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The Physics of God

Entry 2155, on 2021-10-01 at 22:00:09 (Rating 2, Skepticism)

I recently finished "reading" a book (actually, listening to an audiobook) titled "The Physics of God". I'm not sure how it got into my library, but I have hundreds of books on my iPhone, so some end up there mysteriously, maybe through a free deal at Audible.

The book was written by a real physicist and until I started listening I expected it would be full of interesting physics, bizarre speculation, and possibly controversial interpretations of known phenomena. Well, all of those things were true, but not in the way I expected.

It turns out that the author wanted to show how science and religion are two different ways to explain the same things, how religious mystics in the past have been in touch with a deep understanding of fundamental physics, and how physical science is inadequate for explaining what we have discovered about how the universe works.

Undoubtedly this person had a good understanding of most physics, which is what I would expect since he is an expert in the field, but his rational thinking and skepticism skills were massively let down by his need to support the idea that religious mystics have real and valuable knowledge about the universe.

In fact, after about an hour of listening I saw where the arguments were heading and thought I might listen to something else, but I always tell myself it is important to listen to alternative ideas, so I persevered to the end. Yes, my loyal readers; those are the sacrificies I make to have some knowledge of all perspectives so I can fairly report them in this blog!

So let's look at some of the issues here. I should say that if you don't care about this particular book, the issues go far beyond that, because they are exactly the same sort of fallacious arguments used by many people who support some sort of pseudoscience.

First, the use of quotes is misleading. When you hear quotes from distinguished figures such as Einstein which seem to support the author's theories it sounds quite convincing, but quotes are dangerous.

Quotes are only an opinion given at one point of time in the person's life. If they had deeper significance they would be more likely to be used in a formal paper, or at least a book. Spoken quotes are interesting (I use them myself) but should be used sparingly to prove a point.

And they are often part of a bigger speech or narrative. Taking a few sentences out of a bigger speech can support one view, where the total meaning might support the complete opposite.

Also, quotes are often deliberately imprecise, metaphorical, or otherwise open to interpretation. When Einstein said "God doesn't place dice" he didn't mean he believed a real god exists, and he said so in another quote which the book ignored. He was using the concept of god in a far wider sense meaning the origin of the laws of the universe, whatever that is.

Second, the vague use of comparisons between religious and scientific writing is problematic. If you look hard enough you can find material in any source which might be seen to fit in with modern scientific knowledge, but those similarities are generally very open to interpretation, plus for every similarity that exists there might be ten conflicts.

So when a religious book seems to predict a scientific discovery centuries later it is best to look at the big picture. Maybe that was just good luck. How many part of that same book disagree with science? Can the passage be interpreted in many ways? How seriously was that taken as a prediction before science discovered the facts?

For example, when Genesis predicts the universe has a beginning, and science in its earliest times thought the universe was infinite in time (so had no beginning) the discovery of the Big Bang seems to indicate that Genesis was right. But that is so superficial, and I could find dozens of places in Genesis which are wrong, so the whole narrative needs to be looked at, not just convenient places which seem correct.

Third, gaps in the understanding of science don't make pseudoscientific explanations any more likely to be true. There are many areas where science has either very incomplete knowledge, highly speculative theories, or even no explanation at all. That doesn't mean religious explanations should be accepted instead.

For example, what is consciousness? Science would suggest it is a manifestation of purely physical processes, but the details of how that might work are lacking. Does that mean that we have to accept some sort of dualism? Actually, no. We just have to put it into the list of things which need further study.

Fourth, when a book says a controversial phenomenon is so well documented that it must be accepted as true and that conventional scientists are just ignoring the truth, we should be highly skeptical.

The book uses near death experiences, out of body experiences, and parapsychological phenomena like ESP to "prove" that there is more to the universe than what we accept in physical science, but that is highly misleading.

Real research on these phenomena shows widely varying results, some positive and some negative. Also, the more carefully controlled the experiment is, the less likely it is to show a positive result. And meta-analyses of research of this type is notoriously susceptible to problems like the file-drawer effect, where positive results are published and negative ones forgotten.

In fact, at best we could say the results of real research on these subjects are difficult to interpet. A more realistic appraisal might be that the results are consistent with other phenomena which are not real, at least according to the best current evidence.

Anone who says that acupuncture, ESP, the reality of NDEs, etc is proved is just totally out of touch with reality. The only honest conclusion is that the research is difficult to interpret and that the best interim verdict is that the effect probably isn't real, but further research might be useful - but isn't it always?

Fifth, it is very easy to take counter-intuitive real physics phenomena and reinterpret them to support something which really is not part of that area of knowledge at all.

Of course, the classic example of this is quantum physics. The author constantly stated that the double-slit experiment shows that the wave function of the photons collapses when observed by an intelligence, but most physicist would say that it is interaction with the rest of the universe which is the critical point.

To be fair, this is a deeply mysterious and puzzling effect, and the explanations offered by conventional science are somewhat uncertain, but to suggest this supports religious mysticism is at least unwise, and arguably dishonest.

And using speculative physical theories like string theory and the holographic universe, as if they were fully accepted, just because it fits what you want to believe, is also somewhat dishonest. It's just too convenient to reject the mainstream science but accept the most controversial.

Finally, belief in the paranormal never seems to be limited to just one effect. Once people go down this path they don't know when to stop, and even if their initial claim made some sense, they usually go too far and reveal their excessive credulity.

The author thinks ESP, acupuncture, life after death, psychokinesis, and numerous other highly controversial beliefs are not just interesting possibilities, but proved beyond any reasonable doubt. Well, they aren't. It's as simple as that.

In summary, using all of these tricks you can prove anything. The author apparently decided what he wanted to believe before looking at the evidence. He then cherry picked, misinterpreted, and exaggerated his way to the conclusion he wanted.

Sure, there were some interesting ideas in this book, and some real physics which is explained quite well, but the conclusions just don't fit the facts. The book as a whole just can't be taken seriously.

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