Crazy But Able

Okay, I feel that I have to explain the theory of the quantum fish a little more.

I think Peggy gives me too much credit and herself too little. A couple of nights ago I was explaining the theory of quantum theology[*] my theory of what quantum mechanics means when you apply it to theology (I make no claim that I am the first, or only, discoverer of this theory). The idea is simple: written into our universe is an inherent uncertianity about what’s going on at the smallest, most basic, most fundamental level. If I throw a rock, or a tennis ball, or an artillery shell, I know where it’s going to go and how it’s going to get there, (within a certain error percentage). But if I emit an electron, I might be able to tell where it’s going to go, within a certain error percentage, but I have no idea how it’s going to get there. I not only have no idea, I can’t possibly figure it out, at least as long as I’m part of this universe.

Now, it seems to me that as long as there is this inherent… unknowableness about the universe, there is space for God to work in the world. People keep telling me that butterflies in Kansas can change the weather in Tokyo because of all of this uncertianity business. I think it implies that if God wants it to make it rain, God can make it rain (1 Kings 18:1).

Now, I want to make myself clear. I don’t regard quantum mechanics as being some kind of proof that God exists, or anything so crass. This is just one of my attempts to reconcile what we know about science with what I know about God. If, as Stephen Hawking thinks and keeps trying to prove, that underneath all of the uncertianity is a deeper deterministic, mechanistic foundation for the universe, this won’t “prove me wrong”, because I’m not claiming I’m right, or at least, not that kind of right. Obviously I think what I say is true, I even think it’s true for everyone and not just me (relativism is such garbage, what’s the use of believing anything if it’s not, you know, true?). But I know when I’m on shaky ground; this is not a fundamental pillar (or any kind of pillar) of my faith.

I mean, even if the world was 100 percent deterministic from our perspective, God could still make it rain if he wanted to. Having created the world, he could certainly create a bunch of rain and throw it into the sky and watch it come falling down. But it doesn’t seem like that’s his style. It seems to me that a god who loved determinism above all else would create a world with a much simpler ecological system (predator, meet prey, the end), if it created an ecological system at all. Sterile planets, stars, comets and galaxies moving through infinite, empty space is all a person would expect from a deterministic god.

There is something about organic life that just isn’t that predictable. And we certainly don’t have “simple” when it comes to ecology. We have complicated, multifaceted, diverse, and teeming. Nature is famously fickle. Yet there is order: we have a system where if you take the wolves out of Yellowstone, you lose the trees as well. It seems more like God’s M.O. to work within the natural rules of creation (see Jesus’s refusal to turn a stone into bread, Matthew 4:1-4, see also God’s exposition to Job on the created order in Job 38-39.) It comes as no surprise (to me, anyway) that having created the universe, God left himself an easy way to work in it. (Yet he is not arbitrary or capricious: he does not send disasters upon us because he gets bored or feels slighted.)

Anyway, I was explaining the above theory in a little more depth the other night. And I started giving examples of miracles that God has done, such as feeding the five thousand with the loaves and the fishes. It seems unlikely (to put it mildly) from our perspective that enough fish and bread to feed five thousand people will suddenly materialize, exactly when and where it is needed. But from God’s perspective, the world looks very different. He wants a fish, and bam! he gets a fish.†

That’s what I was talking about when I was talking about quantum fishes. But when I said that, I think Peggy was thinking I was referring to an earlier conversation about evolution. So I thought she came up with the idea of the theory of the quantum fish, which, refined a bit, goes as follows:

It’s more probable that a fish (or a single-celled organism) popped into existence, fully formed, in accordance with quantum theory, than it is that life arose from non-life by any natural, gradual, deterministic means.

I’m perfectly willing to grant common descent, and you can have the earth be as old as you like. And yes, I am aware of the Miller-Urey experiment, as well as others; those experiments do not change my assessment of the relative probabilities of the two events. (The biggest, but by no means the only, problem I have with origin of life experiements is that the reactions which create amino-acids and other organic molecules destroy the same molecules as fast as they create them.)

The theory of the quantum single-celled organism is, of course, 100 percent speculation. So I’m not sure we’re going to get the Nobel Prize any time soon. And, of course, it kind of violates the spirit of the Science Game‡ (but not the rules! The fish could arise quantumly without God’s help if that makes you feel better.) But it’s still a pretty fun thought experiment.

[*] Turns out there is a lot of crap on the internet already about “quantum theology” and none of it has anything to do with what I’m talking about here, so I’m dropping the phrase from my vocabulary.

[†] (Someone (I think it was C.S. Lewis) pointed out that God only ever performs miracles which are in harmony with creation. Every day God brings new fishes into the world, he just normally uses the reproductive systems of other fish to do it; this by no means makes it any less of a miracle. Water is turned into wine every day, for you can’t have grapes (and therefore grape juice) without watering the vines. Bread made of grains can be multiplied, for grains multiply themselves over the course of a season, but bread cannot be made from a stone.

[‡] The Science Game is what I play when I think about science. The Science Game goes like this: “I know that God exists, and I know that he created the universe. But, let’s see how much I can understand about the world and how it works without relying on God.” I feel that I should emphasize that the Science Game is not a deragatory term by any means. This is a common objection I hear when I explain the Science Game to people; I once had a man turn purple and shake his fist in my face while roaring “SCIENCE IS NOT A GAME!” at me, as if he was a Muslim and I just made a joke about Mohammed’s mom or something.

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