Quantum Mechanics and Revelation

2021 ◽  
pp. 504-517
Author(s):  
Stephen M. Barr
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Short Answer ◽  
The Church

It is widely acknowledged that quantum mechanics may have profound philosophical implications, but what those implications are has been debated for nearly a century. The question addressed in this chapter is whether it has any implications that touch upon the truths of Christian revelation. The short answer is that quantum mechanics does not say anything directly about revealed truths but does have implications relevant to certain philosophical truths that the Church regards as entailed by Christian revelation. These include the truths that human beings have free will and that human beings are not entirely reducible to matter or explicable in purely physical terms. Before getting to these questions, the chapter makes some preliminary remarks about quantum mechanics for context.

Ultimate Responsibility and Dumb Luck

1999 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 274-293 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfred R. Mele
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Moral Responsibility ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Ultimate Responsibility ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Universe

My topic lies on conceptual terrain that is quite familiar to philosophers. For others, a bit of background may be in order. In light of what has filtered down from quantum mechanics, few philosophers today believe that the universe is causally deterministic (or “deterministic,” for short). That is, to use Peter van Inwagen's succinct definition of “determinism,” few philosophers believe that “there is at any instant exactly one physically possible future.” Even so, partly for obvious historical reasons, philosophers continue to argue about whether free will and moral responsibility are compatible with determinism. Compatibilists argue for compatibility, and incompatibilists argue against it. Some incompatibilists maintain that free will and moral responsibility are illusions. But most are libertarians, libertarianism being the conjunction of incompatibilism and the thesis that at least some human beings are possessed of free will and moral responsibility.

scholarly journals The indeterminist objectivity of quantum mechanics versus the determinist subjectivity of classical physics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Hidden Variables ◽  
Classical Mechanics ◽  
Niels Bohr ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Physical Universe ◽  
Max Born

Indeterminism of quantum mechanics is considered as an immediate corollary from the theorems about absence of hidden variables in it, and first of all, the Kochen – Specker theorem. The base postulate of quantum mechanics formulated by Niels Bohr that it studies the system of an investigated microscopic quantum entity and the macroscopic apparatus described by the smooth equations of classical mechanics by the readings of the latter implies as a necessary condition of quantum mechanics the absence of hidden variables, and thus, quantum indeterminism. Consequently, the objectivity of quantum mechanics and even its possibility and ability to study its objects as they are by themselves imply quantum indeterminism. The so-called free-will theorems in quantum mechanics elucidate that the “valuable commodity” of free will is not a privilege of the experimenters and human beings, but it is shared by anything in the physical universe once the experimenter is granted to possess free will. The analogical idea, that e.g. an electron might possess free will to “decide” what to do, scandalized Einstein forced him to exclaim (in a letter to Max Born in 2016) that he would be а shoemaker or croupier rather than a physicist if this was true. Anyway, many experiments confirmed the absence of hidden variables and thus quantum indeterminism in virtue of the objectivity and completeness of quantum mechanics. Once quantum mechanics is complete and thus an objective science, one can ask what this would mean in relation to classical physics and its objectivity. In fact, it divides disjunctively what possesses free will from what does not. Properly, all physical objects belong to the latter area according to it, and their “behavior” is necessary and deterministic. All possible decisions, on the contrary, are concentrated in the experimenters (or human beings at all), i.e. in the former domain not intersecting the latter. One may say that the cost of the determinism and unambiguous laws of classical physics, is the indeterminism and free will of the experimenters and researchers (human beings) therefore necessarily being out of the scope and objectivity of classical physics. This is meant as the “deterministic subjectivity of classical physics” opposed to the “indeterminist objectivity of quantum mechanics”.

First Names and Political Change in Modern Turkey

1978 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 489-495 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard W. Bulliet
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Political Change ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Modern Turkey ◽  
The Way

One of the few predictable opportunities for the exercise of free will that comes the way of most human beings is the bestowal of names upon their children. To be sure, local or national custom may legally restrict or otherwise limit the scope of that freedom in some cases; but by and large, there is normally some choice to be made, and the beneficiary of the choice, the child, is inevitably powerless to influence it.

El parecer de Agustín del amor como gracia, en la controversia con Juliano de Eclana

Augustinus ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-142
Author(s):  
Mathijs Lamberigts ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Decisive Factor ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Pelagian Controversy

During the Pelagian controversy, the precise relation between grace and free will was an important issue. Augustine emphasized the priority of grace over human beings’ free will after the Fall. Pelagians such as Julian of Aeclanum were of the opinion that such view annihilated human beings’ free will. Throughout history, time and again, scholars belonging to different schools and denomina­tions have discussed this issue at length. In this article, we concentrate on Augustine’s view on love as grace during his debate with Julian. We argue that one should broaden the scope of this question and pay attention to the role of divine love as an important and decisive factor with regard to the proper activity of grace in the redemption and liberation of human beings. Thinking the relation between human beings and God in terms of love is a help in order to overcome the unfruitful grace-freewill antinomy. In fact, such approach does justice to both the Scriptural sources of Augustine’s position and the bishop’s spiritual view on the topic under consideration.

scholarly journals Free Will in Human Behavior and Physics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Quantum Information ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Classical Physics ◽  
Quantum Bit ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Mean ◽  
The One

If the concept of “free will” is reduced to that of “choice” all physical world share the latter quality. Anyway the “free will” can be distinguished from the “choice”: The “free will” involves implicitly a certain goal, and the choice is only the mean, by which the aim can be achieved or not by the one who determines the target. Thus, for example, an electron has always a choice but not free will unlike a human possessing both. Consequently, and paradoxically, the determinism of classical physics is more subjective and more anthropomorphic than the indeterminism of quantum mechanics for the former presupposes certain deterministic goal implicitly following the model of human freewill behavior. Quantum mechanics introduces the choice in the fundament of physical world involving a generalized case of choice, which can be called “subjectless”: There is certain choice, which originates from the transition of the future into the past. Thus that kind of choice is shared of all existing and does not need any subject: It can be considered as a low of nature. There are a few theorems in quantum mechanics directly relevant to the topic: two of them are called “free will theorems” by their authors (Conway and Kochen 2006; 2009). Any quantum system either a human or an electron or whatever else has always a choice: Its behavior is not predetermined by its past. This is a physical law. It implies that a form of information, the quantum information underlies all existing for the unit of the quantity of information is an elementary choice: either a bit or a quantum bit (qubit).

scholarly journals PKM KATEKESE TENTANG MENGHAYATI NILAI KERAJAAN ALLAH DALAM ERA DIGITAL BAGI ANGGOTA KMK. ST. MARTINUS PAROKI PERSIAPAN ST. MARINUS PU’URERE

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-41
Author(s):  
Aurelius Fredimento ◽  
John M. Balan
Keyword(s):  
Kinetic Energy ◽  
Technology Development ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Flowing Water ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Media Communication ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Church

The development and the progress of media communication at the present is a fact of the knowledge and the technology development that must be accepted. It presence like the flowing water which has a fast current that brings also two influences both positive and negative that must be accounted for the members of the Catholic Students Community Of St. Martinus Ende (KMK St. Martinus Ende). Both positive and negative influences the media community like a kinetic energy or a power attraction that attract  them in a tiring ambiquity. Let them walk alone without escort of a decisive compass where they should have a rightist attitude and responsible. On the point, the guidance and assistance of the church is an  offering  if the church will be born a generation  of the future  of the  church  that is mature and has a certain quality  based  on the growth  and the development  of acuteness and inner  to determine the attitude to the development of media communication. The process of sharpening of mind and the sharpeness of the participants can be realized by giving some activities such as: awareness, deepening and even  the sharpeness of the actor of  media communication as an  alternative of reporting work of the God Kingdom for human beings. It becomes the main moving spirit or activator  for the board of KMK Of St. Martinus Ende  to plan and boring  about the activity of catechism. The activity rise the method of Amos.  By this method, the participants are invited to build a deeply reflection that based on thein real experiences about the media communication, while keep on self opening to the God planning will come  to them  and  give them via  the commandment of God.  The commandment  of God  come to light, inspiration, motivate, power and critics to the  participants about the using of the media communication as a media of the commandment of the kingdom of God  to the world that is more progress and development lately.

scholarly journals Why anything rather than nothing? The answer of quantum mechanics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vasil Dinev Penchev
Keyword(s):  
Quantum Mechanics ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Big Bang ◽  
Mathematical Truth ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Philosophical Interpretation ◽  
The World ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Big Bang ◽  
In Virtue Of

Many researchers determine the question “Why anything rather than nothing?” as the most ancient and fundamental philosophical problem. Furthermore, it is very close to the idea of Creation shared by religion, science, and philosophy, e.g. as the “Big Bang”, the doctrine of “first cause” or “causa sui”, the Creation in six days in the Bible, etc.Thus, the solution of quantum mechanics, being scientific in fact, can be interpreted also philosophically, and even religiously. However, only the philosophical interpretation is the topic of the text.The essence of the answer of quantum mechanics is:1. The creation is necessary in a rigorous mathematical sense. Thus, it does not need any choice, free will, subject, God, etc. to appear. The world exists in virtue of mathematical necessity, e.g. as any mathematical truth such as 2+2=4.2. The being is less than nothing rather than more than nothing. So, the creation is not an increase of nothing, but the decrease of nothing: it is a deficiency in relation of nothing. Time and its “arrow” are the way of that diminishing or incompleteness to nothing.

scholarly journals Why Catholic Theology Needs Metapshysics: A Christological Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 41-62
Author(s):  
Thomas Joseph White
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Divine Nature ◽  
Catholic Theology ◽  
Human Reason ◽  
Son Of God ◽  
The One ◽  
Human Intellect ◽  
To Receive ◽  
The Church

The Chalcedonian confession of faith asserts that Christ is one person, the Son of God, subsisting in two natures, divine and human. The doctrine of the communication of idioms is essential to the life and practices of the Church insofar as we affirm there to be properties of deity and humanity present in the one subject, the Word made flesh. Such affirmations are made without a confusion of the two natures or their mutually distinct attributes. The affirmation that there is a divine and human nature in Christ is possible, however, only if it is also possible for human beings to think coherently about the divine nature, analogically, and human nature, univocally. Otherwise it is not feasible to receive understanding of the divine nature of Christ into the human intellect intrinsically and the revelation must remain wholly alien to natural human thought, even under the presumption that such understanding originates in grace. Likewise we can only think coherently of the eternal Son’s solidarity with us in human nature if we can conceive of a common human nature present in all human individuals. Consequently, it is only possible for the Church to confess some form of Chalcedonian doctrine if there is also a perennial metaphysical philosophy capable of thinking coherently about the divine and human natures from within the ambit of natural human reason. This also implies that the Church maintains a “metaphysical apostolate” in her public teaching, in her philosophical traditions, as well as in her scriptural and doctrinal enunciations.

God, Suffering, and the Value of Free Will

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura W. Ekstrom
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Skeptical Theism ◽  
Existence Of God ◽  
Moral Goodness ◽  
The Problem Of Evil ◽  
Argument From Evil ◽  
Close Investigation ◽  
Traditional Doctrine

This book focuses on arguments from suffering against the existence of God and on a variety of issues concerning agency and value that they bring out. The central aim is to show the extent and power of arguments from evil. The book provides a close investigation of an under-defended claim at the heart of the major free-will-based responses to such arguments, namely that free will is sufficiently valuable to serve as the good, or to serve prominently among the goods, that provides a God-justifying reason for permitting evil in our world. Offering a fresh examination of traditional theodicies, it also develops an alternative line the author calls a divine intimacy theodicy. It makes an extended case for rejection of the position of skeptical theism. The book expands upon an argument from evil concerning a traditional doctrine of hell, which reveals a number of interesting issues concerning fault, agency, and blameworthiness. In response to recent work contending that the problem of evil is defanged since God’s baseline attitude toward human beings is indifference, the book defends the essential perfect moral goodness of God. Finally it takes up the question of whether or not it makes sense to live a religious life as an agnostic or as an atheist.

Control, Alt, Delete? Information Technology and the Human

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-269
Author(s):  
Jeanne Gaakeer
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Free Will ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
And Control ◽  
Modern Technologies

With the German jurist-philosopher-author Juli Zeh chapter 13 asks the jurist to consider the effects of contemporary information technologies on the human. It discusses topics such as privacy, surveillance and control societies in relation to individual autonomy and free will. With Zeh’s novel The Method it shows the consequences of state ideology writ large and it asks the reader to consider in which ways humans are being nudged into complacency by modern technologies that provide all our modern conveniences. It shows that as a result of modern technologies human beings run the risk of being reduced to objects ready to be used for further ordering by others.

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