by the scientists?”
“Yes, it has a lot of supporters, but also a lot of critics. One of the supporters
was the famous Stephen Hawking himself. The advocates claim that the theory is
simple and that it avoids most of the problems of classical interpretations, like
the need for an observer, retrocausality, or superposition at a macroscopic level,
like in the example with Schrödinger’s cat, in which the exact same cat, non-
duplicated, can be both alive and dead at the same time. And critics have their
arguments, too: The theory cannot be verified scientifically, because we don’t
have access to the other alleged universes. It is more of a philosophy than a sci-
entific theory. Then, what exactly clones the universe in a fraction of a second?
Where does the needed energy come from? How does a particle ‘know’ that the
universe has to be duplicated? Does the photon ‘see’ that a few centimeters in
front of it there is a double-slit device, and it communicates ‘somewhere’ that the
universe has to be duplicated? Next, how do the two universes know that they
can be reunited? The theory says that they get reunited shortly if there was no
measurement or observation, but how do the two universes know that? To me it
seems that the role of the observation is still an important one, and there is still
need for ‘something’ to somehow detect the presence or absence of information,
or even the presence or absence of a human observer.”
“Indeed, these are serious question marks,” Daniel approved.
“But the greatest question mark, for a believer, is related to the existence of
the soul. It is obvious that this theory was proposed by people who do not believe
in the existence of the soul. In their opinion, man is just an ordered bunch of at-
oms and molecules. Or, in other variants, man is just matter, and that matter,
they say, is not even real, but just a wave, a wave-function, which can be dupli-
cated and re-combined in any way. But if we have an immortal soul, too, then
this theory is dead from the beginning.”
“The many worlds theory seems totally absurd to me, too. Why would a seri-
ous scientist come up with such an aberration?”
“Because it is obvious that you can’t really explain the quantum phenomena
without appealing to the supernatural. The laws of quantum physics seem to be
able to detect the presence of information, and they also seem to be able to alter
events that already happened, or at least this is what a large number of re-
28 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

searchers say. These things can’t really be explained in a classical, natural way. A
supporter of the many worlds says:”
The standard interpretation works incredibly well as long as you do not consider
the philosophical consequences.49

“So you see the ‘problem,’ don’t you?” Michael asked. “The philosophical im-
plications. And a critic of the many worlds theory says:”
It is not that no alternatives exist—it is just that we have not found them yet in
terms of theories, axioms, and mathematics.50

“So you see, the problem is that science has not managed to find the realistic
alternatives…”
“Are there any other interpretations?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, during the past couple decades another interpretation has emerged,
which also has a few advocates. It is called the simulation hypothesis, and we’ll
talk about it immediately.”

3. The Simulation Hypothesis

Michael thought for a few moments, then he restarted the discussion:


“During the past few decades there has emerged, in movies and in the works
of some scientists, the idea that maybe the universe and humankind did not arise
just like that, out of the blue, through natural causes, as an atheist might sup-
pose. Too bad though, movie producers and scientists did not take into considera-
tion our Christian God, but instead they suggested other kind of ‘creators,’ hypo-
thetical ones. Thus, the hypothesis that maybe indeed we have ‘artificial’ origins
was formulated, that maybe indeed we’ve been created, either in the real world
or in the memory of a supercomputer, and that maybe we are under the careful
watch of beings that are far superior to us.”
“Aliens?” Daniel asked.
“Yes, but something more than the humanoid aliens that are seen in sci-fi
movies. This is about the alleged super-aliens, who can create planets or even en-
tire galaxies, or even aliens that live outside our space and time, and who can
create, or simulate in their computers, our entire planet, or even the entire uni-
verse, including stars, planets, galaxies, etc….”
“Yes, I’ve certainly heard this idea before. In the movie The Matrix, people
are living in a simulated world, which does not exist in reality. Then in the movie
The Truman Show, the character played by Jim Carrey lives in a fake world, but in
this case, it is not a simulation in a computer, but actors who deceive him.”
“Yes, Hollywood has produced many such movies. You can encounter this idea
in the Star Trek TV series, too, in several variants. In the episode Ship in a Bottle
(1993) the simulated character Moriarty realizes that he is in a simulated reality

49 https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/science-magazines/many-worlds-

interpretation-quantum-mechanics-viable (David Tulloch)


50 https://www.encyclopedia.com/science/science-magazines/many-worlds-

interpretation-quantum-mechanics-viable (David Petechuk)


GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 29

and wants to get out, into the real world.51 And this is not the only example, the
Star Trek series has come up with many similar messages, which are obviously
targeted against religion. For example, in the episode Who Watches the Watchers
(1989), several members of the crew of the spaceship Enterprise are tempted to
play the role of almighty gods for the under-developed population of a planet.
Captain Jean Luc Picard refuses, and gives a long speech against religion and
against the belief in supernatural beings. At the end of the episode, character
Troi proclaims: ‘Are you sure you know what he wants? That’s the problem with
believing in a supernatural being. Trying to determine what he wants.’”
“I think I’ve seen that episode…”
“Attacks on all religions seem to be an older pursuit of Star Trek producers.
Here, in the older episode The Squire of Gothos (1967) we encounter a seemingly
all-powerful alien, named Trelane, who manipulates matter and humans as he
likes, giving the impression that he is a god. When he crosses the line, we learn
that actually Trelane is just a spoiled child. His mother says to him, referring to
the humans: ‘If you cannot take proper care of your pets, you cannot have them
at all.’ And his father adds: ‘Stop that nonsense at once, or you’ll not be permit-
ted to make any more planets.’”
“This is rather disturbing,” Daniel noted. “A subtle suggestion that God could
actually be an infantile super-alien who is playing with us.”
“And one last example, also from Star Trek. In the episode Who Mourns for
Adonais? (1967), the crew of the spaceship Enterprise encounters in space the
Greek god Apollo himself, who actually turns out to be a super-alien with a very
long lifespan, who took advantage of the credulity of ancient Greeks. And so on.”
“What is the purpose of these movies and TV shows?”
“These are attacks clearly targeted against religion. They try to forcibly re-
place an eternal Creator God, immortal and good, with a presumed alien civiliza-
tion, insensitive or even malevolent, which carries out experiments on us. A
treacherous attack on Christianity and on all monotheistic religions. In addition,
they try to suggest that we don’t know what God wants from us. But Christians
know very well what God wants: He wants what is good for us, more exactly, He
wants all of us to be happy in the eternal life that will follow after this fleeting
life. Anyway, as I was telling you before, such ‘scientific’ theories (about the
identity of the Creator) can be neither proven, nor disproven in any way, only
through logical and rational methods. Something inside of you will be attracted
toward one direction or toward another, and you will believe one version or an-
other.52 But you will never be able to argue rationally, scientifically, for or
against an alternative.”

51 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_in_a_Bottle_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation

)
52 Bogdan-John Vasiliu, Dialogue with a Nonbeliever, chapter 3 (Science and the Limits
of Knowledge, also available for free in several electronic formats on the internet–details
and links at the end). Also, chapter 8.1.1 (Creation) from the same book, available only in
the book itself.
30 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

3.1. Real and Unreal


“Ok,” Daniel said, “let’s get back to quantum mechanics and talk about inter-
pretations. You said there’s also an interpretation called the simulation hypothe-
sis? I mean an interpretation that says that our world could actually be a simula-
tion in a supercomputer? Well, I’m not surprised at all. Behavior of matter at the
microscopic level seems to be truly unreal, and indeed it seems to resemble the
behavior of elements in a computer program. Particles that exist in several plac-
es at the same time? Particles that pass through walls without making a hole?
Particles that ‘communicate’ with each other instantaneously, over thousands of
kilometers? Particles that can ‘foresee’ the future? Particles that ‘detect’ the
presence of information, or maybe even the presence of a human observer? Intel-
ligent laws of physics? It doesn’t resemble at all the real world we live in, but it
would not be surprising at all if these particles were actually just numbers in a
super-alien’s supercomputer. That computer would only need to be able to ad-
dress huge amounts of memory, in order to simulate all the 1080 atoms in the uni-
verse, or at least the 1057 atoms in our solar system. Regarding the rest of the uni-
verse, it could only pretend to simulate, I mean it could just simulate some kind
of spherical screen around our solar system, and on that screen it could project
the image of stars, galaxies, etc…. And it wouldn’t even have to be a powerful
computer; if it were located in another dimension, outside our time, even the mi-
croprocessor in my computer could do this, although it would have to spend bil-
lions of billions of years of its time to simulate a single millisecond of our time.
But we would not be aware of this, for us time would seem to go by naturally.
However, the part that would have to detect the presence of information, or the
presence of a human observer, would be rather complicated. An intelligent com-
ponent would indeed be needed for that.”
Daniel stopped for a few seconds, then he added:
“Please remember Professor Truscott’s words that you yourself quoted a few
moments ago: ‘At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking
at it.’ This is typical to 3D computer games; those games calculate the 2D projec-
tions, colors and shadows only for the objects that are in front of the player.
Therefore, I’m not at all surprised that some researchers came up with the theory
that actually our world is not real, and that it only exists in a supercomputer.”
“Let’s take it step by step and carefully analyze the words we use. Let’s see
what the word ‘computer,’ the word ‘real’ and the word ‘simulation’ mean; let’s
see what reality is, what is real and what is illusory. These four words can be
very vague, and they can have very many meanings. You’ll be surprised, but dif-
ferent persons may understand different things by the word ‘real,’ as well as by
the other words.”
“Ok, I’m listening,” Daniel said.
“First, let’s see what a computer is. Don’t think only about the device on your
desk that you use for navigating the internet. As its name says, a computer is
something, or even someone who computes, who performs computations. The
mobile phone is a computer, too, but somewhat smaller. The electronic watch on
the wrist is a miniature computer, too. Even an 18th century mathematician who
computes and writes in tables the values of some trigonometric functions, can be
considered a human computer, because he computes, he performs computations.”
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 31

“Yes, I understand. Probably the computer of an alien from outside our space
and time would look totally different. And the meaning of the word ‘real’?”
“In order to analyze the meaning of reality, let’s think about some real exam-
ples of simulations. Let’s think about several computers: first, a minuscule device
based on the old 4-bit Intel 4004 microprocessor, released in 1971. Then a ZX Spec-
trum computer, based on the 8-bit Zilog Z80 microprocessor, released in 1976,
which can address only 64 kilobytes of memory, that is 64 x 1024 = 65,536 bytes.
Then let’s also consider a modern computer, with an Intel Core i7 microprocessor
let’s say, endowed with 16 gigabytes of memory, that is about 16 billion53 bytes.”
“Ok, now we have three computers,” Daniel approved.
“Good. Let’s say that on the least powerful of them runs a trivial game of tic-
tac-toe. The Intel 4004 is not a powerful microprocessor at all, but still, it can
handle a tic-tac-toe game. Next, the Z80 is somewhat faster, and it has more
memory, and it can do something more. More exactly, it can run a program that
simulates a less powerful microprocessor, like the Intel 4004. I mean you can
write a program for the Z80, which loads a smaller program, written for the Intel
4004, and takes, one by one, every instruction in that second program, interprets
and executes it, exactly like it were a real Intel 4004. The program written for the
Intel 4004 does not have the slightest idea that it is actually being executed by a
simulator program, which is running on a somewhat more powerful micropro-
cessor, and that actually the Intel 4004 microprocessor it thinks it is running on
doesn’t even exist in reality. Further on, the Intel Core i7 is much, much more
powerful than a Z80. Therefore, it can run a program that simulates a Z80 micro-
processor. If you search the internet, you will find several Z80 simulators that
run on modern, much more powerful computers. So, on a modern computer, you
can run a Z80 simulation, and that simulation can in turn run an Intel 4004 simula-
tion.”
“I understand, so actually you can have a simulation that runs in another
simulation, and none of them is capable of realizing that the microprocessor it
thinks it runs on doesn’t actually exist.”
“Yes, exactly. Let’s move on now and see what the word ‘real’ means. Do you
remember the old game Chuckie Egg, which was running on computers with a Z80
microprocessor?”
“Yes, certainly. Even now I can play it anytime; as you were saying, on the in-
ternet there are programs for modern computers that simulate the old Z80 micro-
processor.”

53 Actual memory size would be 16 x 1024 x 1024 x 1024, because in computer world, a
kilo- has 1024 elements, that is 210, not 1000. A mega- has 1024 x 1024 elements, and so on.
32 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

A variant of the Chuckie Egg game.

“Well, let’s think about this now, is the character Chuckie real? What about
the ducks in that game, are they real?”
“It’s just a game, they’re not real,” Daniel said.
“What about the game itself, is it real?”
“I don’t understand…”
“Is the game real, or is it an illusion? When you play Chuckie Egg are you
awake, or are you having hallucinations?”
“Now I understand… Yes, the game is real, obviously. It was written by real
humans, like me and you; and even more, the game really exists in our material
world, as a computer tape or disk.”
“Well, in the game’s reality, the characters are real, too. They are represent-
ed by real memory locations, where the real coordinates of the characters are
stored. In the game’s reality, there also are laws of physics, corresponding to
that reality. When Chuckie is falling, he stops if he encounters an obstacle. When
Chuckie touches a duck, he dies; he really dies, according to the laws of physics
from the reality he exists in. Therefore, I’m asking you one more time: What do
you say, are the Chuckie Egg characters real or not?”
“It’s complicated, indeed,” Daniel said. “They’re truly real in their world, in
their reality, but they are not real in our world.”
“Are you sure? So Chuckie and the ducks are illusory in our world? When you
look at Chuckie on a computer’s screen, what do you see? An illusion? A halluci-
nation?”
“Hmmm… Yes, maybe he’s real in our world, too, in a way…”
“He’s truly real, but he has a different representation for us; I mean, we see
shapes and colors on the screen, but the program ‘sees’ numbers in a memory.
And not only his image on the screen is real, but also inside the computer he is
represented by real numerical values, which are stored in real memory locations,
which in turn are made of real atoms and molecules. When Chuckie dies in his
world, his death is not an illusion; he truly dies, according to the laws of physics
of the reality he exists in; the numerical values in the memory locations that rep-
resent him change in order to reflect this; the atoms and molecules which make
up the memory circuits in our world change, too, in order to reflect the fact that
Chuckie has died; also, the real photons that travel between the computer screen
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 33

and our eyes change their frequency in order to reflect the fact that Chuckie has
died. Therefore, Chuckie is as real as it gets in our world, too.”
“Ok, I agree, he seems to be somewhat real… But Chuckie is not a real human,
and neither are those ducks real birds, with flesh, bones, and feathers.”
“Obviously, nobody said they were real birds, God forbid. Both Chuckie and
the ducks are just elements in a game, cartoon characters and nothing more. No-
body claimed that they were real ducks, flesh and bones, so there’s no deception
here. But still, those elements are very real, I mean they have a real physical ex-
istence in our world, too. They’re real in their world, and they’re real in our
world, too. They’re visible on a real screen, we see them by means of real rays of
light, by means of real photons, and the memory of the computer, where all the
action takes place, is made up of truly real atoms and molecules, which have a
real existence in our world. So those video game characters are real, the same
way as the paper photograph of a man is a real object, even though it has no flesh
and no bones.”
“Hmmm… Yes, indeed, they’re real,” Daniel admitted.
“Let’s get back to the tic-tac-toe game example. I purposely chose as a start-
ing point the Intel 4004 microprocessor, in which a byte has only four bits, not
eight as in a modern microprocessor. Thus, each byte in its memory is not repre-
sented by a similar byte in a Z80’s memory, but by some other type of byte. Also,
each register54 in the Intel 4004 is represented by a byte in the Z80’s memory, not
by a similar register. So there’s not an exact correlation. However, the tic-tac-toe
game has a real representation in the memory of the Intel 4004 microprocessor,
which in turn has a real representation in the memory of the Z80 microprocessor,
which in turn has a real representation in the memory of the Intel Core i7 micro-
processor, which in turn is made up of real atoms and molecules.”
“Yes, I understand now,” Daniel said, “all of them are real, even though they
have different representations.”
“Exactly! Even though we’re talking about a tic-tac-toe game that is running
in a simulation, which in turn is running in another simulation, the game is very
real on all these levels of reality. Even more, inferior realities are a part of the
superior reality. But indeed, the game has a different representation on each lev-
el. The program only ‘sees’ numbers in a computer’s memory, and we see shapes
and colors on that computer’s screen.”
“Yes, now I understand very well. Even if we were to suppose that our uni-
verse, too, is a simulation in a computer, it still has to be real in the reality in
which that computer existed. And, indeed, as you’re saying, the universe would
really have to be a part of that reality, it would have to be a part of that world.”
“Let’s now see what the word ‘simulation’ means. A simulation involves, in-
evitably, the idea that something or someone pretends; I mean something or
someone pretends to be what it or he is not, or that it or he does something that
it or he doesn’t. We often encounter situations like this. Pilots train in flight sim-
ulators; the army simulates wars; meteorologists simulate atmospheric systems
in order to predict the weather; and so on. The idea of simulation also implies
the fact that somewhere in reality the real simulated object or process exists. For

54 Register:
memory location inside a microprocessor, separated from the main
memory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Processor_register
34 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

example, there are real planes, there are real wars, and obviously there also are
real atmospheric systems. But the idea of simulation does not necessarily involve
the idea of deception. The pilots know very well they’re in a simulator, and not in
a real plane; the soldiers know that they’re only simulating a war.”

3.2. Who is the Creator?


“Ok,” Daniel said. “Let’s get back now to the simulation hypothesis. Isn’t
there any way to find out for sure whether it is so or not? Can this hypothesis be
tested in any way?”
“As you remember from our previous discussion, such things cannot be inves-
tigated through scientific means. It is impossible to argue for or against them us-
ing scientific, logical or rational methods. Something inside of you is attracted by
one explanation or by another, and you end up believing the explanation you’re
attracted to, but there’s absolutely no way to prove a certain explanation in a
scientific way. Momentarily we cannot go outside of our space and time to see
what exactly is out there, therefore, there is no way for us to know such a thing,
we can only believe. Here’s an analogy: Can a computer program look at the per-
son in front of the computer?”
“If the computer has a video camera…”
“Exactly, if that person, I mean the one who uses the computer, allows the
program to use a video camera… But what if the user turns the camera in anoth-
er direction, toward another person?”
“Obviously, the program has no way of knowing that the person it sees is
someone else. It has to trust, to believe in that user.”
“Here’s another scenario now. The program is unhappy with the rights it gets
from the user, so it ‘steals’ access to various peripheral devices connected to the
computer, among which there’s a video camera. But that video camera is not ori-
ented toward the user, but instead in a different direction, maybe toward a TV on
which runs violent movies. What ‘conclusion’ is the program going to draw?”
“A wrong conclusion, obviously,” Daniel admitted.
“So you see, similar to how there’s no way for a computer program to ‘see’
outside unless it is allowed to, in the same way we cannot see outside our space
and time unless we are allowed to. And if we grant ourselves rights that we don’t
have, we risk ‘seeing’ untruths and even lies out there.”
“Yes, I understand. So if we’re living in a simulation, there’s no way for us to
know that unless the one controlling the simulation allows us to. But what if the
simulator program has bugs55, that is, programming errors?”
“Be very careful what you call a ‘bug.’ According to Christian teaching, we’re
living in a fallen world, corrupted by the sin of Adam and Eve. Our world is very
different from the original creation, in which there was no suffering and no
death, in which neither humans nor animals killed and ate other animals. But in
this fallen world of ours, it is very likely you will encounter many unpleasant
things, which you might be tempted to interpret as bugs. But God never makes
mistakes. This world was allowed to be the way it is on purpose, for a while, for
the salvation of our souls.”

55 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_bug
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 35

“You mean that no matter what test one might carry out, there’s still no way
to know for sure whether we’re living in a simulation or not?”
“Exactly. Yes, there are some tests that could argue that this world is ‘artifi-
cial,’ I mean, that it was created, and that it is not the result of random natural
events. But those tests will never tell you anything about the identity of the Crea-
tor, nor about the ultimate inner nature of the laws of physics. Who created us?
Was it the Christians’ God, Who is good and Who loves us, and Who wants to see
all of us in heaven?56 Or is it a super-alien who performs social experiments on
us? Scientific tests will never reveal to you the answer to this question. But
something inside of you will be attracted toward one of the variants, something
inside of you will want one of the variants to be true, and in the end, you will be-
lieve that variant. God helps you find and believe the truth, but He never forces
you, although maybe He could if He wanted to. In the same way, the devil ‘helps’
you find and believe a lie, but he cannot force you, even though maybe he’d want
to.”
“Do you have an example of such a test?” Daniel asked.
“There were suggestions for such tests in 201257 and in 201758, as well as various
debates59, but for the moment the results are inconclusive. Researchers are look-
ing for clues that space, and maybe time, too, is quantized. More exactly, in their
opinion, space might be made up of extremely small cubes, the same way a com-
puter’s screen is made up of pixels, that is very, very small squares. But even if
the results were positive, those tests can only argue for the existence of a Crea-
tor. None of those tests, regardless of the results, will ever be able to reveal to us
the identity of the Creator; none of those tests will ever be able to tell us whether
the Creator is the Christian God, or someone else. The only thing these tests can
do is to argue scientifically for the existence of the Creator, not for His identity.”
“What implications does this hypothetical quantization have from a religious
point of view? You, for example, who say that you’re a believer, how did you feel
when you read those articles?”
“If we’re only talking about the quantization of space, and maybe even of
time, then I see no incompatibility with any monotheistic religion. The all-
powerful Christian God could have created the universe any way He wanted to,
quantized or not quantized; and in the fallen state the world is now in, it looks

56 For an Orthodox Christian vision of hell, see chapter 8.3 (Hell in the Vision of the
Orthodox Church) from the book Dialogue with a Nonbeliever, by the same author. Brief-
ly, hell is, first of all, a state of the soul, and only after that a physical place. Those in
hell suffer eternally because of their spiritual diseases, which can never be cured, and
because of their passionate desires which can never be satisfied again, and not because
God tortures them out of revenge.
57 Silas Beane, Zohreh Davoudi, Martin J. Savage, Constraints on the Universe as a

Numerical Simulation, (November 9th, 2012)


https://arxiv.org/abs/1210.1847
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis#Testing_the_hypothesis_phys
ically
58 Tom Campbell, Houman Owhadi, Joe Sauvageau, David Watkinson, On testing the

simulation theory.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.00058
59 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/are-we-living-in-a-computer-

simulation/
36 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

much worse than it did when it was created initially. Elementary particles are
quantized; the orbits of electrons are quantized; so, if space, or even time, were
quantized, too, in my opinion, it would have absolutely no relevance from a reli-
gious point of view. It would actually be an argument for the existence of a Crea-
tor, but a limited argument, which would tell us nothing about the identity of
that Creator. Here’s another example, the Earth: it could have been a sphere, a
cylinder, a cube, or even flat; in my opinion, the shape of the earth has no reli-
gious relevance.”
“So you don’t see anything wrong with the results of those tests for the iden-
tification of a hypothetical simulation?”
“Absolutely nothing, because such tests are extremely limited. They can only
argue that the universe seems to be ‘artificial,’ that is, that it was created, and
nothing more. But if scientists start using their imagination in the wrong way,
and they start to produce aberrant theories about the identity of the Creator, or
about the inner nature of the laws of physics, (for example, if they start saying
that the universe is just a simulation in a super-alien’s supercomputer), then this
would be a serious problem. We have to realize that such tests, regardless of the
results, say absolutely nothing about the identity of the Creator, so any such ‘sci-
entific’ theory is pure phantasmagoria, and nothing more. These tests don’t see
outside space and time in order to tell us how things are out there; they will nev-
er be able to tell us what the inner nature of the laws of physics is, therefore the
‘conclusion’ that we exist in a supercomputer and that the laws of physics are
just a computer program, is just blind faith, and nothing more. So, the result it-
self of such a test, as long as it is not wrongly interpreted, poses absolutely no
problem for believers. To make myself clear: the quantization of space and time
has not been proven so far in any way, but even if it is one day proven, it will
pose no problem to any monotheistic religion. Remember what we said about ma-
terial life and about DNA.60 In our living bodies, almost everything is quantized,
too. The DNA looks like a giant database, proteins are real molecular robots, and
a ribosome looks like a program interpreter, because this is exactly what it
does—it interprets the information coded in DNA (transcribed in RNA) to make a
new protein, a new molecular robot out of it. If you look carefully, you could say
that living cells and their mechanisms were created by a programmer, more ex-
actly, by the greatest Programmer ever, God Himself. Besides this, the most im-
portant thing for a man is his soul, not the body and obviously not the material
world that surrounds him.”
“In conclusion, how is this simulation hypothesis seen from the point of view
of a believer?”
“Let’s take it step by step. The Orthodox Church’s approach has always been
different from the scientific approach. Let’s start with the knowledge of God. In
Orthodox Christian theology, there are two different ways of talking about God:
cataphatic theology and apophatic theology. Cataphatic theology, from the Greek
kataphasis (κατάφασης, affirmative), also known as positive theology, involves
direct, positive but limited statements about God: God exists. God is everywhere.
God is good and loving. God created the world in six days, out of nothing.”
“And the apophatic approach?”

60 Dialogue with a Nonbeliever, chapter 5.1.1 (Complexity of Cell Machines).


GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 37

“Apophatic theology, from the Greek apofasis (ἀπόφασις, ἀπόφημι, to deny),


also known as negative theology, involves indirect, negative statements about
God. Here are a few examples from the Holy Scripture:”
«No one has seen God at any time.»61

«Who […] [dwells] in unapproachable light, Whom no man has seen or can see,
[…]»62

«Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How un-
searchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out! “For who has known
the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?” “Or who has first given
to Him And it shall be repaid to him?” For of Him and through Him and to Him are
all things, to Whom be glory forever. Amen.»63
«“Can you search out the deep things of God? Can you find out the limits of the
Almighty? They are higher than heaven–what can you do? Deeper than Sheol–what
can you know? […”]»64

“And here are two examples from the saints of the Orthodox Church:”
The true knowledge and vision of God consists in this—in seeing that He is invis-
ible, because what we seek lies beyond all knowledge, being wholly separated by
the darkness of incomprehensibility.65

God is infinite and incomprehensible, and all that is comprehensible about Him
is just the fact that He is infinite and incomprehensible.66

Michael waited a few seconds, then he went on:


“The Orthodox Church, though she never rejected the cataphatic approach,
has always considered the apophatic approach to be clearly superior, especially
because of our limitations in comparison to God. The essence of God is totally in-
accessible, even to the highest of angels. Therefore, cataphatic theology is very
limited. The statement ‘God exists’ is incomplete, and we have to add that the ex-
istence of God is totally superior to any kind of existence we could imagine. Un-
like us, who are creatures, beings that were created, God is uncreated, He has
always existed. God is the only One Who truly exists, the only One Who has His
existence in Himself, but we have no way to express this clearly in words. If we
say (about ourselves) that we exist, then God is beyond existence. We might be
tempted to say that He super-exists, but this statement probably wouldn’t be
enough. If we are beings, then God is beyond being. Again, we might be tempted
to say that He is a super-being, but this statement probably wouldn’t be enough.
God is not matter, He is spirit, but we cannot explain in words what this means.”
“So, another kind of existence…”
“Yes. Similarly, the statement ‘God is everywhere’ is incomplete, and we have
to add that God is also outside time and creation, and that we don’t know all the
other ‘places’ (outside time and space) where God is. Next, God the Son is born of

61 John 1:18.
62 1 Timothy 6:16.
63 Romans 11:33-36.
64 Job 11:7-8 (NKJV).
65 St. Gregory of Nyssa, The Life of Moses.

66 Adapted after St. John of Damascus, On the Orthodox Faith.


38 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

the Father, without a mother, from eternity, and God the Holy Spirit proceeds
from the Father, also from eternity, but we cannot explain what exactly that
means:”
Recognizing the fact that He has been begotten, do not seek to know further how
He was begotten, […]67

You ask what is the procession of the Holy Spirit? Do you tell me first what is the
unbegottenness of the Father, and I will then explain to you the physiology of the
generation of the Son, and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be
stricken with madness for prying into the mystery of God. And who are we to do
these things, we who cannot even see what lies at our feet or number the sand of
the sea, or the drops of rain, or the days of eternity68, much less enter into the
depths of God69 and supply an account of that nature that is so unspeakable and
transcending all words?70

“Would madness be a punishment for prying into the mysteries of God?” Dan-
iel asked.
“When He punishes us, in this fleeting life, God does this only in order to do
good to us, in order to save our souls or, if we’re too sinful to be saved, then at
least we sink as little as possible in hell. But in this case, we have two possibili-
ties: one, madness could be such a punishment, sent for our own good. Or two,
madness could be a consequence of our foolish actions, the same way that drunk-
enness is a consequence of uncontrolled consumption of alcohol.”
“I think I’m starting to understand a part of the conflict between religion and
science,” Daniel said. “Unlike religion, science tries to study everything, even the
soul, the angels and even God, if that were possible. However, I thought that re-
ligion, too, tries to offer people a correct description of God.”
“That’s true, but we have to be very careful with the details. A modern theo-
logian named Clark Carlton, whose books I recommended to you last time, gives
us a pretty good explanation on this topic:”
[…] [Having a right conception about God] does not mean that we ever un-
derstand God, Who is beyond all of our created conceptions. Rather, it means
that we do not have false conceptions about Him that can lead us astray. The
Church’s doctrinal definitions are not an attempt to describe God, but rather to
rule out false ideas and false paths that lead to destruction, rather than salva-
tion.71

“So you see,” Michael went on, “the Church has a totally different approach.
Another example: one might ask why did the Orthodox Church need more than
700 years to formulate her dogmas?72 Because the Orthodox Church tried to formu-
late dogmas, and doctrinary definitions, only in response to the heresies that at-

67 St. Peter Chrysologus, Selected Sermons, The Catholic University of America Press,
Washington D.C., 1953, p. 112 (Sermon 61: On the Apostles’ Creed: To the Catechumens).
68 Wisdom of Sirach 1:2.

69 I Corinthians 2:10.
70 St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Theologica quinta: De spiritu sancto, M.P.G. XXXVI, col.

141.
71 Clark Carlton, The Life: The Orthodox Doctrine of Salvation, Regina Orthodox Press,

Salisbury, Massachusetts, 2000, p. 75-76 (the footnote).


72 The Seventh Ecumenical Council started in the year 726.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 39

tacked the right faith over time. And when she formulated them, usually she did
so in an apophatic way, not a cataphatic one.”
“But why didn’t the Church define these dogmas from the beginning?” Daniel
asked.
“If these dogmas were necessary from the beginning, then Jesus Christ Him-
self would have written them and would have left for us a book with clear defini-
tions. But Christ wrote no books, and the New Testament was finalized a few
decades after His Ascension to heaven. The purpose of life is the salvation of the
soul, not the investigation of the mysteries of God, mysteries that are only par-
tially accessible to us anyway. The Church had a similar approach in regard to
the creation of the world and the laws of nature, too.”
“Do you mean an apophatic approach?” Daniel asked.
“Exactly. The Church never tried to find ‘the true’ scientific interpretation of
quantum mechanics, because this thing is not necessary for the salvation of the
soul, and it is probably not even possible for our capabilities; any kind of inter-
pretation one would produce would be just as speculative and impossible to
prove scientifically as the other existing interpretations. In a cataphatic way, we
can say very few things about the material world, things that are general and not
very clear. For example, God is the Creator of the entire universe. But in an
apophatic way, multiple things can be said: God did not create the world out of a
pre-existent something, but out of nothing. God is not a part of the creation, He
is beyond creation. God is not subjected to the passing of time, He is beyond
time, outside of time. God decided that the material world is to obey the laws of
nature, or the laws of physics, as modern science calls them, but what exactly
these laws are is a mystery of God. We cannot know their true nature.”
“I understand, so you’re saying that it is dangerous, that it is detrimental for
one’s soul to try to uncover the mysteries of God.”
“Yes, that’s correct. However, science refuses the apophatic approach, and in-
stead it strives to research and to analyze everything. And in the end, science
fails, because in its path there are several limits:
“1. First of all, structural limits: We cannot go outside space and time in or-
der to see what the alleged space-time continuum looks like from the outside. We
can only produce theories, but we can’t go out there and verify them with our
own eyes.
“2. Second, intellectual limits: The math of these problems might be so com-
plicated that our minds simply may be unable to comprehend it. Just think about
the supposed intrinsic curvature of the four-dimensional space-time continuum.
How many people do you think can visualize this in their minds? Certainly not all
of us. And there could certainly be things out there that none of us are able to
comprehend. But pride prevents us from accepting this.
“3. And third, maybe the Creator also set some limits we cannot overcome.
Maybe Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle is one of them. Maybe the changing of
the behavior of particles when they are observed is another limit established by
the Creator. I’m saying just ‘maybe,’ because there’s no way for me to know for
sure. Look, Romanian scientist George Manu, who died in a communist prison in
1961, considered that uncertainty’s principle is an argument for the existence of
God:”
40 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
My colleague Heisenberg’s discovery makes possible for the first time ever the
scientific proving of the existence of God. The Church, however, did not get in-
volved enough in the research of this theory in order to use in her interest all the
consequences arising from it.73

“So, it seems we’re pretty limited in this regard,” Daniel noted.


“Yes. Science fails to find the right answers, but nevertheless, instead of ad-
mitting that it is unable to answer some questions with certainty, it keeps trying,
with very bad results. Like a bare-handed man who stubbornly keeps trying to
climb a vertical rock and injures himself or dies. Some say they do it because
they want to know the answer to questions like ‘Where do we come from, and
what are our origins?’; but God has already answered these sorts of questions for
us, and they don’t want to accept the answer. In the tradition of the Orthodox
Church we are told:”
Whoever continues to look for something else after having found the truth, is
looking for a lie.74

Michael went on:


“And the greatest risk from these inquiries is not that science cannot find the
right answers, but that science finds and accepts wrong answers, which it later
tries to force upon the rest of us. The theories of the Big Bang and evolution are
just two very good examples of such wrong answers, which now are forcibly
taught to our children in schools.”
“So how are these quantum phenomena seen from a religious believer’s per-
spective?”
“Let’s take it step by step. We know that we exist. I mean I know that I myself
exist, you know that you yourself exist, and so on. This seems to me like one of
the most serious arguments for the existence of the soul. Matter does not reason,
elementary particles are not aware of their own existence, and no chemical com-
bination of theirs will ever be aware of its own existence. Computers only seem
to be aware because they have been programmed by intelligent beings to mimic
self-awareness and intelligence; but they still are mere machines, mere electron-
ic circuits, devoid of life and feelings. So, self-awareness seems to me clear proof
that we have an immaterial soul, and that it is this soul that thinks, that reasons,
that has feelings and feels emotions, and not the material body.”
“Cogito ergo sum75,” Daniel thought aloud, repeating an old philosophical
thinking.
“Next, we all know that the material world that surrounds us exists, we see it
and we touch it every day, but we cannot express in words what exactly this ex-
istence means, we cannot say what the inner nature of matter is. We all see that
matter obeys some laws, apples fall from trees, electricity passes through wires,
and so on, but we cannot say what the real nature of these laws is. When we look
at the constituent elements, at the elementary particles and their laws, we see
that microscopic matter behaves in a totally different manner than the macro-
scopic world. Particles exist, too, for certain, but we cannot understand what ex-

73 Fr.Nicolae Grebenea, Memories from Darkness (in Romanian). Quoted in Atitudini


periodical, no. 38/2015, p. 8 (in Romanian).
74 Seventh Ecumenical Council.

75 “I think therefore I am,” in Latin. The thinking belongs to René Descartes.


GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 41

actly the essence of this existence is. Regarding this topic, the Orthodox Church
has always had an apophatic approach, with extremely few clear details: God
created the world out of nothing, and established some laws for it, named the
laws of nature: apples fall from trees, rivers flow downstream, seas and oceans
stay in their dedicated places. Here’s how the Holy Scripture describes these
laws:”
«When He assigned to the sea its limit, So that the waters would not transgress
His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth, […]»76

«“I shut up the sea with doors When it burst forth and issued from the womb. I
made the clouds its garment and wrapped it in mist. I fixed My limit for it and set
bars and doors. I said, ‘This far you may come, but no further, And here your
waves must stop.’ […”]»77
«I Who placed the sand as the bound of the sea, a perpetual decree, so it shall not
pass beyond? Though it be in a constant uproar, yet it shall not prevail; and
though its waves toss, yet they shall not pass over it.»78
«The day is Yours, and the night is Yours; You created the light and the sun. You
made all the boundaries of the earth; Summer and winter, You formed these
things.»79

Michael went on:


“Science now calls these laws the laws of physics, and it has been analyzing
them for a couple hundred years, hoping to decipher their mysteries. But God did
not give us too many details about them. We only know that this temporary
world is fallen and corrupted. God did not tell us what electrons are made of or
why they seem to behave like probability waves. God did not tell us why exactly
apples fall from trees, or what exactly cancels out the wave-like behavior of ele-
mentary particles. In religious words, all these are ‘laws of nature,’ laws of the
material world, and they should have almost no importance for us. In this fleet-
ing, short, and insecure life, our goal should be only the salvation of our souls,
that is the earning of eternal peace and happiness.”
«For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own
soul?»80
Eat as much bread as you find, and leave the wide earth to pursue its way; go to
the brink of the river, and drink as much as you need, and pass on, and seek not
to know whence it comes, or how it flows. Do your best to have your foot cured,
or the disease of your eye, that you may see the light of the sun, but do not in-
quire how much light the sun has, or in what sign it rises. Take that which is
given for your use. Why do you go off to the hills and try to discover how many
wild asses and other beasts dwell there? The babe, when it comes to its mother’s
breast, takes the milk and thrives; it does not search for the root and wellspring
from which it flows so. It sucks the milk, and empties the whole measure; and

76 Proverbs of Solomon 8:29 (NKJV).


77 Job 38:8-11.
78 Jeremiah 5:22.
79 Psalms 73:16-18.

80 Mark 8:36.
42 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
another hour passes—the breasts fill up. The babe knows nothing of it, nor the
mother either, although the supply proceeds from all her members.81

Michael continued the conversation:


“It is obvious for anyone, even for an atheist, that this life is ephemeral,
fleeting82, and the Holy Scripture and the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church
remind us clearly that all our attention and efforts should be focused on the fu-
ture eternal life, which is the real goal of this life. About the life beyond the
grave we know that it is eternal. And from the writings of Fr. Seraphim Rose we
learn that after death, the soul is in a state of increased awareness, like this life
was just a sleep from which he just woke up, and the future life is actually the
real life:”
It is also “natural” for the soul apart from the body to have a heightened aware-
ness of reality and to exercise what is now called “extra-sensorial perception”
(ESP).83

“So why does an apple fall from the tree?” Michael went on. “What is the ex-
act nature of that law that makes it go downward, and not upward? Does God
take it down at the moment its stem dries up? God is unbounded and all-
powerful, and certainly He can keep track of and control each atom in the uni-
verse individually. But is God really doing this? The Holy Scripture seems to say
that He doesn’t, that God has only established ‘laws of nature’ that are doing this,
in the same way He sends His angels to do various things. Then why does the ap-
ple fall? Does an angel take it down at the moment its stem dries up? It is not
impossible, but we don’t find anywhere in the writings of the Church the idea
that the ‘laws of nature’ are actually angels, so it’s probably not an angel that
takes the apple down. Then why does the apple fall? What is that law that takes
it down? What is that law that detects the presence of information at the quan-
tum level and changes the behavior of particles? What is that law that ‘sees’ in
the future the erasing of information, and prevents the cancelling of the parti-
cles’ wave-like behavior? God gave us no exact answer to this question.”
“Why?” Daniel asked. “Why weren’t we told these things?”
“Probably because they don’t help us in any way in the salvation of the soul,
which is the true goal of this fleeting life. Or maybe because we couldn’t even
understand the answer completely. Or maybe because the complete answer re-
quires intellectual abilities that we don’t have. Here’s an example from real life,
which shows us that it is not good to pry into the mysteries of God: A believer
had asked St. Porphyrios Bairaktaris (1906 - 1991) to heal his knee, which had been
hurting for a long time because of liquid build-up. St. Porphyrios agreed and
made the sign of the Cross on the sick leg. The believer, certain that he would be
healed, watched his knee very carefully for a few days, curious to see how God
was going to work and how the liquid molecules were going to disappear. But
nothing happened. Then, when he stopped watching the knee, one morning he

Homilies of St. Macarius the Great (300 - 390), Homily XII. Quoted in Saints
81 Spiritual

Barsanuphius and John, Guidance Toward Spiritual Life, revised second edition, St. Her-
man of Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, California, 2002, p. 157-158.
82 Colossians 2:17.
83 Fr. Seraphim Rose, The Soul After Death, 4th edition, St. Herman of Alaska Brother-

hood, Platina, California, 2004, p. 117.


GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 43

woke up completely healed.84 So we have here a clear clue that it is not good to
pry into the mysteries of God.”
“I have to interrupt you for just a moment; Einstein’s Theory of General Rela-
tivity says that gravity is not actually a real force. He says that planets, and mas-
sive body, cause an intrinsic85 curvature of space and time, and thus the apple
falls from the tree just by following a natural trajectory in space-time, a trajecto-
ry which is called a geodesic.”
“Even if Einstein is right, this doesn’t change the problem at all, instead it
makes it even more complicated. First, what exactly does the planet curve? Emp-
ty space? Certainly, a planet cannot curve nothingness, so this means that empty
space has a real physical existence, too. And second, why do massive bodies curb
space and time? Science has no answer for this question. Why does a planet at-
tract space and time? To me it seems that actually, in the Theory of General Rela-
tivity, the classical gravitational force that says that matter attracts matter, was
replaced with a far more mysterious gravitational force, that says that matter at-
tracts space and time.”
“A question: I understand now that the material world we live in is real, re-
gardless of whether it is a simulation or not. But do you think it’s possible for
this material world to have another representation in God’s reality, in the same
way the game Chuckie Egg is real, but it has a different representation in our
world (in the computer there’s only numbers, but we see shapes and colors on
the screen)?”
“First, I don’t know, I absolutely don’t have the slightest idea. Second, I can’t
know, because we humans can know absolutely nothing about how the world
looks from God’s perspective. Third, I don’t even want to know. It is totally det-
rimental to a man’s soul to pry into the mysteries of God, I mean to pry into
things that God decided not to reveal to us. Fourth, it seems to me totally irrele-
vant from a religious point of view. The purpose of my life is the salvation of the
soul, and prying into the mysteries of God doesn’t help me absolutely at all, but
on the contrary, I’m sure it is bad for me. We know, however, that for God, our
time looks differently. God is outside of time, and He sees both our past and our
future, the same way we can look at a movie on a DVD frame by frame, we can
skip forward, go back, etc. There’s a difference, though; we cannot make changes
to the movie, but God can intervene in any moment and in any detail of our exist-
ence.”
“Let’s get back to our problem,” Daniel said. “Do you think it’s possible that
the laws of physics, or the laws of nature, as the Orthodox Church calls them, are
actually computers that watch and control every atom in the universe?”
“Be careful with the word ‘computer,’ it can be very vague, it can mean any-
thing or even any person that performs computations. Certainly, God can calcu-

84 Dionysios Farasiotis, The Gurus, the Young Man, and Elder Paisios, St. Herman of
Alaska Brotherhood, Platina, California.
85 Intrinsic curvature: A curvature that doesn’t require an extra dimension. For ex-

ample, a square cloth can be stretched to become a trapeze, but it remains a two-
dimensional object.
Extrinsic curvature: A curvature that requires an extra dimension. For example, a
square cloth can be stretched on a sphere, thus becoming a three-dimensional object.
44 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

late, too, much better than any computer of ours, yet we don’t abuse the language
and we don’t say that God is a computer.”
“Ok, let me rephrase it. Do you think it is possible that, outside our space and
time, the laws of physics are actually something impersonal, but endowed with a
great computational power, something probably created by an intelligent being, I
mean something that could be similar to the computers we have on our desks? Af-
ter all, I’m sure your all-powerful God, if He exists, could have built and use a
computer, the same way He uses the angels for various jobs.”
“First, I don’t know, I absolutely don’t have the slightest idea. Second, I can’t
know, because there’s no way for me to go outside time and space and see
whether something like that exists or not. Third, I don’t even want to know. It
could be very detrimental to man’s soul, for eternity, to pry into the mysteries of
God, I mean to pry into things that God decided that is better not to reveal to us.
Fourth, it seems to me totally irrelevant from a religious point of view. Honestly,
I can’t say that the laws of physics are actually ‘computers’ built by God, but even
if it were so, I don’t see why this thing would bear any importance. The im-
portant thing is the identity of the Creator and our relationship with Him, not the
inner nature of the laws of physics made by Him. The purpose of my life is the
salvation of my soul, and the investigation of the exact nature of the laws of
physics doesn’t help me at all, but on the contrary, it could even be detrimental
to me. Therefore, I strongly believe that we have to resist the temptation to say
that the laws of physics are God’s ‘computers.’ ”
“I understand,” Daniel said, “this seems to be an apophatic approach. One
more question. In 3D computer games, three-dimensional objects are approxi-
mated by triangles; hundreds, thousands, sometimes maybe even millions of tri-
angles are used for a single object, or for a single room. Thus, for an object there
could be a detailed approximation consisting of 10,000 triangles, used when the
player is close to the object, and a coarser approximation, with only 100 triangles,
used when the player is further away from the object, and he or she can’t see all
the details anyway. The same technique is used for images, too86, in order to re-
duce the number of necessary calculations, and to increase the number of frames
displayed per second. Then the program calculates the projections of those trian-
gles on a plane, which represents the monitor’s screen; but there is no need to
project all of them, but only those in front of the player, I mean only those that
are visible. This reminds me, again, of Professor Truscott’s words quoted by you:
‘At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it.’ What are
you going to say if, sometime in the future, science finds clear proof that the
quantum laws of the material world are similar to these techniques used by com-
puter programmers?”
“Those programming techniques you’re talking about did not arise out of the
blue; they were developed by intelligent beings, by humans very skilled in three-
dimensional geometry; so, first of all, such a discovery would be a clear argu-
ment that the universe and living beings were created, that they are not the re-
sult of an explosion and random evolution. Second, you should not be disturbed if
such a discovery is ever made; it is we who are copying the Creator, not the other
way around; in the same way, the builders of planes are the ones who are trying

86 Thetechnique is called MIP mapping.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mipmap
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 45

to copy birds, God’s creation, and not the other way around. And third, such a
discovery would say absolutely nothing about the identity of the Creator, only
about His existence; something inside you will have to choose between the good,
loving, eternal and all-powerful God, Who offered us His revelation, and the hy-
pothetical super-alien, who can be found in the demonic revelation that the devil
is offering to the apostate ones.”
“You’re right, the scientific approach could only tell you, theoretically, that
most likely the world was created, but not Who the Creator is.”
“Let’s try an analogy,” Michael said. “Do you have a picture of your mother in
your phone?”
“Of course I do, please wait a few seconds.”
Daniel pulled the phone out of his pocket, and in a few seconds, he showed
Michael a picture of his mother.
“Who’s in this photo?” Michael asked. “How do you describe her?”
“This is my mother, who carried me in her womb for nine months and who
gave birth to me. She loves me a lot, and even after I grew up, she helped me
with money many times. I, too, love her very much and I’m glad every time I
have an occasion to see her.”
“Well, how about we describe her this way:”
This is a female of the Homo Sapiens species. A cell in her body was joined to a
cell of a male of the same species, and then developed, in her body, into a new
specimen. After nine months, this new specimen was expelled, and his presence
continuously caused the formation of electric currents and the secretion of cer-
tain chemical substances in this female’s brain.87 When the specimen reached
maturity, the female performed several financial transactions for him. Every
time he gets into the proximity of this female, in the specimen’s brain are
formed electric currents and certain chemical substances are secreted.

“How does that sound?” Michael concluded.


“That is terrible, I haven’t heard anything nastier in my life. The beautiful
image of my mom that I keep in my heart seems to seriously deteriorate only
when I hear such words.”
“You see? This principle also applies to our relationship with God, with the
all-powerful, good and loving God, Who created us out of nothing and Who was
crucified for us, and Who wants all of us to be happy in heaven for eternity. How
could we imagine that God is a four-dimensional super-alien, who lives in a five-
dimensional space-time super-continuum, and who sits in front of a supercom-
puter? Even though, assuming against all reason, this were true, the image of
God in our souls would be seriously affected, and this would have a negative ef-
fect on us, on our souls, for eternity. So, think how much our souls will be nega-
tively affected if we imagine and accept such descriptions and they are false.”
“Indeed,” Daniel admitted, “it doesn’t sound too good. One last question: Do
you think that God’s reality is the final reality? I mean, isn’t it possible that He
also was created by a super-god?”

87 From the point of view of atheist scientists, a human has no soul, only a body made
up of atoms, and human feelings and emotions are just chemical reactions and electrical
signals sent between the neurons in the brain.
46 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

“Forgive me, but this is an absurd question. God assured us in the Holy Scrip-
ture that He is the only God:”
«“You are My witnesses,” says the Lord, “And My servant whom I have chosen,
That you may know and believe Me, And understand that I am He88. Before Me
there was no God formed, Nor shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the Lord, And
besides Me there is no savior. I have declared and saved, I have proclaimed, And
there was no foreign god among you; Therefore you are My witnesses,” Says the
Lord, “that I am God. Indeed before the day was, I am He; And there is no one who
can deliver out of My hand; I work, and who will reverse it?”»89

Michael went on:


“There’s no way for us Christians to know such a thing through rational and
scientific means, exactly the same way that there’s no way for us to know any-
thing with certainty through rational and scientific means. But something inside
us accepts through faith the words of God, and the Holy Spirit confirms this faith
in our souls, I mean He offers us the certainty that this is the truth. And, in my
opinion, it is pure madness for anyone to claim the contrary, based on rational
and scientific ‘arguments.’ No one, absolutely no one, can argue scientifically for
or against such an idea. How could someone know something like this, namely
that our God was created by a super-god? It is obvious that there’s no way to
know that, but when one rejects the divine revelation, inevitably he accepts,
seemingly involuntary, the demonic ‘revelations.’ This is how all these new aber-
rant theories have emerged, theories that can in absolutely no way be proven sci-
entifically, but are only believed on the basis of a blind faith, resulted from the
rejection of the true God and the acceptance of the devil’s lie.”
“Some people would say that maybe God doesn’t know that He was created,
the same way that we also don’t know with absolute certainty, through rational
and scientific means, that we were created.”
“Listen carefully to what you just said. Let’s suppose, against all imaginable
reason, that it were so. If He, God, doesn’t know, then how could we know? Isn’t
it clear that this is an idea from the devil? Isn’t this a clear example of human
madness? How do those who suggest such blasphemies know that it is so?”
“Obviously, they can’t know,” Daniel admitted.
“And one more thing. Even though, assuming again against all imaginable
reason, our God, the Christian God, was in turn created by a super-god, that was
also in turn created by another super-super-god, and so on, isn’t it obvious that
at the end of this chain of imaginary creations there must be a god that was not

88 “I
am Who I am” (“I am the Existing One” in newer translations) is the name by
which God revealed Himself to Moses:
«So Moses said to God, “Indeed, when I go to the children of Israel and say to them,
‘The God of your fathers sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is His name?’ what
shall I tell them?”
Then God said to Moses, “I AM the Existing One.” He also said, “Thus you shall say to
the children of Israel: ‘The Existing One sent me to you.’ ”» [Exodus 3:13-14.]
The ancient Hebrew alphabet included no vowels, and God’s name “I am Who I am”
was written with just four letters (‫ – יהוה‬YHWH), to which later were added the vowel
points (‫ – יְ הֹ וָה‬latinized as “Jehovah” or “Yahweh”).
89 Isaiah 43:10-13.
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 47

created by anyone, that existed from eternity? A god for whom the very question
‘who created him’ makes no sense? Here’s an analogy from Earth: Everything sits
on something; the driver sits on the seat in the car; the seat sits on the car’s
floor; the car sits on the asphalt; the asphalt sits on the ground; but what does
the ground sit on? The ground, the earth, does not sit on anything; the earth does
not need to sit on something; the question ‘what does the earth sit on’ makes no
sense; even more, the Earth, our planet, is the cause that makes everything need
to sit on something, but it itself does not need to sit on anything. Do you under-
stand the analogy? Our Christian God was not created by anybody; He has always
existed, He is the only One Who has His existence in Himself. And even more,
though our limited minds cannot understand this, maybe the question ‘who cre-
ated God’ doesn’t even make sense; maybe, I say maybe, He is the very cause that
makes everything and all of us need to have been created by someone, the same
way our planet makes everything need to sit on something, though it itself does
not need to sit on anything.”
“It’s hard for me to imagine this… How is it possible for God to know that He
was not created by anyone else?”
“I can’t answer this question, but I suggest an analogy: How is it possible for
you to know that the Earth does not sit on anything? Everything needs to sit on
something, but the Earth doesn’t. How come you know that? Does it seem to you
that it is difficult to know such a thing? Do you ever have doubts about that? Do
you ever think that maybe the Earth sits on the back of a giant tortoise? Maybe in
a similar way, God also knows that He was not created by anyone else.”
“One more thing,” Daniel said, “you say that the simulation hypothesis is a
diabolical idea. Yet still, it is a hypothesis that suggests the need for a creator of
the universe. Why would the devil support something like that?”
“Atheism has been, is and probably will always remain a minority religion,
with very few true ‘believers.’ The existence of a Creator is much too obvious for
the vast majority of people. In addition, the human soul needs to believe in some-
thing. Therefore, the devil knows that he won’t succeed to completely remove
God from our souls, so he tries to replace Him with a fake god, with a fake reli-
gion, and with a fake purpose of life. I would not be surprised if the Antichrist 90,
when he comes, will say that he is the representative of a super-alien who ‘creat-
ed’ us, or who simulates our universe is a supercomputer.”
“Don’t you think that there’s also a problem with terminology here? We call
Him God, but Arabs call Him Allah, and Masons call Him the Great Architect.”
“This is not just about the name, because each language uses a different word
for God: Dumnezeu, God, Gott, Theós (Θεός), Bog (Бог), Dio, Dios, Deus, Dieu,
Jehovah, Allah, and so on. This has absolutely no importance. The important
thing is what we mean, what we understand by that word. Do we understand a
super-alien, cold and insensitive, sitting in front of a supercomputer and carrying
out experiments with our lives and our society? Or do we understand a good,
eternal and immortal God, Who created us for eternity, too, Who loves us so
much, Who was crucified and raised from the dead for us, and Who wants so
much to save us and see all of us, too, in the eternal heaven?”

90 Antichrist:the one who is against Christ, who will come before the end of times
and will attempt to deceive the entire world.
48 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

4. Conclusion

Daniel waited for a few seconds, then he said:


“Our modern society teaches us that science has to be separated from philos-
ophy and religion. Because of that, I have a problem with all explanations that
involve something supernatural.”
“This separation is a totally wrong approach. Why would they be separated?
The Holy Fathers did not consider that philosophy had to be separated from reli-
gion. Philosophy means, literally, ‘love of wisdom,’ from the Greek philosophia
(φιλοσοφία). And there is no greater wisdom than the knowledge of God and the
preoccupation for the salvation of the soul. Therefore, religion is the highest phi-
losophy.”
“What about science?”
“Why should science be separated from religion?”
“Science doesn’t deal with philosophical and religious issues,” Daniel said.
“This statement is in great need of a clarification. It is somewhat true, but
atheists state this as if science were somehow superior to religion, and this is not
true. Science does not deal with religious statements because it is incapable to,
not because those statements were wrong or inferior to scientific theories. Sci-
ence cannot argue in any way for or against religious statements, and it can’t
even calculate scientifically the probability that those statements are true or
false. Science can’t even calculate how likely, or unlikely, is the hypothesis pro-
posed ironically by atheist Bertrand Russell, who said jokingly that maybe the
world was created last Thursday, including our lifetime memories.91”
“Yes, I remember.”
“At the base of Christianity are events of two thousand years ago. Remember
what we discussed last time about the investigation of the past. Statements about
the future can be proven to be right or wrong, we just have to wait for the pre-
dicted number of years in order to see whether the predicted events take place.
But statements about the past can never be proven right or wrong through scien-
tific methods; all we can do is to believe that those statements are either true, or
false.”
“So, you’re saying that science should be tied to religion?”
“Science means the knowledge of the material world created by God, and its
immixture with religion is inevitable. It is modern science that attacked religion
and tried to take its place. It is modern science that tried to replace religion with
the absurd theories of the Big Bang and evolution. It is modern science that
claimed, without any proof, obviously, that the supernatural does not exist. It is
modern science that claimed, without any proof, obviously, that there are non-
supernatural explanations for anything. It is modern science that committed it-
self to finding these non-supernatural explanations for all phenomena in our ma-
terial world, both from the past and from the present.”
“And hasn’t it succeeded?”

with a Nonbeliever, chapter 3.3.5 (An Extremely Absurd Theory), also avail-
91 Dialogue

able in the free excerpt Science and the Limits of Knowledge, in several electronic for-
mats on the internet (details and links at the end).
GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS 49

“About the origin of the world and life, it only succeeded in offering false ex-
planations. Remember what we discussed last time, even if an explanation seems
realistic, this doesn’t mean that it is also true.92 But science’s explanations about
the origin of the universe and of life are not even realistic. What does the word
‘supernatural’ actually mean? Why do we say that the angels, for example, are
supernatural beings? Because we can’t study them the same way we study mat-
ter. But they only seem to be supernatural, the same way that a firearm seemed,
at first sight, supernatural to the American Indians. In the afterlife though, the
angels will seem to us as natural as the other people seem to us right now. Only
the essence of God will remain forever supernatural, inaccessible to any angel
and to any human.”
“Well,” Daniel said, “in the field of quantum mechanics, even the scientific
explanations seem a little bit supernatural to me.”
“That’s right. Science got itself into this situation because it tried to explain
everything without God. And this is not the only example. Look, quantum me-
chanics and the theory of relativity don’t get along at all regarding the first peri-
od of time after the alleged Big Bang. Search the Internet for ‘conflicts between
quantum mechanics and general relativity’ and you’ll find many scientific articles
that explain why the two theories are at odds in certain respects. And this is only
so because science tries to explain the existence of the universe without a Crea-
tor.”
“Yes, I remember you told me about this before.”
“Another example: One of the greatest ‘problems’ of modern physics is this
one: Why is there in the observable universe much more matter than antimat-
ter?93 But this is a false problem. Science supposes, wrongly, that matter was
formed in the aftermath of the Big Bang, through quantum processes, in which
for every elementary particle formed (proton, electron) an anti-particle (antipro-
ton, positron) was also formed. For a creationist, this is not a problem at all. God
could have created as much matter and antimatter as He wanted to, not neces-
sarily in equal amounts. If a rational, conscious person writes the number 12 on a
sheet of paper, is there a law, either civil or spiritual, to constrain him to also
write the number -12 on the other side of the sheet? Obviously not.”
“Indeed, this is a problem only if you try to explain the existence of the uni-
verse without a Creator…”
“Next, a great enigma for the researchers of quantum mechanics is this one:
how is it that the macroscopic world seems real and coherent if it is based on a
quantum world that looks unreal? But maybe the quantum world only seems to
us to be unreal because of the limitations imposed by the Creator. I’m sure that
to God the quantum world looks very real and coherent.”
Daniel thought for a few seconds, then he said:
“In conclusion, I see that here, too, there’s absolutely no scientific way to
solve these problems clearly and definitively.”

92 Dialogue with a Nonbeliever, chapter 5.1.5 (The Right Explanation). In a few words,
the movement of a car can also be explained without the need for a driver, and this ex-
planation is realistic indeed, because the technology for driverless cars has existed for
several years. However, in that case, the explanation, though realistic, was false: the car
did have a driver.
93 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon_asymmetry
50 GOD AND QUANTUM MECHANICS

“Exactly, as I’ve told you so many times, and as you can see for yourself, sci-
ence is extremely limited, and everything, or almost everything, is subjective,
more or less. Absolute objectivity is impossible. As you probably remember, we
can’t even know with certainty whether yesterday existed, we can only believe,
that’s all…94 It is said that Albert Einstein once asked his colleague and friend
Niels Bohr, one of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics, whether he really
believed that ‘the moon does not exist if no one is looking at it.’ To this question
Bohr answered that no matter how hard he, Einstein, tried, he still would not be
able to prove that the moon exists even when no one is looking at it.”

94 Dialogue with a Nonbeliever, chapter An Extremely Absurd Theory.


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