virtual particles

[OObi]

Okay, what does everyone here think about vacuum energy and virtual particles. Something comes from nothing, no need for God. Any thoughts? (hope so)

In Christ, OObi

 

[LewisWildermuth]

Okay, what does everyone here think about vacuum energy and virtual particles. Something comes from nothing, no need for God. Any thoughts? (hope so)

In Christ, OObi

Yes...

Where the heck do people get this insane idea that if God’s creation works without Him having to fix it every five seconds then there is no God or no need for God?

That thought pattern is beyond ignorant and driving at top speed for tin-foil hat town.

 

[shernren]

I hate to break the news but the theory behind virtual particles, as weird as the idea seems, has been experimentally proven. Google / wiki the "Casimir effect", it's pretty funky, and if there was some way to exploit this on an industrially macroscopic scale I think we could do some very neat things with it.

So if virtual particles disprove God then I'd be the first one to walk out of church. And I haven't done that (well, I walk out of church every Sunday but you do get what I mean). I don't believe that virtual particles jeopardize "God's uniqueness" in the ability to create ex-nihilo, the way you put it. We don't worship God simply because He can conjure up something from nothing. We worship God because He incarnated Himself and died and rose again for our sins. And virtual particles take nothing away from the feat of salvation God has performed.

 

[relspace]

You know I once wrote a paper on explaining Quantum Mechanics on the basis of virtual particles and gave it my advisor in the physics department. He didn't like it. He said that He thought that virtual particles were an artifact of perturbation theory. It has taken me a while to understand what he meant. Reality at the quantum level is basically wavelike and quite deterministic too. It is only in nonlinear amplification processes in which the quantum and macroscopic levels of reality are forced to interact (as in the case of a measurement) does the wave collapse and the particle nature of these entities become revealed, so to speak, (it is also only in these events where determinism breaks down). I therefore suspect that the use of virtual particles is only one way of explaining the Cassimir effect and that therefore the Cassimir effect does not really prove the existence of virtual particles.

However, I think this is just another example of how we can visualize what is going on in these quantum effects in many different ways.

However, with that said, I do believe that the principle behind the idea of virtual particles namely the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle represents the true boundary of the physical universe at which physical causality breaks down because this is where causes from outside the physical universe can intrude.

You can believe that energy appears from nowhere if you want, but I don't. I think there is energy with a very definite mathematical form which we know as the physical universe. Its form consists of the space-time, force, momentum, action, etc. relationships between all of its parts (which are described by the science of physics). Then I think there is free energy which is not bound to this form, and therefore outside space-time and the laws of physics.

It is in this free energy which I believe that spirit exists -- energy bound to its own form quite apart from the physical universe or anything else. You could say that each spirit is like its own little universe. These spirits interact with the physical universe in these nonlinear amplification wave collapse events. Those type of events with which we are most familiar are the choices we make in our lives which provide us with this instinctive feeling that we are the cause of our own actions in this almost completely determistic world we live in, while simultaneously giving more definite form to the spirit and making it what it is. Thus we are truly responsible for own actions while at the same time our actions define who and what we are.

These spirits, being outside space, time and the laws of physics are naturally eternal, and by their choices in life they can forge relationships with other spirits/people that will endure after their connection with the physical world is severred. But without a relationship with God they are doomed to stagnation, boredom, depression, etc... which is spiritual death.

 

[SaintAugustine]

You know I once wrote a paper on explaining Quantum Mechanics on the basis of virtual particles and gave it my advisor in the physics department. He didn't like it. He said that He thought that virtual particles were an artifact of perturbation theory. It has taken me a while to understand what he meant. Reality at the quantum level is basically wavelike and quite deterministic too. It is only in nonlinear amplification processes in which the quantum and macroscopic levels of reality are forced to interact (as in the case of a measurement) does the wave collapse and the particle nature of these entities are revealed, so to speak, (it is also only in these events where determinism breaks down). I therefore suspect that the use of virtual particles is only one way of explaining the Cassimir effect and that therefore the Cassimir effect does not really prove the existence of virtual particles.

However, I think this is just another example of how we can visualize what is going on in these quantum effects in many different ways.

However, with that said, I do believe that the principle behind the idea of virtual particles namely the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle represents the true boundary of the physical universe at which physical causality breaks down because this is where causes from outside the physical universe can intrude.

You can believe that energy appears from nowhere if you want, but I don't. I think there is energy with a very definite mathematical form which we know as the physical universe. Its form consists of the space-time, force, momentum, action, etc. relationships between all of its parts (which are described by the science of physics). Then I think there is free energy which is not bound to this form, and therefore outside space-time and the laws of physics.

It is in this free energy which I believe that spirit exists -- energy bound to its own form quite apart from the physical universe or anything else. You could say that each spirit is like its own little universe. These spirits interact with the physical universe in these nonlinear amplification wave collapse events. Those type of events with which we are most familiar are the choices we make in our lives which provide us with this instinctive feeling that we are the cause of our own actions in this almost completely determistic world we live in, while simultaneously giving more definite form to the spirit and making it what it is. Thus we are truly responsible for own actions while at the same time our actions define who and what we are.

These spirits, being outside space, time and the laws of physics are naturally eternal, and by their choices in life they can forge relationships with other people that will endure after their connection with the physical world is severed. But without a relationship with God they are doomed to stagnation, boredom, depression, etc... which is spiritual death.

Even if you accept the proof for virtual particles that "borrowed" from some unknown energy source to become Real particles..the problem becomes..where did the energy source come from in the first place.

 

[SaintAugustine]

If you accept the proof for virtual particles, that "borrowed" from some unknown energy source to become real particles...you still have to account for the energy source.

 

[relspace]

If you accept the proof for virtual particles, that "borrowed" from some unknown energy source to become real particles...you still have to account for the energy source.

Strange. You obviously did not read what I wrote. Although I did not actually say where all the energy comes from. The answer to that could not be more obvious. All the energy in this universe was originally supplied by God, so no doubt all the energy outside this physical universe also originally came from God as well.

 

[SaintAugustine]

Thank you for clarification....

Auggie

 

[shernren]

While I agree with you conditionally (given the current status of science) I don't think it would be wise to hold on to "putting God and the spiritual realm in quantum uncertainty" with an iron grip. It's a little like the elan vital (life force) of olden biology. Surely that must have been God - without Him, we are just lifeless matter! And then somebody came along and discovered biochemistry. If someone had said "well, God doesn't seem to be all that present in the physical universe, but we know that science can't explain or explore the elan vital and so we know that God has brought that in from outside science and its universe" that person would end up with egg on his face.

Not a full-scale disagreement, but a word of caution.

Strange. You obviously did not read what I wrote. Although I did not actually say where all the energy comes from. The answer to that could not be more obvious. All the energy in this universe was originally supplied by God, so no doubt all the energy outside this physical universe also originally came from God as well.

Am curious about this. In a vacuum diagram, the sum of the energies of all particles present are non-zero, right? When they inter-annihilate at the end of the vacuum diagram, where does the energy go in order to balance the Law of Mass-Energy Conservation on a macro scale?

 

[relspace]

While I agree with you conditionally (given the current status of science) I don't think it would be wise to hold on to "putting God and the spiritual realm in quantum uncertainty" with an iron grip. It's a little like the elan vital (life force) of olden biology. Surely that must have been God - without Him, we are just lifeless matter! And then somebody came along and discovered biochemistry. If someone had said "well, God doesn't seem to be all that present in the physical universe, but we know that science can't explain or explore the elan vital and so we know that God has brought that in from outside science and its universe" that person would end up with egg on his face.

Not a full-scale disagreement, but a word of caution.

Sorry, but I completely reject this modern anti-scientific (and anti-metaphysics) attitude. Kuhn's scientific revolutions are nonsense when it comes to physics. Conclusions based on Newtonian physics are still valid today. Frankly this attitude is an excuse only. All bodies of knowege begin with a leap of faith in its premises. Quantum physics and relativity are on solid enough ground to be more than worthy of such a leap of faith. People want to avoid the study of metaphysics because it requires a solid foundation in the sciences, and too many people turn white these days at this prospect. Logical positivism went too far away from the instinctive human experience of life and it deserved the death it got for its foolishness. The time to try again to build a metaphysics based on modern physics is now, for refusing to do so only keeps the old metaphysics of the nineteenth century still largely accepted unconsciously and without reflection even though it is obviously wrong.

Am curious about this. In a vacuum diagram, the sum of the energies of all particles present are non-zero, right?

First of all to clarify, routine quantum behavior is all potential not actual. There is no definite real events which occur but only the simultaneous existence of all possible events. When we calculate the force of an ineraction we add up contributions from all the things that could happen and the question of which of these possibilites actually occurs is nonsense. They all occur in potentiality only. Likewise, the image you have of vacuum being filled with particle and antiparticle pairs appearing all the time is wrong. The correct picture is that of all possible such pairs (of the many different kinds of particles) appearing in all possible locations at all possible times, but all in potentiality only. Yet this potetiality is real and has a real effect on the events that are possible in this vacuum.

When they inter-annihilate at the end of the vacuum diagram, where does the energy go in order to balance the Law of Mass-Energy Conservation on a macro scale?

You can either believe (according to orthodox physics dogma) that it appears from nothing and then disappears as if it never was, or... you can believe as I do, in which case.....

It doesn't really come from or go to anywhere, it remains where it always was, which is not a part of the mathematical 10 dimensional space-time-physics structure of the physical universe. The point is that there are interactions, between the fixed quantity of energy, which is a part of this space-time-physics structure, and free energy, which is not a part of this space-time-physics structure. The result of such an interaction, is that within the interval of time, during which those interactions occur, things which require more energy, than is available in that particular region of the space and time, are still possible. The fact that the energy is always paid back, simply means that the no energy from outside can ever actually become part of the space-time-physics structure of the universe itself.

I envision this free energy outside the space-time-physics structure as generally formless which make much of these interactions with this energy random. But not all of this energy is formless and not all of the interactions are random. My actions are not random and many of the events in my life are not random either but reveal to me the presence of God. We know His existence in precisely the same manner in which we know the existence of other people. Just as we perceive a coherent personality behind the motions of the various human bodies we see around us, so also can we percieve a coherent personality behind the totality (the gestalt) of events in our life.

 

[shernren]

Okay, I can clearly see that you know more of this physics than me. I can't wait till I learn it for myself!