Moving towards an ID mechanism.

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Your view is quite in line with the majority view of physicists, certianly those working on the underpinings of qunatum phenomena. Conciousness is not a required part of classical emergence from the quantum realm. I like your point about the brick. So, not nonsense at all!

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Have you ever heard of the Transactional Interpretation by John Cramer? If so, do you feel it is as good an interpretation as the Copenhagen?

Justin, what do you think of the notion of waves traversing backwards in time?

I don't feel I have the education in physics to give an informed answer.That aside, I don't think it is that crazy at all; especially considering how antiparticles can be thought of as their particle counterpart travelling backwards in time, advanced electromagnetic waves are predicted during photon emmision (I think), and the relativistic Shrodinger equation is time symmetric.

I don't think it is crazy either. Not saying I think it's right or wrong, btw.The reason I asked is because it could be seen as somewhat far out of an idea since the waves are not observable and it is based on the math, but at the same time, there's a lot we miss if we base everything on a concept of linear time and fixed timeline.

Yes, I have "heard" of it I'm not sure it is a good interpretation, in that I'm not convinced that "interpretations" are necessarily a good thing. It is a vast improvement over the CI (in many of its guises), as it attempts to keep everything physical, without resorting to invoking some form of consciousness or even just external knowledge. What I do think is good about thinking around this interpretation is that it beaks down some of the barriers to perceived reality - conventional naive thinking of objects, particles, and the idea that you can think of "things" like electrons and photons independently.

Who misses? The relativists/quantum theorists or the laymen? Or possibly those that attempt to present the ideas of the former to the latter?

Perfect answer Right! But the mistake here is to try to interpret this back into conventional classical thinking. For these ideas to make sense, you need to push in deeper, not back out. That is where the education is needed.

Space-time is what has been created. I see no problem... That's not what I said. I don't believe that there are observable physical processes that reveal any "intervention". I believe in

\                   /
         \                 /
       e+ \               / e-       Time ^
           \  e_v    ____/           e+ positron
            \____----    ~           e- electron
            ~             ~          e_v virtual electron
           ~               ~         Ph photon
          ~                 ~
         ~  Ph               ~ Ph
        ~                     ~

but I do not believe in

\                   /
         \                 /
       e+ \               / e-       Time ^
           \  e_v    ____/
            \____----    ~
            ~             ~
           ~               ~
          ~                 ~
         ~  GOD              ~ Ph
        ~                     ~

For someone keen to make comments like...

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there's a lot we miss if we base everything on a concept of linear time and fixed timeline.

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...you really have little concept of the nature of time as relativity presents it. Time is merely a parametrisation of the universe. It doesn't have any applicability outside the universe. Of course God could externally create the universe. He doesn't require a point of time within the universe to do that, given that that point is part of the creation. See above. I didn't say that God does not interact, just that it does not appear to me to be through physical mechanisms. He did not create the universe using the physical laws of the universe. Those laws were part of the creation. But if you were to ask me about the mathematics... well, that's another story.The problem with ID is that it is looking for the Babel fish. I don't believe the fish exists, but if it does then that just leaves the door open to Oolon Coluphid. Was Adams aware of the modern ID movement back in the late 70s? Amazingly prophetic if he wasn't.

Cavediver, that's not what you said. You ruled out all possibility of ID based on the concept that the universe cannot have input from God. You specifically claimed no outside input was possible, period, which as I pointed out would mean the universe could not be created because at the point of creation, there would be input.This is one of the things you said. So are you claiming the universe is deterministic which excludes any input from God because you consider that an outside influence or not? Also, we went into this a little bit more. You say no information can be added which suggests every bit of new information already exists, which work in the context of space-time since the past, present and future all exist now, but at some point, new information would have to be added in order to create the universe, and moreover, there's no real evidence that new information is not added now. You stance has to assume that the future is fixed and cannot be changed, which of course means the past and present also are fixed, and whereas I think there is a degree of truth on one level and yes, it's predestination, there is no reason to think it cannot be changed, and the predestination changed with it.We just don't know. If we think the universe had a beginning, perhaps from that point, everything is fixed as you say, but nothing prevents God from restarting and running the whole thing again, and I think moreover that it's a leap to insist there cannot be changes introduced within the system of space-time. If God exists, for example, within space-time as well as without, then you can have constant input from God into space-time because He is part of it.So handwaving determinism to dismiss any concept of design is very weak. As an aside, I know you are a Christian, but if your idea of determinism rules the universe, then there is no way God raises up Jesus from the dead or involves Himself in any way with answering prayers, is there?I appreciate the fact you are far more educated in this than anyone else on this thread, and that you openly are dismissive of the Copehagen Interpretation, but let's be a little honest here. Not everyone is dismissive of CI or related theories of how QM works, such as the It from Bit, and imo, you are dismissive of things I am talking about in the way you are dismissive of CI, which is OK, except you use an argument from authority without acknowledging that not all authority agrees with you.In other words, the things I am saying are not off the map or whatever, as you suggest. YOU think they are wrong but you think a lot of things other physicists have thought, such as the Copenhagen Interpretation, are wrong. So I'm not in such bad company, maybe?I guess what I am saying is you could help move this discussion along on the physics side a lot more, but are dismissive, and yet some of the points you use to be dismissive, such as evoking determinism excluding God, imo, don't add up.

Responding to the 2nd half of your post which addresses some of my other response, but too long to edit. I have a problem with the idea you present of physical mechanisms and your claim about how God interacts. First, anything that happens is by definition physical in the sense you refer to, right? So any form of energy is physical. In that sense, I would say your definition of physical really has to include God and anything real at all, since presumably these things appear to have energy. Most religious claims of spiritual experiences that I know of, pretty much involve energy, except perhaps knowing something innately, and that involves communication which involves energy. So I think you are way off-base to eliminate any ID mechanism as if it could not be "physical."The question is what constitutes physical, which has a lot to do with QM, and suggests reality includes ideas that don't fit with what we used to think of as physical, which is why people say QM is weird. It's not weird at all if you understand spiritual mechanics, and it appears to be identical to that.Secondly, you have never observed God doing anything that wasn't physical, have you? In other words, all of what we have observed is by definition "physical", right? So your statement that it does not appear to you that God interacts in a physical manner is sort of ludicrous. That's the only way anything appears to you, right?So if there is a God, we have to assume that all of reality is withing his domain. That means everything, evolution included, and that whatever we observe involves God. That was addressed to a non-Christian audience, by the way. I included a little theology here because I think that's where you are missing it here. You have some theology that you apply that prevents you from considering that God's presence can be involved in a real world process.So I don't see what I am talking about as invoking God to explain something unexplainable. No, I think the explanation shows parallels with spiritual ideas and spiritual mechanics and so it is reasonable to posit a potential ID mechanism.Do I think there will be something deeper still? Sure, but that doesn't mean if we uncover an aspect of how ID works, how God could create within the universe, and moreover, if we duplicate it, that somehow that removes God from having done it.In other words, God creates the principles of how the world works, right? So perhaps the mechanism by which God creates is itself a creation and so within the domain of science if we develop the technology to uncover, understand, and exploit this same mechanism.In terms of theology, there is nothing certainly in the Bible that prohibits man from doing this. In fact, the Bible suggests that man can attain to things like that if unified (see Tower of Babel story). Whether you accept the story as true, one of the lessons is that man could get up into heaven and the things of heaven, but was not ready due to pride, rebellion and impurity. Let's don't get off-topic though. The point is just that there is no reason to think we cannot discover the mechanism for creation since it is part of creation.This message has been edited by randman, 12-03-2005 04:26 PM

I'm reading this thread and so far have gotten to your post, about halfway through the thread. From what little I've read of Faynman who is not a layperson, by any means, and what some knowledgeable folks here have said, there is much which remains mysterious, if you will, about QM and in one of Feynman's papers he simply said something to the effect that certain aspects of QM didn't make sense.

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The immeasurable present is forever consuming the eternal future and extending the infinite past. buzsaw

Don't you know all those physicists that accepted Copenhagen-type Interpretations are just cucko, I mean flat out crazy man; no one gives them any credibility. Heck, I was talking with a real heavyweight just the other day at Cambridge.....

End of discussion Randman. Let me know when you've grown up.[ad-hominem]You're a prat[/ad-hominem]

Yes, Feynman did spend a good deal of time pointing out the mysteriousness of QM... to layman and non-specialist audiences. But don't for a second think that Feynman was confused. You have to appreciate the difference between the workings of QM and the interpretation of QM. The Copenhagen Interpretation is precisely that... an interpretation. It does not in any way affect the workings of QM. From every experiment carried out over the past 100 years, those workings are fixed in stone.Most interpretations, to some extent, try to explain QM in terms of classical concepts. This is always a lost cause because QM contains concepts that have no simple classical analogues. But some interpretations lead to new ways of performing the calculations. One of Feynman's greatest achievements was the path-integral or sum-over-histories approach to QM, which is mathematically equivalent to Schrodinger wave mechanics or Heisenberg matrix mechanics, but has a very different interpretation.What I have been trying to say is this: it doesn't matter what interpretation is used, no extra mechanisms are discovered. The underlying mathematics fixed long ago the possibilities of QM.That is not to say that there is nothing new to be discovered! But it is not in the "mysteries" of QM, but in the search for the TOE which means the ensemble of "the problem of time", "quantum gravity", "grand unification", "quantum mechanics", "emergence", etc.
If you think QM is mysterious, just try putting your mind around that lot. That was my job...

I thought that despite my reluctance to engage Randman in further discussion, I should clear up a few points for anyone reading this thread (is anyone actually reading this thread?) Hmmm... well, if I gave that impression, that was not my intention. Let's see... what did I write? I think that's enough to falsify Randman's view of my beliefs.My belief: God can and does interact with the universe but it is not through any observable mechanism. Likewise with ID. God is not so impotent that he cannot create a universe with humans as the final product without tinkering on a step-by-step basis.I find ID the greatest insult to God's creative abilities. I would be a YEC long long before I would ever consider ID.And finally, I personally believe that no matter how deep our physical theories delve, we will never uncover a spiritual layer.