Quantum Mechanics and the Copenhagen Fairy-Tale
Alpha Version from June 24, 2017
Copyright 2017 by Donald R. Tveter, don@dontveter.com

This document may be freely distributed provided it is complete and unchanged.


Quantum mechanics deals with how some of the tiniest, most fundamental particles in the universe move around. They don't follow the usual laws of physics that apply to large objects. Instead, they seem to move around in very mysterious ways. For almost a hundred years now people have been trying to figure out why those tiny particles move around the way they do. There are many different opinions about what is really going on. In the video, Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism, you can find out about some of the strangeness that goes on in the world where quantum mechanics applies. The final result at the end of the video is that "Science has not buried God, it has revealed Him.". I like that conclusion, of course, but: 1) the reasoning involved is weak, 2) the argument is based on the Copenhagen interpretation (CI) of quantum mechanics and the CI is filled with silly results, some of which are mentioned in the video and 3) the video skipped the new relational blockworld (RBW) interpretation of quantum mechanics that gives an excellent argument for the existence of God and a human soul.

The ideas presented in the video come from an interpretation of quantum mechanics called the Copenhagen interpretation that came from physicist Neils Bohr. This interpretation has been around for a long time and you can use it to get the right results when you do a quantum mechanical problem. But many people have not been happy with it and some of them have been proposing other interpretations. They're not happy because it gives a lot of very strange results. First, we will look at the strange results and then move on to another interpretation that gets rid of the strange results.

The first of the strange results is that a thing (like a particle) does not have any real existence until we make a measurement of the thing. Before the measurement there are only possibilities. The measurement by a conscious being makes the thing exist briefly and then the thing goes back to just being a collection of possibilities. So, for instance, one of the classic examples of this is that the moon is only there if someone looks at. Before you look at it, it isn't a real, objective object. When you look at, it becomes real for a moment and then when you stop looking at it, it is no longer real, it is just a collection of possibilities. This is certainly counter-intuitive. We think there is a real, objective, material world "out there" that we are constantly observing and the moon (and everything else) will be there whether someone looks at it or not.

A second strange item is the explanation for the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) experiments. In these experiments the measurement of one particle manages to automatically and INSTANTLY affect the condition of a related particle that is very far away in space. To make this work, there would have to be some weird machinery behind the scenes that makes it work.

A third item was emphasized in the video. It's the Schroedinger's cat experiment. At a certain time, the experimenter opens the box and finds out that the cat is either alive or dead. BUT BEFORE the experimenter opens the box, the cat is supposed to be in a strange state (a superposition) of being alive and dead at the same time. Common sense tells us that the cat will be either alive or dead long before the experimenter opens the box so this result that it isn't either one until someone looks in the box is really bizarre.

When you get these strange non-nonsensical results it ought to tip you off that something is seriously wrong with the Copenhagen interpretation. Now there is another related and very strange result that came from quantum mechanics. It's Bell's Theorem. Bell's Theorem produces some really strange mathematical results such as -1/8 >= 0 and the square root of 2 <= 1. In Bell's Theorem the math is so simple that you can't get it wrong. So in this case people have concluded that some of the assumptions that go into Bell's Theorem must be wrong. People have been trying to figure this problem out for a long time too and everyone is still not satisfied. And so, returning to the case of quantum mechanics, one way to try to figure out what is going on is to question our assumptions of what the world is really like.

One group of physicists who have gone on to question our basic assumptions about our world has come up with the relational blockworld interpretation of quantum mechanics. This interpretation gets rid of the strange quantum mysteries by boldly embracing a result that comes from special relativity: the block universe idea. In our conventional thinking we believe the past is gone, only the present exists and the future is not out there yet. Philosophers call this idea that only the present exists, presentism. In the block universe, the past has never gone away and the future is already out there. Philosophers call this idea, eternalism. Eternalism is the result you get from from the block universe. The block universe is STILL a counter-intuitive idea but there are solid reasons why we should take it seriously. (For some scientists who take the idea seriously see the related essay: Science Point to the Blockworld.)

One of the big items in the video was the experiment with Schroedinger's cat. Again, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, before someone looks inside the box, the cat is dead and alive at the same time. Supposedly when someone looks inside, the cat becomes dead or alive. In the RBW interpretation the cat WAS actually dead or alive before the experimenter looked. In fact, the cat WAS dead or alive before the experimenter did the experiment. In fact, the cat WAS dead or alive long before anyone thought of doing the experiment. In fact, the cat WAS dead or alive long before there were even people on Earth. That's because the future is already out there. The future of the entire universe. We don't think the future is out there because we are confined to the present. Also we don't think the past is still "back there" because we can't see into the past. But the block universe idea that comes from special relativity tells us the whole future IS out there and the past has not gone away.

A convenient way to get to know the block universe idea is to look at an amusement park ride, such as the haunted mansion ride at Disneyworld. In the beginning, some people planned the ride. Then they dug the foundation, poured the foundation, put up the walls and the roof. Then they put in the machinery that moves people around. Finally, the whole thing was decorated with scary items like ghosts, and witches and bats and skeletons and grave markers. They arranged it so that when you go around a curve something new and scary suddenly appears.

Now, after the whole ride has been built, people can take the ride and find out what is there. At the beginning of the ride, you have the whole future of the ride ahead of you and it has all been completely prepared for you. Your future in the haunted mansion already exists. Then halfway through the ride, half of your future is still ahead of you AND the past, the part that you've already seen, is still there behind you. The past did not go away. And when you finished the whole ride all that past world is still there. It never went away.

So what is happening in our real world is that God has made the whole universe. He has prepared something unique for each one of us. Our consciousness then moves through this universe in much the same way as a person moves through the haunted mansion ride. So actually we have an excellent proof for a Creator because of all the complexity we find in this world. Life is the most outstanding example, life is extremely complicated. In addition, as in the haunted mansion ride, nothing is happening by chance. Everything has been planned ahead of time.

Now in the haunted mansion ride the things you see don't change. They stay in the same place "forever" (or until someone decides to redecorate.) Instead YOU move. Likewise, things in our universe are not changing by moving around. Everything is frozen in place FOREVER. It is our consciousness (our soul) that is moving through the universe and this makes it look like the things around us are moving around. So now we have proof that people are much more than matter and consciousness comes from that "much more".

This block universe idea, is, of course, a RADICAL departure from what we are used to. But people have had to get used to other radical ideas in the past. They had to get used to the idea that the Earth is not flat, that the Earth is not the center of the universe and the continents move.