Thursday, January 24, 2008
Science Run Wild
A Classical Presbyterian links to a story out of the London Telegraph in which the paradox of Schroedinger's cat is used to create a new worry:
Consider the ramifications of this from an evolutionary point of view. This would mean the universe evolved to a point (humanity) where it created its own destruction. Our mere existence and curiosity is enough. But I thought evolution was driven by survival?
All such concerns concern me from a slightly different aspect. Essentially they place us in the role traditionally reserved for God. You see an atheistic world view does not do away with the need for creation and destruction or the other functions traditionally associated with God - it simply puts other people or things in those roles. And since, to date, we are the only intelligence we know of - we get to be God.
Now, given our behavior to date, I'll take faith in the supernatural any day of the week. Then I won't have to panic about dark matter observation either. Some of the people at Los Alamos thought they were going to ignite the entire atmosphere...
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New Scientist reports a worrying new variant as the cosmologists claim that astronomers may have provided evidence that the universe may ultimately decay by observing dark energy, a mysterious anti gravity force which is thought to be speeding up the expansion of the cosmos.For those without a background in quantum theory, the piece describes Schroedinger's cat this way:
But there is an odd feature of the theory that philosophers and scientists still argue about. In a nutshell, the theory suggests that quantum systems can exist in many different physical configurations at the same time. By observing the system, however, we may pick out one single 'quantum state', and therefore force the system to change its configuration.How in the world is Al Gore going to stop this one?!?!?!?!
They often illustrate their concerns about what the theory means in this respect with mind-boggling experiments, notably Schrodinger's cat in which, thanks to a fancy experimental set up, the moggy is both alive and dead until someone decides to look, when it either carries on living, or dies. That is, by one interpretation (by another, the universe splits into two, one with a live cat and one with a dead one.)
Consider the ramifications of this from an evolutionary point of view. This would mean the universe evolved to a point (humanity) where it created its own destruction. Our mere existence and curiosity is enough. But I thought evolution was driven by survival?
All such concerns concern me from a slightly different aspect. Essentially they place us in the role traditionally reserved for God. You see an atheistic world view does not do away with the need for creation and destruction or the other functions traditionally associated with God - it simply puts other people or things in those roles. And since, to date, we are the only intelligence we know of - we get to be God.
Now, given our behavior to date, I'll take faith in the supernatural any day of the week. Then I won't have to panic about dark matter observation either. Some of the people at Los Alamos thought they were going to ignite the entire atmosphere...
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