the copenhagen interpritation of quantum mechanics suggests that an observer is required for any quantum event to have a definite outcome. the classic example is schrodinger's cat...
the cat is in a box, an unpleasant box with a poison capsule attached to a trigger. the trigger is based on some radioactive particle, which has a 50% chance of decay (this being the quantum possibility). if the particle decays, the trigger breaks the capsule and the cat dies. by the copenhagen interpretation, this box contains both a live and dead cat, which are the same cat, which is/are actually a probablity feild that encompasses both possiblities, not to be resolved into one real living or dead cat until someone looks inside to find out.
no one points out that the cat has awareness and thus cannot (by any means i know of) disolve into a probability field, so we will not notice that sticking point either. what i would like us to notice is what this could mean about the universe in general, the people in it, and how it relates to what many people think of as god.
specificly, i am often noticing that the world exists, (or atleast it sure seams like it is existing to me). this is very important, because if this fairly rigourous physical theory is correct, if no-one was noticing the universe, it wouldn't be there. which begs the question, who was noticing things before life existed?
i am taking it as granted that the western scientific viewpoint of natural history is approximately correct, what with a big-bang and evolution and all. intelligent design people like to point out how very convienient our universe seams, from physical laws that allow for complex chemistry (or any chemistry for that matter) to our big, weird, tide-giving moon, to the giant asteroid and comet vacuume cleaner that we call jupiter. they say it seams an awful lot like someone gave us a very friendly place to grow up.
now of-course if reality were unfriendly we wouldn't be here asking the question, but that doesn't make it any less remarkable. or does it? what exists if no-one is looking? probability. probability can and does include some pretty wacky stuff, including the spontaineos leaping into existence of whole universes, provided said universes are not infinite (it is infinitely improbible that infinity would leap into being).
but no probability can become reality without someone there to notice it. there-for, the only universes that can be created in a big-bang are ones that living observers will exist in. the universe is (or could be, atleast) so convienient precisely because it could not be real without us, or someone, here to see it.
if the omnipresent, omnipotent god exists, we could have any old universe he/she/it/they desired. guys with pitchforks and pointy beards underfoot and krishna squaredancing with jesus inside every cumulonibus cloud. but what it seams like we have is a universe fine tuned to our existence, which intelligent designers point to as the signature of somebody doing some very serious civil enginering. what i would like to point out to them is that these triats are PHYSICALLY REQUIRED for any universe to exist at all, and given the nature of probablity the spontanius and authorless generation of such a universe is exactly what you would expect.
that doesn't mean that god doesn't exist, or even that he/she/it/they didn't create the universe and puts us on the path we are on. what it does seam to suggest to me is that whatever happened, it wasn't on purpous.
maybe it would be more fruitful to consider the future instead of the past if we are to have a relationship with an intelligent designer. maybe we should build one.
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