Last Days and the Resurrection of the Dead I: Quantum Cosmology and Quantum Logic*

The Resurrection of Christ
James Tissot (Brooklyn Museum)

Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?

But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:

And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.

Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not.

 For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins 1 Cor:13-17 (KJV)

"So the same combinations of atoms, the same space volumes corresponding to human bodies, cars, buildings and so on, will come again.   All events in spacetime will be reorganized or 'resurrected'  but not in such a way that they will be in time...It is not that the dead will arise from their graves, as it were, but rather sets of events of any life can arise again,  together with the consciousness of those who were alive." Andrej Grib,  'Quantum Cosmology: Observer Logic' in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature--Perspectives on Divine Action**

INTRODUCTION

Easter, when we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, will soon be upon us, so it is appropriate to reflect on that resurrection and on the one which will be given to us, as Paul said in his letter to the Corinthians.   It is an article of faith for us as Catholics that we will be resurrected and that we will be judged on the Last Day.  Could there possibly be a basis for that belief in contemporary science?   Possibly, although as I will comment below, in the last analysis Revelation is more convincing than science.

A Russian mathematician, Andrej Grib (who is, I believe, a devout Christian), has  speculated on this possibility in an article in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature.   I'll attempt to summarize some of his novel ideas about how quantum mechanics is to be interpreted, what that means in terms of cosmology, and finally how it suggests the possibility of resurrection.

QUANTUM MECHANICS REQUIRES AN OBSERVER

Grib's fundamental thesis (relying on early interpretations of quantum mechanics by Von Neumann and London) is that quantum mechanics requires a measurement process and thus an observer must be the final link in the measurement chain,  in order that the measurement be meaningful.

"In the end the final observer is just the  abstract ego of the observer--the one who is the subject of observation [i.e. the one who observes]...So it is this abstract ego which is responsible for the collapse of the wave function.  This is a strong form of the subjective interpretation of quantum mechanics." Andrej Grib,  op. cit. , p 169

Accordingly, to speak of the wave function of the universe without specifying a measurement or an observer to make that measurement is "very bad philology" (to quote Grib), that is to say, contradictory to implicit assumptions on which quantum mechanics is based.***

Grib then links what appear to be puzzling features of quantum mechanics-- the uncertainty principle that says we can't get exact simultaneous measurements on complementary variables, the wave-particle duality, the entanglement of particle shown in Bell's Theorem experiments--to the following.  The human mind operates by Boolean logic, whereas the universe in fundamental reality is governed by a non-Boolean logic, a quantum logic, which I'll discuss below.

QUANTUM LOGIC****

Quantum logic violates the distribution law of Boolean logic.
Consider events or logical statements A, B, C.    The Boolean distribution law says A*(B+C) = A*B + A*C, or in words,
[A and (B or C)] =  (A and B)  or (A and C)
where "and" , "or" are logical conjunctions.   (See this link for a nice illustration applied to circuit theory.)

But in quantum logic, that equality does NOT hold.    What does this means, physically?

Boolean Logic--Newtonian Physics
from Wikimedia Commons

Quantum Logic--Particles as Waves
From Wikimedia Commons

Consider the double slit experiment, shown in the illustration to the left ("Boolean Logic").   If a beam of particles passes through the two slits and behaves according to classical physics you'd expect two spots on the detecting screen, more or less opposite each slit.     Now suppose you have quantum behavior ("Quantum Logic) as shown in the illustration to the right.  You have a beam of particles--photons, electrons (whatever!)--passing through the two slits.  If one takes A to mean a particle hits the screen, B that it has passed through the upper slit and C that it has passed through the lower slit, then the classical experiment would have particle passing either through the upper slit and hitting the screen more or less opposite that slit (A and B), or passing through the lower slit and hitting the screen more or less opposite that slit (A and C).   But that is NOT what happens.   Instead you get each individual particle behaving as if it were part of a wave and "knew" about both slits.

In other words, the logical terms B and C can't be separated into B or C, it remains B and C in quantum logic.  A particle goes through both upper and lower slits at the same time, as does a wave-front.

BOOLEAN MINDS, A NON-BOOLEAN UNIVERSE, THE BIG CRUNCH

Our minds, Grib says, operate in a Boolean logic mode.   We cannot apprehend non-Boolean logic, whence the apparent mysteries of quantum mechanics.   The perception of time itself is a consequence of this Boolean mind / non-Boolean universe dichotomy.   We must experience events separately and in succession, as past, present and future, even though the physics of relativity suggests they are conjoined, that is to say are not really separated in that non-Boolean universe.

In the short space of this blog post I won't attempt to show how this reasoning leads to a quantum cosmology.  (To be frank, I don't altogether understand it myself).    But it is a consequence of the cosmology engendered by this quantum logic that there will be a "Big Crunch":  instead of a continual expansion of space-time there will be a reversal, a contraction and, as given in the introductory quote,  events and material things will come again, as in a resurrection of everything.

Grib suggests that in this case, Revelation may be a better guide to what "will" happen. ("will"--a future tense--seems out of place given his joining past, present and future together.)

"The idea of the collapse of the wave-function of the universe after the Big Crunch corresponds to these lives coming into a new existence where different weights will be given to different events [emphasis added].   Some of the events could be annihilated (i.e. have zero weight), which is very close to the idea of The Last Judgment).   How can we know in this life what will, and what will not be important for the eternal life after the Big Crunch?  The only sure answer is Revelation [emphasis and upper-case added]." op. cit., p. 181

MY TAKE 

I agree with Grib's last sentence in the quote above: "The only sure answer is Revelation."    This attitude is not an appeal to fideism, that through faith only will we know what is truly important.   Rather, it concedes that our knowledge of material things is limited, that there is a "veiled reality" concealing the fundamental nature of things.   

Science changes.   What we take as established today may be tossed in the dust-bin a hundred years from now.   Revelation does indeed supersede scientific theory, because it is the Word of God.  

One final note:  this was published by error before I finished the article--in fact, before I did anything but the title.   I apologize to those readers who came to a blank page.

NOTES

*I've retitled this to be the first of a series of three on scientific ideas about the Resurrection of the dead, versus Catholic teaching.

**Press on the green book icon and chapter summary will appear on the right; press on that by Grib to get a summary.

***Grib also expounds on Fritz London's ideas about consciousness as final agent for quantum mechanical measurement:

"According to London and Bauer the main feature of consciousness is introspection:  in giving an account to myself of the state in which I am, I know that what I see now is white rather than black, and I know that I know."  op. cit. p. 170

****For a brief account of the relevant features of quantum mechanics see
Quantum Divine Action via God, the Berkeleyan Observer.... and links and references therein.

Philosophic Issues in Cosmology 3: Mathematical Metaphysics--Quantum mechanical models for early stages of the universe.

"Perhaps the best argument in favour of the thesis that the Big Bang supports theism is the obvious unease with which it is greeted by some atheistic physicists.    At times this has led to scientific ideas, such as continuous creation or an oscillating universe, being advanced with a tenacity which so exceeds their intrinsic worth that one can only suspect the operation of psychological forces lying very much deeper than the usual desire of a theorist to support his/her theory (emphasis added).    Chris Isham*

This is the third of 8 articles on philosophical issues in cosmology. Most of the material has been drawn from George Ellis's article, previously referenced, and articles in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature--Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (see Reference** below).
We concluded the second post in this series with the observation that General Relativity must break down at some point close to the extrapolated t=0, near the big bang, and that perforce, quantum mechanical models had to be used for  a theory of creation.    As Ellis, Isham and Grib point out, there are fundamental problems in doing so.

Schrodinger's Cat--simultaneously alive and dead
until the box is opened (from Wikipedia.Org)

A major one is the so-called measurement problem, which is at the heart of difficulties in the interpretation of quantum mechanics.    The quantum mechanical state function can be represented as a superposition of several possible states that could be measured—when the measurement is made and a particular state results, then the superposition “collapses” into the state that is measured (e.g. Schrodinger's cat paradox).  

An associated difficulty is the probability interpretation for measurement:  the universe  state function (wave function) gives probabilities that particular values of dynamical variables will be  measured—what does probability mean in this context; are there an infinite number of possible universes (corresponding to various possible measurements) and who does the measurement?   To quote Christopher Isham* (referring to the measurement problem):

 “This poses the obvious problems of (i) when is an interaction between two systems to count as a measurement by one system of a property of the other? and (ii) what happens if there is an attempt to restore a degree of unity by describing the measurement process in quantum mechanical terms rather than the language of classical physics which is normally used?   There is no universally accepted answer to either of these questions.” (emphasis added). Chris Isham*

That being said, the following quantum mechanical models have been proposed for the origin of the universe  (the list is not exhaustive, and only general comments on each will be given; for more information please see the cited articles):

1. Quantum fluctuations in the vacuum (Tryon, 1979).
2. Tunneling from “superspace” into “real” space-time (Vilenkin, 1983) 
3. The Hartle-Hawking Block Universe, replacement of t by ti (i=square root of -1) (Hartle, Hawking,  1981)
4. Chaotic Inflation  (Linde, 1986)***
5. The Participatory Universe (Wheeler, 1990)
6. Creation from non-Boolean logic to Boolean by an “observer” (Grib,1990)**

Note that in none of these (except possibly 3 or 5) was the creation “ex nihilo”; for 1, the vacuum pre-existed; for 2 the “superspace” (a hypothetical space of multi-dimensions); for 4, previous universes from which a “bubble” universe emerged via inflation; for 6, a hypothetical space of quantum universe states.

Model 1, Quantum fluctuations in the vacuum, is deficient in the following respect.     There is nothing in this model to specify a unique time at which the fluctuations to enable creation should occur.   Accordingly there might be creation of  many universes, interacting with each other, but such has not been observed.   And to emphasize again, a vacuum is not "nothing"...there is space, virtual particles, annhilation and creation operators, occupied zero-point energy levels from which the fluctuations occur.

For 3, the Hartle-Hawking model, the replacement of t by ti gives a term t^2 instead of -t^2  in the Schrodinger equation for the universe, which enables a solution without a singularity.    The variable t becomes space-like, rather than time-like at very early values, and the space-like ti gradually becomes a time-like variable (goes back to t) as the value of t increases.  An exact value for the time of origin becomes undefined (where does the earth start, at the South pole?).

Hartle-Hawking Model (from StrangeNotions.com)

 The diagram illustrates this (vertical axis is increasing “t”).   Note that there is no experimental justification for the replacement of t by ti;  the justification is “esthetic”, that is the substitution removes the singularity at t=0.   It is said that the coordinate ti "gradually changes" from space-like to t, time-like...how is the gradual change effected?  Is the universe a fraction f with ti and a fraction 1-f with t?   I have never seen this explained.

In order to understand the significance of models  5 (the Participatory Universe of John Wheeler) and 6 (the quantum logic model of Andrej Grib), a comment on an interpretation of quantum mechanics   that links quantum mechanics to consciousness will be helpful.    (See also references in my previous posts "Do quantum entities have free will.." and "Quantum Divine Action via God, the Berkeleyan Observer..".)

The Participatory Universe and Quantum Logic models stem from the interpretation, first set forth by Von Neumann, London and Wigner, that since measurement is done by an observer, the final step in the measurement process must be awareness of the measurement result by the consciousness of the observer.   Accordingly the conscious observer must be an intrinsic part of quantum mechanics.  

Wheeler's Participatory Universe Icon
From the University of Toronto site

 Wheeler construes this basic relation to consciousness  as implying a universe of  information ("It from Bits"), so that by looking back in time we create the past universe,  as symbolized in the famous icon shown  at the left.

Grib's quantum logic model invokes a reality of non-Boolean logic that we (as observers) convert to Boolean logic situations, which is the only type of logic that our minds can comprehend.  Grib speculates that perhaps it was God who made the initial observation to create a “real” universe (one perceived according to Boolean logic).   According to Grib, time is a framework (lattice) for arraying the non-Boolean events in a framework that can be scanned as Boolean, and quantum mechanics is the theory for converting the non-Boolean system to Boolean.

As far as bubble universes go, chaotic inflation is a hypothesis.  There are, however, some recent preliminary results from B-mode measurements of the Cosmic Background radiation that support the existence of inflation (not necessarily chaotic inflation).

Nevertheless it should be clear that none of these models can be confirmed or denied by measurements.  Thus they are outside the realm of science, but properly belong to the domain of mathematical metaphysics  (my take).   As in the Hartle-Hawking model, assumptions are made to remove the singularity  at t=0, R=0.    Such models without a singularity are to many physicists more aesthetically pleasing than those with, because to them the absence of a singularity is consistent with the absence of a Creator.

We'll explore some implications of these models for theology in the next post in this series, Creatio ex nihilo: Theology vs. Physics.

References
*Chris Isham, "Creation of the Universe as Quantum Process"in Physics, Philosophy and Theology--A Common Quest for Understanding.
**Chris Isham, "Quantum Theories of the Creation of the Universe"; Andrej Grib, "Quantum Cosmology, the Role of the Observer, Quantum Logic" in Quantum Cosmology and the Laws of Nature--Scientific Perspectives on Divine Action (click on the book icon, and then on the article listed on the right).