At Phys.org: Scientists are unraveling the mystery of the arrow of time

See the Institute for Quantum Computing. https://uwaterloo.ca/institute-for-quantum-computing/ relatd

Relatd: IBM understands quantum mechanics? Does that mean they understand double-slit experiments? That QM works, no one denies. But it's mathematical underpinnings are "axioms," that is, simply postulated. And why are they postulated? Because (1) no one knows exactly what goes on in taking a measurement, and (2) because the axioms help them get the right answers. Who, better than Feynman, would know all of this? And he says that he can safely say that no one understands QM. Manipulate, yes; understand, no. PaV

Ba77 at 38, "Darwinists will simply ignore the empirical evidence as if it is of no consequence." As you rightly point out, this, and other experiments, show Darwinism to be incapable of doing what it claims. However, the wall of promoters will stand firm, resisting all evidence. And like answering machines, will continue with the "evolution is a fact" message. In conclusion, there is no debate here, just constant repetition that has nothing to do with intellectual integrity or honesty. To all reading, that is the description of Propaganda. relatd

Belfast perhaps it would have been better for me to use the word 'inference' instead of the word conclusion. And the sentence does indeed seem to read better that way, i.e. “the inference to a “soul” follows directly from the findings of quantum biology,…” and also seems to stay within provisional nature of the scientific method. In other words, I hold that an immaterial soul best explains the body of evidence from quantum biology. Whereas again, Darwinists, with their reductive materialistic framework, are not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand quantum biology in the first place. As Eugene Wigner himself noted, “while a number of philosophical ideas may be logically consistent with present QM… Materialism is not.” As the old joke goes, 'You can't get there from here". Further notes as to just how antagonistic quantum biology actually is to Darwinian presuppositions, in the following 2015 paper entitled, “Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules” it was found that “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” and the researchers further commented that “finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,,

Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552

To drive this point home as to how antagonistic this actually is to Darwinian presuppositions, in this follow up 2018 article the author stated that “There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,,”

Quantum Critical Proteins – Stuart Lindsay – Professor of Physics and Chemistry at Arizona State University – 2018 Excerpt: The difficulty with this proposal lies in its improbability. Only an infinitesimal density of random states exists near the critical point.,, Gábor Vattay et al. recently examined a number of proteins and conducting and insulating polymers.14 The distribution for the insulators and conductors were as expected, but the functional proteins all fell on the quantum-critical distribution. Such a result cannot be a consequence of chance.,,, WHAT OF quantum criticality? Vattay et al. carried out electronic structure calculations for the very large protein used in our work. They found that the distribution of energy-level spacings fell on exactly the quantum-critical distribution, implying that this protein is also quantum critical. There is no obvious evolutionary reason why a protein should evolve toward a quantum-critical state, and there is no chance at all that the state could occur randomly.,,, http://inference-review.com/article/quantum-critical-proteins Gábor Vattay et al., “Quantum Criticality at the Origin of Life,” Journal of Physics: Conference Series 626 (2015); Gábor Vattay, Stuart Kauffman, and Samuli Niiranen, “Quantum Biology on the Edge of Quantum Chaos,” PLOS One 9, no. 3 (2014)

This empirical finding is simply catastrophic for Darwinism. And yet, like a thousand other experiments before it that have falsified Darwinian claims, Darwinists will simply ignore the empirical evidence as if it is of no consequence. i.e. Darwinism, at least how Darwinists treat their theory, is simply unfalsifiable by any empirical observation, and therefore does not even qualify a real empirical science but is best classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience.

"In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable; and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality." Karl Popper - The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge (2014 edition), Routledge

As Denis Noble himself noted in his run in with Darwinists, "“If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.”

Central tenets of neo-Darwinism broken. Response to ‘Neo-Darwinism is just fine’ – 2015 Excerpt: “If, as the commentator seems to imply, we make neo-Darwinism so flexible as an idea that it can accept even those findings that the originators intended to be excluded by the theory it is then incumbent on modern neo-Darwinists to specify what would now falsify the theory. If nothing can do this then it is not a scientific theory.” – Denis Noble - President of International Union of Physiological Sciences https://jeb.biologists.org/content/218/16/2659

And as Imre Lakatos himself noted, "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific",

Imre Lakatos - Pseudoscience,,, In his 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture 1[23] he also claimed that "nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre_Lakatos#Pseudoscience

Again, Darwinism does not even qualify a real empirical science but is best classified as a unfalsifiable pseudoscience. Verse:

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

bornagain77

BA@25 and others “I told you what the empirical evidence consists of,,,, “the conclusion of a “soul” follows directly from the findings of quantum biology,…” A ‘conclusion’ is another word for a ‘deduction’. The conclusion may be right, wrong, or a hundred intermediate shades, but a ‘conclusion’ can never be empirical. evidence. The individual ‘findings’ may have been truly empirical observations, but they may have been ‘deductions’ and ‘conclusions’ themselves. Belfast

Seversky, you cite a NCSE site. Yet NCSE, Eugenie Scott's old stomping ground, is a notorious Darwinian propaganda mill, But anyways, in the paper you cited from NCSE they list only one real time experimental evidence for the supposed speciation of bacteria. The other citations are just-so conjectures. Specifically, for real time evidence they cited Lenski's work. Yet in my post you were supposedly refuting, I specifically cited a paper that EXPERIMENTALLY refuted Lenski's claim for bacterial speciation. Shoot, Lenski himself has now walked his claim for bacterial speciation back. Here it the research I cited again,

Rapid Evolution of Citrate Utilization by Escherichia coli by Direct Selection Requires citT and dctA. – Minnich – Feb. 2016 The isolation of aerobic citrate-utilizing Escherichia coli (Cit(+)) in long-term evolution experiments (LTEE) has been termed a rare, innovative, presumptive speciation event. We hypothesized that direct selection would rapidly yield the same class of E. coli Cit(+) mutants and follow the same genetic trajectory: potentiation, actualization, and refinement. This hypothesis was tested,,, Potentiation/actualization mutations occurred within as few as 12 generations, and refinement mutations occurred within 100 generations.,,, E. coli cannot use citrate aerobically. Long-term evolution experiments (LTEE) performed by Blount et al. (Z. D. Blount, J. E. Barrick, C. J. Davidson, and R. E. Lenski, Nature 489:513-518, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11514 ) found a single aerobic, citrate-utilizing E. coli strain after 33,000 generations (15 years). This was interpreted as a speciation event. Here we show why it probably was not a speciation event. Using similar media, 46 independent citrate-utilizing mutants were isolated in as few as 12 to 100 generations. Genomic DNA sequencing revealed an amplification of the citT and dctA loci and DNA rearrangements to capture a promoter to express CitT, aerobically. These are members of the same class of mutations identified by the LTEE. We conclude that the rarity of the LTEE mutant was an artifact of the experimental conditions and not a unique evolutionary event. No new genetic information (novel gene function) evolved. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26833416

After that major faux pas on your part which proved my point exactly about you having no real time experimental support, you then have the audacity to claim that the real-time experimental evidence for Darwinian is widely available. That claim is straight up BS and you know it. As your own paper from NCSE makes clear, all Darwinists have is bluff and bluster. They have ZERO real time experimental support for their grandiose claims. You then launch into a paltry, and pathetic, rebuttal of my 14 claims Here is a defense of all 14 of my claims; https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit Sev: "Neither of us are professional scientists so our opinions are equally inconsequential. But then no one here is doing empirical science" But alas, I referenced peer reviewed real-time experimental research to refute your Darwinian worldview, and you have no real-time research to reference that can withstand scrutiny, i.e. your Lenski bluff for speciation of bacteria being a prime example. To wit,

"If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is … If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it." - Feynman

Sev: "What particular aspect of my worldview do you think has been falsified?" Every bit of it. To quote Colin Patterson, "Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true?"

The question is: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing that is true? I tried that question on the geology staff in the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar at the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time, and then eventually one person said, “Yes, I do know one thing. It ought not to be taught in high school.” https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/evolution/colin-patterson-can-you-tell-me-anything-about-evolution-that-is-true/

Sev: "Is your worldview capable of being falsified?" Yes. There is even a 10 million dollar prize for the first person who can falsify Intelligent Design by showing unguided processes creating a code.. (See Perry Marshall's 10 million dollar Origin of Life prize) Sev: "If you want to put the “soul” on an empirical basis you need to construct an operational definition of the phenomenon and suggest the means by which its presence might be detected if it exists. Can you do that? You yourself provided an 'operational definition' of the soul per Merrian Webster, "Merriam-Webster defines “soul” as 1 : the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. 2a : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe." And I have repeatedly 'suggested' that the presence of the immaterial soul is now detected via advances in quantum biology, (coupled, or course, with quantum non-locality as well as conservation of quantum information). Whereas you, as a Darwinist Materialist, are not even on the correct theoretical foundation in order to properly understand quantum biology in the first place.

Jim Al-Khalili, at the 2:30 minute mark of the following video states, ",, Physicists and Chemists have had a long time to try and get use to it (Quantum Mechanics). Biologists, on the other hand have got off lightly in my view. They are very happy with their balls and sticks models of molecules. The balls are the atoms. The sticks are the bonds between the atoms. And when they can't build them physically in the lab nowadays they have very powerful computers that will simulate a huge molecule.,, It doesn't really require much in the way of quantum mechanics in the way to explain it." At the 6:52 minute mark of the video, Jim Al-Khalili goes on to state: “To paraphrase, (Erwin Schrödinger in his book “What Is Life”), he says at the molecular level living organisms have a certain order. A structure to them that’s very different from the random thermodynamic jostling of atoms and molecules in inanimate matter of the same complexity. In fact, living matter seems to behave in its order and its structure just like inanimate cooled down to near absolute zero. Where quantum effects play a very important role. There is something special about the structure, about the order, inside a living cell. So Schrodinger speculated that maybe quantum mechanics plays a role in life”. Jim Al-Khalili – Quantum biology – video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOzCkeTPR3Q

bornagain77

Seversky at 34, LIAR. "Neither of us are professional scientists so our opinions are equally inconsequential." So inconsequential that you post here constantly. Quit lying. Just stop it. relatd

Bornagain77/30

Sev states, “The problem is that proposing a highly tenuous inference from observed quantum phenomena to such a vague concept is not empirical science. It’s speculation at best.” You simply can’t make this up. Seversky, who has not one speck of real-time empirical evidence that Darwinian processes can transform even a single functional protein into another protein of another function,

Actually, in case you hadn't noticed, the question at issue was whether we could infer the existence of a soul from observed quantum phenomena, not evidence for evolution. Have you found any quantum physicists who endorse that belief?

, much less does Seversky have any evidence of one species of bacteria, via Darwinian processes, transforming into a new species of bacteria, (not to mention higher life forms)

If you Google on "bacteria speciation" you will find a number of papers discussing the topic.

Scant search for the Maker – 2001 Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. – Alan H. Linton – emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducatio.....ode=159282

From a paper on the NCSE site titled, strangely enough, "Bacterial speciation" :

As British bacteriologist Alan Linton has noted, "Throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another. Explore Evolution, p. 104-5

This claim is made to imply once again that natural evolutionary mechanisms cannot account for speciation. As worded, it again misrepresents what evolutionary biology actually claims, and what research has shown. Explore Evolution ignores the hundreds of papers which address the study of speciation in bacteria. The quotation offered is from a book review by a British microbiologist affiliated with the Biblical Creation Society, hardly a credible source. Recent research indicates that speciation in bacteria occurs when otherwise relatively frequent and genome-wide genetic recombination events become more limited.

,,, Seversky, who has not one shred of real-time empirical evidence to support his Darwinian worldview, and whose entire Darwinian worldview is, therefore, based on purely imaginative, and speculative, ‘just-so stories’,,,

The evidence for evolution is widely available in textbooks and websites as has been pointed out many times before. If you want to ignore or dismiss it in favor of your collection of cherry-picked quotes, then that is your choice but it is out there.

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’.

Says who?

2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to be grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute.

Darwin's original theory noted that if artificial selection or selective breeding could produce new varieties then environmental influences should be able to do the same thing over time. He was right.

3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke.

Once again, Darwin knew nothing about DNA nor does the theory hold that all species will inevitably evolve into other species. And there is plenty of evidence that genetic mutations can affect morphology.

4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever.

Once again, Darwin knew nothing about the genome so had nothing to say about the ratio of beneficial to detrimental mutations. It is now held that the majority of mutations are neutral or nearly-neutral, a smaller number are detrimental and a much smaller number still are beneficial. The neutral mutations are effectively invisible to selection, the detrimental mutations, being detrimental, are filtered out by selection leaving the beneficial mutations to proliferate in the population.

5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, (i.e. disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late).

The nature of fossilization means that the fossil record is going to provide a fragmentary and coarse-grained image at best of the history of life on Earth. Darwin allowed that evolution could proceed at varying rates so the abrupt appearance of new species in the fossil record could simply be an artefact of its limitations. And what are all these fossils found in the "wrong place"?

7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.”

Does Axe seriously believe that soft tissue like genes or proteins are going to leave a detectable imprint in the fossil record?

8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.”

You keep quoting this claim by Loennig but we've yet to see any examples of what he is claiming. Maybe he's not looking closely enough for advantages to the benefactor species.

9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’.

Even Darwin could be prone to the Argument from Incredulity.

10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible.

To rule something impossible you have to be able to exclude all the possible causal chains that could have lead to it. If you don't know what all the possible causal chains are - and we don't in the case of evolution - then we can't declare something to be impossible. And claiming that the chances of a modern cell or protein springing into existence in one go - the tornado-in-a-junkyard argument - is so remote as to be impossible is pointless, since that isn't what evolution claims.

Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place!

In case you hadn't noticed, the theory of evolution has nothing to say about the ontology of mathematics but it doesn't matter since mathematics has the same utility in biology as it does in physics.

11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!.

If our current understanding of how the brain works is correct then we all live within a model of what exists outside us created on the basis of information about that external reality gathered by our senses. It's imperfect and incomplete because our senses only gather a limited amount of information but it's good enough. It's not an illusion, unless you consider a model to be an illusion, but no model is the same as the thing being modeled, it's an abstraction but not a fantasy - at least we hope not.

12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy.

So is information material/physical or not? You seem to be claiming it's both. Just what is "information" to you?

13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science!

Truth is for philosophers and theologians. The theory of evolution, like all other theories in science, is a provisional explanation of how life diversifies through time and space. It's the best we have so far but there is nothing to prevent it evolving over time or being replaced if something better comes along

14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution.

We are social and teleological creatures. Our languages most likely developed in the first place to model our teleological behavior. That's why it's so difficult to express ourselves in non-teleological terms.

Tell you what Seversky, show me that you have ounce of intellectual integrity, and honestly admit that your Darwinian worldview is experimentally falsified from multiple different angles of experimental evidence, and then I will admit that you have, at least, the capacity within yourself to comment on whether or not the finding of quantum non-locality within molecular biology supports the reality of the immaterial ‘soul’ or not. Until then, your ‘scientific’ opinions on the subject are worse than useless as far as empirical science is concerned.

Neither of us are professional scientists so our opinions are equally inconsequential. But then no one here is doing empirical science except perhaps JVL trying - unsuccessfully - to get agreement on running test calculations of CSI and FSCO/I. My "worldview" has not been experimentally falsified overall but I'm just as capable of being wrong as the next person. What particular aspect of my worldview do you think has been falsified? Is your worldview capable of being falsified? If you want to put the "soul" on an empirical basis you need to construct an operational definition of the phenomenon and suggest the means by which its presence might be detected if it exists. Can you do that? Seversky

Ba77 at 30, I think it should be obvious to you that Seversky, and a few others here, are not interested in 'intellectual integrity.' Their job - and that's what it is - is to promote Darwinism like it was one big advertising campaign. They need to confuse the people. Like this: Darwin or ID? They want to make sure people get confused and never choose ID. relatd

Pav at 31, IBM understands quantum mechanics. relatd

Relatd: I'll quote Feynman again: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics." He won his Nobel Prize for his work on QED, the definitive version of quantum mechanics. PaV

Sev states, "The problem is that proposing a highly tenuous inference from observed quantum phenomena to such a vague concept is not empirical science. It’s speculation at best." You simply can't make this up. Seversky, who has not one speck of real-time empirical evidence that Darwinian processes can transform even a single functional protein into another protein of another function,

"Enzyme Families -- Shared Evolutionary History or Shared Design?" - Ann Gauger - December 4, 2014 Excerpt: If enzymes can't be recruited to genuinely new functions by unguided means, no matter how similar they are, the evolutionary story is false.,,, Taken together, since we found no enzyme that was within one mutation of cooption, the total number of mutations needed is at least four: one for duplication, one for over-production, and two or more single base changes. The waiting time required to achieve four mutations is 10^15 years. That's longer than the age of the universe. The real waiting time is likely to be much greater, since the two most likely candidate enzymes failed to be coopted by double mutations. https://evolutionnews.org/2014/12/a_new_paper_fro/ Right of Reply: Our Response to Jerry Coyne - September 29, 2019 by Günter Bechly, Brian Miller and David Berlinski Excerpt: David Gelernter observed that amino acid sequences that correspond to functional proteins are remarkably rare among the “space” of all possible combinations of amino acid sequences of a given length. Protein scientists call this set of all possible amino acid sequences or combinations “amino acid sequence space” or “combinatorial sequence space.” Gelernter made reference to this concept in his review of Meyer and Berlinski’s books. He also referenced the careful experimental work by Douglas Axe who used a technique known as site-directed mutagenesis to assess the rarity of protein folds in sequence space while he was working at Cambridge University from 1990-2003. Axe showed that the ratio of sequences in sequence space that will produce protein folds to sequences that won’t is prohibitively and vanishingly small. Indeed, in an authoritative paper published in the Journal of Molecular Biology Axe estimated that ratio at 1 in 10^74. From that information about the rarity of protein folds in sequence space, Gelernter—like Axe, Meyer and Berlinski—has drawn the rational conclusion: finding a novel protein fold by a random search is implausible in the extreme. Not so, Coyne argued. Proteins do not evolve from random sequences. They evolve by means of gene duplication. By starting from an established protein structure, protein evolution had a head start. This is not an irrational position, but it is anachronistic. Indeed, Harvard mathematical biologist Martin Nowak has shown that random searches in sequence space that start from known functional sequences are no more likely to enter regions in sequence space with new protein folds than searches that start from random sequences. The reason for this is clear: random searches are overwhelmingly more likely to go off into a non-folding, non-functional abyss than they are to find a novel protein fold. Why? Because such novel folds are so extraordinarily rare in sequence space. Moreover, as Meyer explained in Darwin’s Doubt, as mutations accumulate in functional sequences, they will inevitably destroy function long before they stumble across a new protein fold. Again, this follows from the extreme rarity (as well as the isolation) of protein folds in sequence space. Recent work by Weizmann Institute protein scientist Dan Tawfik has reinforced this conclusion. Tawfik’s work shows that as mutations to functional protein sequences accumulate, the folds of those proteins become progressively more thermodynamically and structurally unstable. Typically, 15 or fewer mutations will completely destroy the stability of known protein folds of average size. Yet, generating (or finding) a new protein fold requires far more amino acid sequence changes than that. Finally, calculations based on Tawfik’s work confirm and extend the applicability of Axe’s original measure of the rarity of protein folds. These calculations confirm that the measure of rarity that Axe determined for the protein he studied is actually representative of the rarity for large classes of other globular proteins. Not surprisingly, Dan Tawfik has described the origination of a truly novel protein or fold as “something like close to a miracle.” Tawfik is on Coyne’s side: He is mainstream. https://quillette.com/2019/09/29/right-of-reply-our-response-to-jerry-coyne/

, much less does Seversky have any evidence of one species of bacteria, via Darwinian processes, transforming into a new species of bacteria, (not to mention higher life forms)

Scant search for the Maker - 2001 Excerpt: But where is the experimental evidence? None exists in the literature claiming that one species has been shown to evolve into another. Bacteria, the simplest form of independent life, are ideal for this kind of study, with generation times of 20 to 30 minutes, and populations achieved after 18 hours. But throughout 150 years of the science of bacteriology, there is no evidence that one species of bacteria has changed into another, in spite of the fact that populations have been exposed to potent chemical and physical mutagens and that, uniquely, bacteria possess extrachromosomal, transmissible plasmids. Since there is no evidence for species changes between the simplest forms of unicellular life, it is not surprising that there is no evidence for evolution from prokaryotic to eukaryotic cells, let alone throughout the whole array of higher multicellular organisms. - Alan H. Linton - emeritus professor of bacteriology, University of Bristol. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=159282 Rapid Evolution of Citrate Utilization by Escherichia coli by Direct Selection Requires citT and dctA. - Minnich - Feb. 2016 The isolation of aerobic citrate-utilizing Escherichia coli (Cit(+)) in long-term evolution experiments (LTEE) has been termed a rare, innovative, presumptive speciation event. We hypothesized that direct selection would rapidly yield the same class of E. coli Cit(+) mutants and follow the same genetic trajectory: potentiation, actualization, and refinement. This hypothesis was tested,,, Potentiation/actualization mutations occurred within as few as 12 generations, and refinement mutations occurred within 100 generations.,,, E. coli cannot use citrate aerobically. Long-term evolution experiments (LTEE) performed by Blount et al. (Z. D. Blount, J. E. Barrick, C. J. Davidson, and R. E. Lenski, Nature 489:513-518, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11514 ) found a single aerobic, citrate-utilizing E. coli strain after 33,000 generations (15 years). This was interpreted as a speciation event. Here we show why it probably was not a speciation event. Using similar media, 46 independent citrate-utilizing mutants were isolated in as few as 12 to 100 generations. Genomic DNA sequencing revealed an amplification of the citT and dctA loci and DNA rearrangements to capture a promoter to express CitT, aerobically. These are members of the same class of mutations identified by the LTEE. We conclude that the rarity of the LTEE mutant was an artifact of the experimental conditions and not a unique evolutionary event. No new genetic information (novel gene function) evolved. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26833416

,,, Seversky, who has not one shred of real-time empirical evidence to support his Darwinian worldview, and whose entire Darwinian worldview is, therefore, based on purely imaginative, and speculative, 'just-so stories',,,

“… another common misuse of evolutionary ideas: namely, the idea that some trait must have evolved merely because we can imagine a scenario under which possession of that trait would have been advantageous to fitness… Such forays into evolutionary explanation amount ultimately to storytelling… it is not enough to construct a story about how the trait might have evolved in response to a given selection pressure; rather, one must provide some sort of evidence that it really did so evolve. This is a very tall order.…” — Austin L. Hughes, The Folly of Scientism – The New Atlantis, Fall 2012 Sociobiology: The Art of Story Telling – Stephen Jay Gould – 1978 – New Scientist Excerpt: Rudyard Kipling asked how the leopard got its spots, the rhino its wrinkled skin. He called his answers “Just So stories”. When evolutionists study individual adaptations, when they try to explain form and behaviour by reconstructing history and assessing current utility, they also tell just so stories – and the agent is natural selection. Virtuosity in invention replaces testability as the criterion for acceptance. https://books.google.com/books?id=tRj7EyRFVqYC&pg=PA530

,,, Seversky whose entire Darwinian worldview is based on purely imaginative, and speculative, 'just-so stories', stories which have no real-time empirical support, wants to now tell us what qualifies as empirical science and what does not. Again, you simply can't make this up. Seversky, who simply ignores any and all empirical evidence that falsifies his Darwinian worldview, wouldn't know real empirical science if it bit him on the rear end.

1. Darwin’s theory holds mutations to the genome to be random. The vast majority of mutations to the genome are not random but are now found to be ‘directed’. 2. Darwin’s theory holds that Natural Selection is the ‘designer substitute’ that produces the ‘appearance’ and/or illusion of design. Natural Selection, especially for multicellular organisms, is found to be grossly inadequate as the ‘designer substitute. 3. Darwin’s theory holds that mutations to DNA will eventually change the basic biological form of any given species into a new form of a brand new species. Yet, biological form is found to be irreducible to mutations to DNA, nor is biological form reducible to any other material particulars in biology one may wish to invoke. 4. Darwin’s theory, (via Fisher’s Theorem in population genetics), assumed there to be an equal proportion of good and bad mutations to DNA which were, ultimately, responsible for all the diversity and complexity of life we see on earth. Yet, the ratio of detrimental to beneficial mutations is overwhelmingly detrimental. Detrimental to such a point that it is seriously questioned whether there are any truly beneficial, information building, mutations whatsoever. 5. Charles Darwin himself held that the gradual unfolding of life would (someday) be self-evident in the fossil record. Yet, from the Cambrian Explosion onward, the fossil record is consistently characterized by the sudden appearance of a group/kind in the fossil record, (i.e. disparity), then rapid diversity within the group/kind, and then long term stability and even deterioration of variety within the overall group/kind, and within the specific species of the kind, over long periods of time. Of the few dozen or so fossils claimed as transitional, not one is uncontested as a true example of transition between major animal forms out of millions of collected fossils. Moreover, Fossils are found in the “wrong place” all the time (either too early, or too late). 6. Darwin’s theory, due to the randomness postulate, holds that patterns will not repeat themselves in supposedly widely divergent species. Yet thousands of instances of what is ironically called ‘convergent evolution’, on both the morphological and genetic level, falsifies the Darwinian belief that patterns will not repeat themselves in widely divergent species. 7. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” Yet as Doug Axe pointed out, “Basically every gene and every new protein fold, there is nothing of significance that we can show that can be had in that gradualistic way. It’s all a mirage. None of it happens that way.” 8. Charles Darwin himself stated that “If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection.” Yet as Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig pointed out, “in thousands of plant species often entirely new organs have been formed for the exclusive good of more than 132,930 other species, these ‘ugly facts’ have annihilated Darwin’s theory as well as modern versions of it.” 9. Charles Darwin himself stated that, ““The impossibility of conceiving that this grand and wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance, seems to me the chief argument for the existence of God. Yet ‘our conscious selves’ are certainly not explainable by ‘chance’ (nor is consciousness explainable by any possible reductive materialistic explanation in general), i.e. ‘the hard problem of consciousness’. 10. Besides the mathematics of probability consistently showing that Darwinian evolution is impossible, the mathematics of population genetics itself has now shown Darwinian evolution to be impossible. Moreover, ‘immaterial’ mathematics itself, which undergirds all of science, engineering and technology, is held by most mathematicians to exist in some timeless, unchanging, immaterial, Platonic realm. Yet, the reductive materialism that Darwinian theory is based upon denies the existence of the immaterial realm that mathematics exists in. i.e. Darwinian evolution actually denies the objective reality of the one thing, i.e. mathematics, that it most needs in order to be considered scientific in the first place! 11. Donald Hoffman has, via population genetics, shown that if Darwin’s materialistic theory were true then all our observations of reality would be illusory. Yet the scientific method itself is based on reliable observation. Moreover, Quantum Mechanics itself has now shown that conscious observation must come before material reality, i.e. falsification of ‘realism’ proves that our conscious observations are reliable!. 12. The reductive materialism that undergirds Darwinian thought holds that immaterial information is merely ’emergent’ from a material basis. Yet immaterial Information, via experimental realization of the “Maxwell’s Demon” thought experiment, is now found to be its own distinctive physical entity that, although it can interact in a ‘top down’ manner with matter and energy, is separate from matter and energy. 13. Darwinists hold that Darwin’s theory is true. Yet ‘Truth’ itself is an abstract property of an immaterial mind that is irreducible to the reductive materialistic explanations of Darwinian evolution. i.e. Assuming reductive materialism and/or Naturalism as the starting philosophical position of science actually precludes ‘the truth’ from ever being reached by science! 14. Darwinists, due to their underlying naturalistic philosophy, insist that teleology (i.e. goal directed purpose) does not exist. Yet it is impossible for Biologists to do biological research without constantly invoking words that directly imply teleology. i.e. The very words that Biologists themselves are forced to use when they are doing their research falsifies Darwinian evolution. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1I6fT6ATY700Bsx2-JSFqL6l-rzXpMcZcZKZfYRS45h4/edit

Tell you what Seversky, show me that you have ounce of intellectual integrity, and honestly admit that your Darwinian worldview is experimentally falsified from multiple different angles of experimental evidence, and then I will admit that you have, at least, the capacity within yourself to comment on whether or not the finding of quantum non-locality within molecular biology supports the reality of the immaterial 'soul' or not. Until then, your 'scientific' opinions on the subject are worse than useless as far as empirical science is concerned.

1 Thessalonians 5:21 Test all things; hold fast what is good.

bornagain77

Merriam-Webster defines "empirical" as:

1 : originating in or based on observation or experience empirical data. 2 : relying on experience or observation alone often without due regard for system and theory an empirical basis for the theory. 3 : capable of being verified or disproved by observation or experiment empirical laws.

Physics has been able to observe and measure quantum phenomena to a high degree of precision. That is empirical science. Merriam-Webster defines "soul" as

1 : the immaterial essence, animating principle, or actuating cause of an individual life. 2a : the spiritual principle embodied in human beings, all rational and spiritual beings, or the universe.

This is not the only concept of "soul", either. The problem is that proposing a highly tenuous inference from observed quantum phenomena to such a vague concept is not empirical science. It's speculation at best. Seversky

Thank you to Hoosfoos and PaV for the links. And as always many thanks to BA77 for his limitless source materials and comments. Blastus

R:, FYI I never brought up, nor bought, the claim that souls have weight, nor have I ever held that particular line of evidence to be scientific proof for the soul. Moreover, you still have not shown exactly why my conclusion from quantum biology is 'unscientific'. You seem to holding the erroneous belief that the soul can't 'be measured', and therefore it is unscientific. Yet 'non-local' quantum effects are 'measured' in molecular biology all the time now. For crying out loud, how in blue blazes do you think quantum effects were discovered in molecular biology in the first place if they were not directly observed and/or measured? Unless you can come up with anything solid to show exactly why my claim is unscientific, this is my last comment on the subject to you. I have much better things to do today. bornagain77

Ba77, The speed of sound is set, with slight variation due to certain factors. The speed of light is set. I can reliably get into an airplane and go wherever I want. Applied science results in things that can be measured and used. Are you familiar with early experiments to discover a soul? A man who was dying was placed, bed and all, on a highly calibrated scale. It was thought that at the moment of death, the scale would record a slight weight loss. This loss would record the weight of the soul. At the moment of death, a very small weight loss was recorded. The scientists involved looked at every possibility for this. In the end, it was determined that the weight loss did not record the soul leaving the body. It recorded his last breath and the associated water vapor leaving the body. relatd

R: "What empirical evidence do you have for the soul? What does it consist of?" I told you what the empirical evidence consists of,,,, "the conclusion of a “soul” follows directly from the findings of quantum biology, which are, of course, coupled with previous findings of quantum non-locality and conservation of quantum information." I find it interesting that you jumped up and claimed “Your comment about the soul is not scientific” and yet you are, apparently, unfamiliar with the recent findings of quantum biology, etc.. Your claim that "since souls, like God, cannot be directly studied, it remains only an unverified possibility" simply makes no scientific sense. ALL conclusions in the inductive reasoning of the scientific method are held provisionally and never reach 'full verification', i.e. all conclusions remain 'unverified possibilities', no matter how much empirical evidence can be brought to bear in support of the conclusion. This is true for all theories of science no matter how well established they are. As Einstein himself noted

“The scientific theorist is not to be envied. For Nature, or more precisely experiment, is an inexorable and not very friendly judge of his work. It never says “Yes” to a theory. In the most favorable cases it says “Maybe,” and in the great majority of cases simply “No.” If an experiment agrees with a theory it means for the latter “Maybe,” and if it does not agree it means “No.” – Einstein

It is called the principle of falsification, (i.e. Karl Popper) So thus, once again, it is up to you to either explain exactly why my conclusion does not follow from the evidence, and/or provide empirical evidence to the contrary of the empirical evidence in quantum biology that I based my conclusion for a ‘soul’ on. Until then, my conclusion for a ‘soul’ stands unrefuted. bornagain77

Ba77, Unrefuted. Should be a movie title. What empirical evidence do you have for the soul? What does it consist of? It is spirit according to the Bible. I will continue to point out that it may -it may - not have anything to do with quantum mechanics. It can be compared to saying a description of God can be derived from quantum mechanics. Before the creation of the universe - I Am. God creates from nothing. Speaking from a theology perspective, the connection you are trying to make sounds reasonable, but on the science side, since souls, like God, cannot be directly studied, it remains only an unverified possibility. relatd

Relatd, you claimed at 13 “Your comment about the soul is not scientific.”,,, I asked you at 14 to explain exactly why is was 'not scientific'. Yet your response at 20 did nothing to explain exactly why my comment about a 'soul' was 'not scientific'. My claim for a 'soul' was most certainly 'scientific'. Specifically, in my using the inductive logic of the scientific method, the conclusion of a "soul" follows directly from the findings of quantum biology, which are, of course, coupled with previous findings of quantum non-locality and conservation of quantum information. Seeing that a conclusion is held provisionally in the inductive reasoning of the scientific method, it is up to you to either explain exactly why my conclusion does not follow from the evidence, and/or provide empirical evidence to the contrary of the empirical evidence in quantum biology that I based my conclusion for a 'soul' on. Until then, my conclusion for a 'soul' stands unrefuted. bornagain77

PaV at 21, So we know nothing about quantum mechanics? Based on what? Your say so? IBM has quantum chips and quantum computers, which it is upgrading and increasing storage capacity. https://www.ibm.com/quantum relatd

Relatd: Richard Feynman said: "An electron in the sun vibrates and eight minutes later an electron in my retina vibrates." Yes, we're connected to life via quantum mechanics=light. This does nothing to explain quantum mechanics. Observers observe. When human observers observe, they do so using energy, and the energy that they introduce brings about changes in the system. Again, this doesn't tell us anything about quantum mechanics. PaV

Ba77, Popcorn in hand? I believe in God. I'm Catholic. I believe in Heaven and Hell. These are real places. Does the soul follow "directly from the findings of quantum biology"? Well, does it? How do you know? I can really, truly understand your enthusiasm over the possibility but souls may be an entirely different thing/substance altogether. Has that occurred to you? I ask in all honesty. Trust me. I see your posts. I understand the words of the atheist, which go back to Biblical times, and which, to some, appear somehow more credible because of the discredited theory of evolution which every scientist and scientific institution must bend their knee to and give verbal and written agreement. Why do we invoke Darwin by Philip Skell should have been the last word. The final nail in the coffin. But no. The National Academy of Science calls "evolution" the 'cornerstone of biology.' Based on what? Atheism? Promoting atheism? That IS the only answer I see. So I'm not attempting to give aid or comfort to atheists. I am only trying to discern the truth. We, meaning you and I, may think that quantum mechanics is the end of the line. Yet another important achievement, and it is, but I doubt it is the last. And that doubt is based on previous important advances in science. I firmly believe a way will be found to travel faster than light, regardless of constant references to Einstein. Best. relatd

Relatd, "Your comment about the soul is not scientific.",,, Really??? I know the fallacious atheistic arguments for why they consider such implications of God, the soul, the immaterial mind, etc.., etc..,, not scientific'. Yet you claim to not be an atheist. So do tell, since the finding of a transcendent component to our being, i.e. a 'soul', follows directly from the findings of quantum biology, exactly why is this implication from quantum biology 'not scientific' to you in particular? I'll get my popcorn. :) bornagain77

Ba77 at 14, Regarding the soul and God. God's work can be seen in the things that were made and He made all things, including the unseen. Keep in mind that when making the universe, God did not use pre-existing matter. He created from nothing. The multiplying of the loaves and fishes showed that God still did this long after the universe was created. Raising Lazarus from the dead involved no "modern" medicine. Is the soul connected to the quantum world? There is no way to confirm this. However, experimental evidence shows that all life has a connection to the quantum world. Man, who was made in God's image, is above all other life. Only he can study the world and do science. relatd

Ba77 at 14, Your comment about the soul is not scientific. The quantum world has strict, predictable rules. Quantum chips and quantum computers could not be built if at least some of these rules were not understood. The same is true for the macro world, and the events we know occur under certain conditions. It would be helpful to view the quantum world as having rules that work the same way every time. It is ordered, not chaotic. There is no "measurement problem." Whoever believes this should realize that any measurement involves a predictable reaction. So, in reality, no "problem" exists. Just because quantum effects are different than macro effects and go by different rules, it does not turn them into a problem. relatd

Seversky at 13, Leave God out of this, OK? He made the rules, the universe, everything. You, and others, don't understand field effect. It does not matter how many observers there are. The sub-atomic world reacts to observers like a magnet reacts to the presence of metal. Once the sub-atomic world senses one or many observers, there is a predictable reaction. It appears to be independent of distance. In the macro world, this effect disappears. The rules change. This Hossenfelder person lacks imagination. relatd

Astounding. In the face of the mountain of evidence put forth in the comments in this post alone, by BA77, Sev ignores Everest, and instead gravitates to his favorite like minded atheist scientist, Sabine, to help him assuage his terminal malady. As usual, BA responds and smacks him over the head with more Everest. Pathetic--fingers in ears yelling LALALA in his feeble attempt to deny reality. AnimatedDust

Seversky claims,

Quantum theory describes the nature of material or physical reality at the sub-atomic scale. We are not just linked to it, we are made from it.

That is a claim for which Seversky has, as usual, absolutely no experiment evidence. Moreover, the fairly recent findings of pervasive quantum entanglement, and/or quantum information, within molecular biology proves that man has a transcendent component to his being, i.e. a 'soul', that is not reducible to any possible materialistic explanation. Seversky continues,

If you look at what Sabine Hossenfelder has to say about the “observer problem”, one thing is that she and others prefer is to call it the “measurement problem” to get away from the idea that a conscious observer is required for any effect to happen when that is not necessarily the case.

Yet simply, (or is that simplistically?), relabeling 'conscious observation' as 'the measurement problem' certainly does not make the enigma that conscious observation presents to atheistic materialists go away.

"We wish to measure a temperature.,,, But in any case, no matter how far we calculate -- to the mercury vessel, to the scale of the thermometer, to the retina, or into the brain, at some time we must say: and this is perceived by the observer. That is, we must always divide the world into two parts, the one being the observed system, the other the observer.” - John von Neumann - 1903-1957 - The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics, pp.418-21 - 1955 The Measurement Problem in quantum mechanics – (Inspiring Philosophy) – 2014 video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qB7d5V71vUE

Seversky continues,

For example, if there are several observers of the same experiment, each of which can influence the outcome by observing it, do they all always see the same outcome and, if so, why?

To wit, the recent experimental realization of the 'Wigner's friend' thought experiment, This recent experimental confirmation of the “Wigner’s Friend” thought experiment, (although they used photons to be ‘proxies’ for human observers in the experiment), found that “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”.

More Than One Reality Exists (in Quantum Physics) By Mindy Weisberger – March 20, 2019 Excerpt: “measurement results,, must be understood relative to the observer who performed the measurement”. https://www.livescience.com/65029-dueling-reality-photons.html Experimental test of local observer-independence – 2019 Excerpt: ,,, If one holds fast to the assumptions of locality and free-choice, this result implies that quantum theory should be interpreted in an observer-dependent way. https://arxiv.org/pdf/1902.05080.pdf Quantum paradox points to shaky foundations of reality – George Musser – Aug. 17, 2020 Excerpt: Now, researchers in Australia and Taiwan offer perhaps the sharpest demonstration that Wigner’s paradox is real. In a study published this week in Nature Physics, they transform the thought experiment into a mathematical theorem that confirms the irreconcilable contradiction at the heart of the scenario. The team also tests the theorem with an experiment, using photons as proxies for the humans. Whereas Wigner believed resolving the paradox requires quantum mechanics to break down for large systems such as human observers, some of the new study’s authors believe something just as fundamental is on thin ice: objectivity. It could mean there is no such thing as an absolute fact, one that is as true for me as it is for you. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/quantum-paradox-points-shaky-foundations-reality

Seversky continues,

Do you or I cease to exist whenever nobody is observing us? If not, why not?

That question presupposes that we are purely material beings that are subject to the same 'rules' that particles, atoms, and photons are subject to in quantum mechanics. Yet to repeat, and as advances in quantum biology have now shown, we are NOT purely material beings but we have a transcendent component to our being, i.e. a 'soul', that is not reducible to any possible materialistic explanation. Seversky continues,

If you propose a Creator, how does He/She/It exist if no one else is observing them?

If Seversky does not mind, in order to answer Seversky's question I will borrow Edward Feser's response to Lawrence Krauss

Not Understanding Nothing – A review of A Universe from Nothing – Edward Feser - June 2012 Excerpt: ,,, to ask “What caused God?” misses the whole reason classical philosophers thought his existence necessary in the first place. So when physicist Lawrence Krauss begins his new book by suggesting that to ask “Who created the creator?” suffices to dispatch traditional philosophical theology, we know it isn’t going to end well. ,,, ,,, But Krauss simply can’t see the “difference between arguing in favor of an eternally existing creator versus an eternally existing universe without one.” The difference, as the reader of Aristotle or Aquinas knows, is that the universe changes while the unmoved mover does not, or, as the Neoplatonist can tell you, that the universe is made up of parts while its source is absolutely one; or, as Leibniz could tell you, that the universe is contingent and God absolutely necessary. There is thus a principled reason for regarding God rather than the universe as the terminus of explanation. https://www.firstthings.com/article/2012/06/not-understanding-nothing

Also see Michael Egnor's response to Dillahunty's 'Divine hiddenness' argument,

The Divine Hiddenness Argument Against God's Existence = Nonsense - Michael Egnor -Oct. 4, 2021 Excerpt: We will set aside Scriptural revelation and personal experience (given that atheists like Dillahunty discount these anyway) and consider the ways in which God shows Himself in nature (i.e., the ten ways that God’s existence can be known that I listed during my debate with Dillahunty. Here are three excellent references for the details of these various arguments: Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide, (Edward Feser), Five Proofs of the Existence of God (Edward Feser), and Letters to an Atheist (Peter Kreeft). These and other works cover evidence such as Aquinas’ First Way (by change in nature), Aquinas’ Second Way (by cause in nature), Aquinas’ Third Way (by contingent existence), Aquinas’ Fourth Way (by degrees of perfection), and Aquinas’ Fifth Way (by design in nature) as well as the Thomistic argument from existence, the Neoplatonic argument (from the order of things), the Augustinian argument (from abstract objects), the rationalist argument (from the principal of sufficient reason), and the argument for Moral Law (from the reality of objective moral obligation). Each of these proofs of God’s existence is revealed to us through our intellect. Is the information that God provides in these ways sufficient to convince a reasonable person of His existence? Consider the ten ways that simple everyday experience provides inexhaustible evidence for His existence: Every change in nature proves His existence. Every cause in nature proves His existence. Everything that exists in nature proves His existence. Every degree of perfection in nature proves His existence. Every manifestation of natural design proves His existence. Every realization of possibility in nature proves His existence. Every manifestation of organization in nature proves His existence. Every abstract concept proves His existence. Every reason for anything in nature proves His existence. And every twinge of human conscience proves His existence. Natural science provides massive evidence for His existence as well. The Big Bang — i.e., the creation of the universe from nothing in an immense primordial flash of light — is a remarkable confirmation of the beginning of the book of Genesis. Astrophysicists have discovered dozens of physical forces and properties in the universe that must have very specific values to permit human life — and of course these forces and properties do have exactly the values necessary for our existence (as if Someone rigged physics just for us). The DNA in living things is an actual code — in every meaningful sense like a computer code with letters and words, grammar and phrases, sentences and punctuation. And life forms’ intracellular metabolism is run by an astonishingly intricate and elegant system of biological nanotechnology. So my question to Dillahunty and to other atheists who endorse the Divine Hiddenness argument against God’s existence is this: What is it about God’s existence that you still consider hidden? https://mindmatters.ai/2021/10/the-divine-hiddenness-argument-against-gods-existence-nonsense/

Verse:

Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

bornagain77

Quantum theory describes the nature of material or physical reality at the sub-atomic scale. We are not just linked to it, we are made from it. If you look at what Sabine Hossenfelder has to say about the "observer problem", one thing is that she and others prefer is to call it the "measurement problem" to get away from the idea that a conscious observer is required for any effect to happen when that is not necessarily the case. For example, if there are several observers of the same experiment, each of which can influence the outcome by observing it, do they all always see the same outcome and, if so, why? Do you or I cease to exist whenever nobody is observing us? If not, why not? If you propose a Creator, how does He/She/It exist if no one else is observing them? Seversky

PaV at 11, Disordered? No. The quantum world has its own rules. I am proposing that human beings are directly linked to it. relatd

Relatd: So, is everything disordered--that is, lawless, at the atomic scale? I don't think so. Quantum Field Theory is used to describe and to explore phenomena at the quantum scale. But within QFT, there is a a whole slew of conservation principles at work, each involving symmetries and each of these leading to equations of constraint, roughly speaking. Gravity is also at work; but, so comparatively weak as to be ignored. That doesn't mean it isn't at 'work' on quantum scales. PaV

I think the arrow of time leads to the 2nd law of thermodynamics rather than arising from it. The 2nd law is empirically based on statistics of groups of particles. It may have a more fundamental meaning in the sense of entropy in any physical system, but "entropy" is (I think) defined only for systems of more than one particle. Is the 2nd law a fundamental physical requirement, or just a model for how we explain reality? The fact that it (and time's direction) seem to not apply at the micro level raises that question and requires explaining. Perhaps this new paper helps somehow, but doing arrow-of-time tests on neurons does not seem like physics to me. Perhaps the dimension of time started going forward at the Big Bang and stays in "motion" by "temporal inertia", the past pushing the present into the future. Then, like Newton's first law, unless a force is applied, the "speed" remains unchanged. And who knows how to apply a "temporal force" of any kind? As one's speed in a vacuum approaches the speed of light, perhaps the push from the past drops off (less behind you?) so your clock runs slower. Then when you slow down, the past pushes you harder and your clock returns to the normal rate; 60 seconds per minute, 365.25 days per Earth's orbit around the Sun. Is this idea any less meaningful than the current "arrow of time" thinking? Fasteddious

PaV at 8, Laws of nature? What's that? They don't apply at sub-atomic distances. No need to get tongue-tied. It is obvious that the observer is part of the observation. What I am proposing is that the observer becomes literally entangled in the observed state at that particular moment in time. I also propose that the observer is in a constant quantum state. He has a direct connection to the quantum world and can influence it directly. relatd

Relatd: The problem with suggesting that an "observer" needs to be part of a quantum system is that no observers exist in the universe except here on earth, and only for the last 600 million years. One could then say that God is the "observer," but does this add anything at all to the belief that God created all things ex nihilo? Superposition is tantamount to probabilistic indeterminism. What I see is simply a kind of "deterministic" non-determinism since the quantum equations (Schrodinger) can be time deterministic. That is, over small periods of time, reconfigurations of space and time--and fields and forces, takes place. But all of this reconfiguring is due to the laws of nature and the rules of quantum and gravitational systems. This is a general type of response, but it's hard to give a more specific one. The main point here, though, is the "deterministic non-determinism." Both "law" and "freedom." PaV

The persistence of time passing is a built-in effect which may or may not have anything to do with what is called quantum mechanics. In the case of the phenomenon of superposition where one particle can be in multiple places at the same time, I propose that it is a 'quantum prism' effect. Just like light is broken down into its constituent colors when it passes through a prism, the photon is similarly broken into multiple 'phase misaligned' states. However, this result can only be observed as a consequence and not by direct observation. This suggests that the observer is part of this system in some yet to be defined way. relatd

Blastus: The paper you've linked to was already discussed here. Here's the link. PaV

Atheistic materialists have tried to get around the Quantum Zeno effect by postulating that interactions with the environment are sufficient to explain the Quantum Zeno effect.

Perspectives on the quantum Zeno paradox – 2018 Excerpt: The references to observations and to wavefunction collapse tend to raise unnecessary questions related to the interpretation of quantum mechanics. Actually, all that is required is that some interaction with an external system disturb the unitary evolution of the quantum system in a way that is effectively like a projection operator. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/196/1/012018/pdf

Yet, the following interaction-free measurement of the Quantum Zeno effect demonstrated that the presence of the Quantum Zeno effect can be detected without interacting with a single atom.

Interaction-free measurements by quantum Zeno stabilization of ultracold atoms – 14 April 2015 Excerpt: In our experiments, we employ an ultracold gas in an unstable spin configuration, which can undergo a rapid decay. The object—realized by a laser beam—prevents this decay because of the indirect quantum Zeno effect and thus, its presence can be detected without interacting with a single atom. http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150414/ncomms7811/full/ncomms7811.html?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20150415

In short, the quantum zeno effect, regardless of how atheistic materialists may feel about it, is experimentally shown to be a real effect that is not reducible to any possible materialistic explanation. Moreover, on top of the Quantum Zeno effect in 2011 researchers “show that when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer.”

Quantum knowledge cools computers: New understanding of entropy – June 1, 2011 Excerpt: Recent research by a team of physicists,,, describe,,, how the deletion of data, under certain conditions, can create a cooling effect instead of generating heat. The cooling effect appears when the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement is invoked.,,, The new study revisits Landauer’s principle for cases when the values of the bits to be deleted may be known. When the memory content is known, it should be possible to delete the bits in such a manner that it is theoretically possible to re-create them. It has previously been shown that such reversible deletion would generate no heat. In the new paper, the researchers go a step further. They show that when the bits to be deleted are quantum-mechanically entangled with the state of an observer, then the observer could even withdraw heat from the system while deleting the bits. Entanglement links the observer’s state to that of the computer in such a way that they know more about the memory than is possible in classical physics.,,, In measuring entropy, one should bear in mind that an object does not have a certain amount of entropy per se, instead an object’s entropy is always dependent on the observer. Applied to the example of deleting data, this means that if two individuals delete data in a memory and one has more knowledge of this data, she perceives the memory to have lower entropy and can then delete the memory using less energy.,,, No heat, even a cooling effect; In the case of perfect classical knowledge of a computer memory (zero entropy), deletion of the data requires in theory no energy at all. The researchers prove that “more than complete knowledge” from quantum entanglement with the memory (negative entropy) leads to deletion of the data being accompanied by removal of heat from the computer and its release as usable energy. This is the physical meaning of negative entropy. Renner emphasizes, however, “This doesn’t mean that we can develop a perpetual motion machine.” The data can only be deleted once, so there is no possibility to continue to generate energy. The process also destroys the entanglement, and it would take an input of energy to reset the system to its starting state. The equations are consistent with what’s known as the second law of thermodynamics: the idea that the entropy of the universe can never decrease. Vedral says “We’re working on the edge of the second law. If you go any further, you will break it.” http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/06/110601134300.htm

Likewise, and as as the following 2017 article states: James Clerk Maxwell (said), “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.”,,, quantum information theory,,, describes the spread of information through quantum systems.,,, Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,,

The Quantum Thermodynamics Revolution – May 2017 Excerpt: the 19th-century physicist James Clerk Maxwell put it, “The idea of dissipation of energy depends on the extent of our knowledge.” In recent years, a revolutionary understanding of thermodynamics has emerged that explains this subjectivity using quantum information theory — “a toddler among physical theories,” as del Rio and co-authors put it, that describes the spread of information through quantum systems. Just as thermodynamics initially grew out of trying to improve steam engines, today’s thermodynamicists are mulling over the workings of quantum machines. Shrinking technology — a single-ion engine and three-atom fridge were both experimentally realized for the first time within the past year — is forcing them to extend thermodynamics to the quantum realm, where notions like temperature and work lose their usual meanings, and the classical laws don’t necessarily apply. They’ve found new, quantum versions of the laws that scale up to the originals. Rewriting the theory from the bottom up has led experts to recast its basic concepts in terms of its subjective nature, and to unravel the deep and often surprising relationship between energy and information — the abstract 1s and 0s by which physical states are distinguished and knowledge is measured.,,, Renato Renner, a professor at ETH Zurich in Switzerland, described this as a radical shift in perspective. Fifteen years ago, “we thought of entropy as a property of a thermodynamic system,” he said. “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, https://www.quantamagazine.org/quantum-thermodynamics-revolution/

Again to repeat that last sentence, “Now in (quantum) information theory, we wouldn’t say entropy is a property of a system, but a property of an observer who describes a system.”,,, That statement is just fascinating and is completely devastating to the reductive materialistic presuppositions of Darwinists. Why in blue blazes should the 1 in 10^10^123 finely tuned entropy of the universe, entropic actions which also happen to explain the 'flow of time' itself,,,,

Shining Light on Dark Energy – October 21, 2012 Excerpt: It (Entropy) explains time; it explains every possible action in the universe;,, Even gravity, Vedral argued, can be expressed as a consequence of the law of entropy.,,, The principles of thermodynamics are at their roots all to do with information theory. Information theory is simply an embodiment of how we interact with the universe —,,, http://crev.info/2012/10/shining-light-on-dark-energy/

,,, why in blue blazes should the 1 in 10^10^123 finely tuned entropic actions of the universe even care if I am consciously observing them or not unless ‘conscious observation’ really is more foundational to reality than the finely tuned 1 in 10^10^123 entropy of the universe is? To state the blatantly obvious, this finding of entropy being “a property of an observer who describes a system.” is very friendly to a Mind First, and/or to a Theistic view of reality which holds that it is the Mind of God who is “describing the universe” and is thus behind the initial 1 in 10^10^123 finely tuned initial entropy of the universe.

“This now tells us how precise the Creator’s aim must have been: namely to an accuracy of one part in 10^10^123.” - Roger Penrose – How special was the big bang? – (from the Emperor’s New Mind, Penrose, pp 339-345 – 1989) “The time-asymmetry is fundamentally connected to with the Second Law of Thermodynamics: indeed, the extraordinarily special nature (to a greater precision than about 1 in 10^10^123, in terms of phase-space volume) can be identified as the “source” of the Second Law (Entropy).” - Roger Penrose – The Physics of the Small and Large: What is the Bridge Between Them?

In the following video, Dr, Bruce Gordon touches upon just how mind bogglingly enormous that 1 in 10^10^123 number actually is. Dr. Gordon states, “you would need a hundred million, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes our size, with a zero on every proton and neutron in all of those universes just to write out this number. That is how fine tuned the initial entropy of our universe is.”

“An explosion you think of as kind of a messy event. And this is the point about entropy. The explosion in which our universe began was not a messy event. And if you talk about how messy it could have been, this is what the Penrose calculation is all about essentially. It looks at the observed statistical entropy in our universe. The entropy per baryon. And he calculates that out and he arrives at a certain figure. And then he calculates using the Bekenstein-Hawking formula for Black-Hole entropy what the,,, (what sort of entropy could have been associated with,,, the singularity that would have constituted the beginning of the universe). So you’ve got the numerator, the observed entropy, and the denominator, how big it (the entropy) could have been. And that fraction turns out to be,, 1 over 10 to the 10 to the 123rd power. Let me just emphasize how big that denominator is so you can gain a real appreciation for how small that probability is. So there are 10^80th baryons in the universe. Protons and neutrons. No suppose we put a zero on every one of those. OK, how many zeros is that? That is 10^80th zeros. This number has 10^123rd zeros. OK, so you would need a hundred million, trillion, trillion, trillion, universes our size, with zero on every proton and neutron in all of those universes just to write out this number. That is how fine tuned the initial entropy of our universe is. And if there were a pre-Big Bang state and you had some bounces, then that fine tuning (for entropy) gets even finer as you go backwards if you can even imagine such a thing. ” Dr Bruce Gordon – Contemporary Physics and God Part 2 – video – 1:50 minute mark – video https://youtu.be/ff_sNyGNSko?t=110

Moreover, Christianity 'predicted' that God would be behind the initial entropy of the universe. Romans chapter 8: verses 20 and 21 itself specifically states, “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.”

Romans 8:20-21 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. “We have the sober scientific certainty that the heavens and earth shall ‘wax old as doth a garment’…. Dark indeed would be the prospects of the human race if unilluminated by that light which reveals ‘new heavens and a new earth.’” Sir William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824 – 1907) – pioneer in many different fields, particularly electromagnetism and thermodynamics. Psalm 102:25-27 Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.

Thus in conclusion, our "internal perception of the arrow of time" is a God given property of the immaterial mind that is now experimentally shown to be irreducible to, and to take precedence over, what we perceive as the entropic 'flow of time'. i.e. We are, directly contrary to what Darwinian materialists hold, definitely NOT purely material beings. Verse

2 Timothy 1:9 He has saved us and called us to a holy life—not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Supplemental note, in regards to the 'flow of time', it is also interesting to note that In special relativity, at the speed of light, time, as we understand it, comes to a complete stop, i.e. at the speed of light, time, as we understand it, does not 'flow'

“The laws of relativity have changed timeless existence from a theological claim to a physical reality. Light, you see, is outside of time, a fact of nature proven in thousands of experiments at hundreds of universities. I don’t pretend to know how tomorrow can exist simultaneously with today and yesterday. But at the speed of light they actually and rigorously do. Time does not pass.” – Richard Swenson – More Than Meets The Eye, Chpt. 11

Moreover, we have ‘observational evidence’ from many Near Death Experiencers who, consistently, testify that time has a radically different ‘eternal’ quality to it in heaven than does the temporal, entropic, time that we experience here on earth.

‘Earthly time has no meaning in the spirit realm. There is no concept of before or after. Everything – past, present, future – exists simultaneously.’ – Kimberly Clark Sharp – Near Death Experiencer ‘There is no way to tell whether minutes, hours or years go by. Existence is the only reality and it is inseparable from the eternal now.’ – John Star – NDE Experiencer ‘In the ‘spirit world,,, instantly, there was no sense of time. See, everything on earth is related to time. You got up this morning, you are going to go to bed tonight. Something is new, it will get old. Something is born, it’s going to die. Everything on the physical plane is relative to time, but everything in the spiritual plane is relative to eternity. Instantly I was in total consciousness and awareness of eternity, and you and I as we live in this earth cannot even comprehend it, because everything that we have here is filled within the veil of the temporal life. In the spirit life that is more real than anything else and it is awesome. Eternity as a concept is awesome. There is no such thing as time. I knew that whatever happened was going to go on and on.’ In The Presence Of Almighty God – The NDE of Mickey Robinson – video (testimony starts at 27:45 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voak1RM-pXo

In short, most people think of eternity as being a really, really, long, period of time. Yet eternity is, in reality, simply "the now that does not pass away.'

“Eternity is the now that does not pass away.” — Saint Augustine

Verse:

2 Corinthians 4:18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

bornagain77

To go further in experimental evidence, and to clearly demonstrate just how much, shall we say, ‘disrespect’ that quantum mechanics has for the ‘flow of time’, in quantum mechanics it has now also been demonstrated that “a measurement in the future is able to reach back into the past and cause the photons to behave differently.”

A Classic Time Travel Paradox – Double-Slit Experiment Demonstrates Reverse Causality! – November 15, 2013 Excerpt: Let us pause here and be perfectly clear. Measuring the future state of the photon after it has gone through the slits causes the interference pattern to vanish. Somehow, a measurement in the future is able to reach back into the past and cause the photons to behave differently. In this case, the measurement of the photon causes its wave nature to vanish (i.e., collapse) even after it has gone through the slit. The photon now acts like a particle, not a wave. This paradox is clear evidence that a future action can reach back and change the past. http://www.louisdelmonte.com/a-classic-time-travel-paradox-double-slit-experiment-demonstrates-reverse-causality/

And as the following 2017 article states, “a decision made in the present can influence something in the past.”

Physicists provide support for retrocausal quantum theory, in which the future influences the past July 5, 2017 by Lisa Zyga Excerpt: retrocausality means that, when an experimenter chooses the measurement setting with which to measure a particle, that decision can influence the properties of that particle (or another particle) in the past, even before the experimenter made their choice. In other words, a decision made in the present can influence something in the past. https://phys.org/news/2017-07-physicists-retrocausal-quantum-theory-future.html

And to clearly illustrate just how ‘counterintuitive’ this finding from quantum mechanics actually is, in the following 2018 article entitled “You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time” Professor Elise Crullis provocatively states “entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted,,, it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old.”

You thought quantum mechanics was weird: check out entangled time – Elise Crullis – Feb. 2018 Excerpt: Just when you thought quantum mechanics couldn’t get any weirder, a team of physicists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem reported in 2013 that they had successfully entangled photons that never coexisted. Previous experiments involving a technique called ‘entanglement swapping’ had already showed quantum correlations across time, by delaying the measurement of one of the coexisting entangled particles; but Eli Megidish and his collaborators were the first to show entanglement between photons whose lifespans did not overlap at all.,,, Up to today, most experiments have tested entanglement over spatial gaps. The assumption is that the ‘nonlocal’ part of quantum nonlocality refers to the entanglement of properties across space. But what if entanglement also occurs across time? Is there such a thing as temporal nonlocality?,,, The data revealed the existence of quantum correlations between ‘temporally nonlocal’ photons 1 and 4. That is, entanglement can occur across two quantum systems that never coexisted. What on Earth can this mean? Prima facie, it seems as troubling as saying that the polarity of starlight in the far-distant past – say, greater than twice Earth’s lifetime – nevertheless influenced the polarity of starlight falling through your amateur telescope this winter. Even more bizarrely: maybe it implies that the measurements carried out by your eye upon starlight falling through your telescope this winter somehow dictated the polarity of photons more than 9 billion years old. – Elise Crullis assistant professor in history and philosophy of science at the City College of New York.,,, https://aeon.co/ideas/you-thought-quantum-mechanics-was-weird-check-out-entangled-time

Quantum mechanics also shows us that our present conscious choices ultimately determine what type of 'future' will be presented to us in our measurements of quantum systems. As leading experimentalist Anton Zeilinger states in the following video, “what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.”

“The Kochen-Speckter Theorem talks about properties of one system only. So we know that we cannot assume – to put it precisely, we know that it is wrong to assume that the features of a system, which we observe in a measurement exist prior to measurement. Not always. I mean in certain cases. So in a sense, what we perceive as reality now depends on our earlier decision what to measure. Which is a very, very, deep message about the nature of reality and our part in the whole universe. We are not just passive observers.” Anton Zeilinger – Quantum Physics Debunks Materialism – video (7:17 minute mark) https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=4C5pq7W5yRM#t=437

As well, with 'contextuality' we find that, “In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe (now) necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation”

Contextuality is ‘magic ingredient’ for quantum computing – June 11, 2012 Excerpt: Contextuality was first recognized as a feature of quantum theory almost 50 years ago. The theory showed that it was impossible to explain measurements on quantum systems in the same way as classical systems. In the classical world, measurements simply reveal properties that the system had, such as colour, prior to the measurement. In the quantum world, the property that you discover through measurement is not the property that the system actually had prior to the measurement process. What you observe necessarily depends on how you carried out the observation. Imagine turning over a playing card. It will be either a red suit or a black suit – a two-outcome measurement. Now imagine nine playing cards laid out in a grid with three rows and three columns. Quantum mechanics predicts something that seems contradictory – there must be an even number of red cards in every row and an odd number of red cards in every column. Try to draw a grid that obeys these rules and you will find it impossible. It’s because quantum measurements cannot be interpreted as merely revealing a pre-existing property in the same way that flipping a card reveals a red or black suit. Measurement outcomes depend on all the other measurements that are performed – the full context of the experiment. Contextuality means that quantum measurements can not be thought of as simply revealing some pre-existing properties of the system under study. That’s part of the weirdness of quantum mechanics. http://phys.org/news/2014-06-weird-magic-ingredient-quantum.html

In further experimental evidence, another line of evidence from quantum mechanics is the quantum Zeno effect. An old entry in wikipedia described the Quantum Zeno effect as such “an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay.”

Perspectives on the quantum Zeno paradox – 2018 The quantum Zeno effect is,, an unstable particle, if observed continuously, will never decay. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/196/1/012018/pdf

Likewise, the present day entry on wikipedia about the Quantum Zeno effect also provocatively states that “a system can’t change while you are watching it”

Quantum Zeno effect Excerpt: Sometimes this effect is interpreted as “a system can’t change while you are watching it” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_Zeno_effect

bornagain77

As to: "Lynn said this latter finding raises questions about how our internal perception of the arrow of time becomes aligned with the external world." Yet if, as Darwinian materialists hold, we were purely material beings with no immaterial mind, then we would never be able to experience "now". Which is to say we would never have an "internal perception of the arrow of time", In the following video Dr. Suarez puts the irresolvable dilemma for reductive materialists as such, (paraphrase) “it is impossible for us to be ‘persons’ experiencing ‘now’ if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as ‘persons’, we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. (In other words) We must refer to God!”

Nothing: God’s new Name – Antoine Suarez – video Paraphrased quote: (“it is impossible for us to be ‘persons’ experiencing ‘now’ if we are nothing but particles flowing in space time. Moreover, for us to refer to ourselves as ‘persons’, we cannot refer to space-time as the ultimate substratum upon which everything exists, but must refer to a Person who is not bound by space time. i.e. We must refer to God!”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOr9QqyaLlA

To further clarify the irresolvable dilemma for reductive materialists, Dr. Michael Egnor, who is a neurosurgeon as well as professor of neurosurgery at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, states six properties of immaterial mind that are irreconcilable with the view that the mind is just the material brain. Those six properties are, “Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,,”

The Mind and Materialist Superstition – Michael Egnor – 2008 Six “conditions of mind” that are irreconcilable with materialism: – Excerpt: Intentionality,,, Qualia,,, Persistence of Self-Identity,,, Restricted Access,,, Incorrigibility,,, Free Will,,, http://www.evolutionnews.org/2008/11/the_mind_and_materialist_super013961.html

Likewise, J. Warner Wallace has a very similar list, (but not an exact match to Dr. Egnor’s list), of six properties of immaterial mind that are irreconcilable with reductive materialism.

Six reasons why you should believe in non-physical minds – 01/30/2014 1) First-person access to mental properties 2) Our experience of consciousness implies that we are not our bodies 3) Persistent self-identity through time 4) Mental properties cannot be measured like physical objects 5) Intentionality or About-ness 6) Free will and personal responsibility http://winteryknight.com/2014/01/30/six-reasons-why-you-should-believe-in-non-physical-minds/

Of note: The ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ may also be termed ‘the experience of ‘the Now”. As to defining the specific mental attribute of the ‘Persistence of Self-Identity through time’ (and/or ‘the experience of ‘the Now”) in particular, it is first important to note that we each have a unique perspective of being outside of time. In fact we each seemingly watch from some mysterious outside perspective of time as time seemingly passes us by. Simply put, we seem to be standing on a (tiny) island of ‘now’ as the river of time continually flows past us. in the following article Stanley Jaki states that “There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows.”

The Mind and Its Now – Stanley L. Jaki, May 2008 Excerpts: There can be no active mind without its sensing its existence in the moment called now.,,, Three quarters of a century ago Charles Sherrington, the greatest modern student of the brain, spoke memorably on the mind’s baffling independence of the brain. The mind lives in a self-continued now or rather in the now continued in the self. This life involves the entire brain, some parts of which overlap, others do not. ,,,There is no physical parallel to the mind’s ability to extend from its position in the momentary present to its past moments, or in its ability to imagine its future. The mind remains identical with itself while it lives through its momentary nows. ,,, the now is immensely richer an experience than any marvelous set of numbers, even if science could give an account of the set of numbers, in terms of energy levels. The now is not a number. It is rather a word, the most decisive of all words. It is through experiencing that word that the mind comes alive and registers all existence around and well beyond. ,,, All our moments, all our nows, flow into a personal continuum, of which the supreme form is the NOW which is uncreated, because it simply IS. http://metanexus.net/essay/mind-and-its-now

And ‘the experience of ‘the now” also happens to be exactly where Albert Einstein got into trouble with leading philosophers of his day and also happens to be exactly where Einstein eventually got into trouble with quantum mechanics itself. Around 1935, Einstein was directly asked by Rudolf Carnap (who was a fairly well respected philosopher):

“Can physics demonstrate the existence of ‘the now’ in order to make the notion of ‘now’ into a scientifically valid term?” Rudolf Carnap – Philosopher – (quoted via Stanley Jaki)

Einstein’s answer was ‘categorical’, he said:

The Mind and Its Now – May 22, 2008 – By Stanley L. Jaki Excerpt: ,,, Einstein’s answer was categorical: “The experience of the now cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement. It can never be part of physics.” http://metanexus.net/essay/mind-and-its-now

Prior to that encounter with Carnap, Einstein also had another disagreement with another famous philosopher, Henri Bergson, over what the proper definition of time should be (Bergson was also very well versed in the specific mental attribute of the ‘experience of the now’). In fact, that disagreement with Henri Bergson over what the proper definition of time should actually be was one of the primary reasons that Einstein failed to ever receive a Nobel prize for his work on relativity:

Einstein vs Bergson, science vs philosophy and the meaning of time – Wednesday 24 June 2015 Excerpt: The meeting of April 6 was supposed to be a cordial affair, though it ended up being anything but. ‘I have to say that day exploded and it was referenced over and over again in the 20th century,’ says Canales. ‘The key sentence was something that Einstein said: “The time of the philosophers did not exist.”’ It’s hard to know whether Bergson was expecting such a sharp jab. In just one sentence, Bergson’s notion of duration—a major part of his thesis on time—was dealt a mortal blow. As Canales reads it, the line was carefully crafted for maximum impact. ‘What he meant was that philosophers frequently based their stories on a psychological approach and [new] physical knowledge showed that these philosophical approaches were nothing more than errors of the mind.’ The night would only get worse. ‘This was extremely scandalous,’ says Canales. ‘Einstein had been invited by philosophers to speak at their society, and you had this physicist say very clearly that their time did not exist.’ Bergson was outraged, but the philosopher did not take it lying down. A few months later Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the law of photoelectric effect, an area of science that Canales noted, ‘hardly jolted the public’s imagination’. In truth, Einstein coveted recognition for his work on relativity. Bergson inflicted some return humiliation of his own. By casting doubt on Einstein’s theoretical trajectory, Bergson dissuaded the committee from awarding the prize for relativity. In 1922, the jury was still out on the correct interpretation of time.,,, Some supporters went as far as to say that Bergson’s earlier work anticipated the quantum revolution of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg by four decades or more.,,, Was Bergson right after all? Time will tell. http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/philosopherszone/science-vs-philosophy-and-the-meaning-of-time/6539568

The specific statement that Einstein made to Carnap on the train, “The experience of ‘the now’ cannot be turned into an object of physical measurement, it can never be a part of physics.” was a very interesting (false) claim for Einstein to make to the philosopher since “The experience of ‘the now’ has, from many recent experiments in quantum mechanics, established itself as very much being a defining part of our physical measurements in quantum mechanics. For instance, the following delayed choice experiment with atoms demonstrated that, “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,”

Reality doesn’t exist until we measure it, (Delayed Choice) quantum experiment confirms – Mind = blown. – FIONA MACDONALD – 1 JUN 2015 Excerpt: “It proves that measurement is everything. At the quantum level, reality does not exist if you are not looking at it,” lead researcher and physicist Andrew Truscott said in a press release. http://www.sciencealert.com/reality-doesn-t-exist-until-we-measure-it-quantum-experiment-confirms

Likewise, the following violation of Leggett’s inequality, (which falsified ‘realism’), stressed ‘the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it.’

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality – Apr 20, 2007 Excerpt: They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.” http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

The Mind First, and/or Theistic, implications of quantum experiments such as the preceding are fairly obvious. As Professor Scott Aaronson of MIT once quipped, “Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists,,, But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!”

“Look, we all have fun ridiculing the creationists who think the world sprang into existence on October 23, 4004 BC at 9AM (presumably Babylonian time), with the fossils already in the ground, light from distant stars heading toward us, etc. But if we accept the usual picture of quantum mechanics, then in a certain sense the situation is far worse: the world (as you experience it) might as well not have existed 10^-43 seconds ago!” – Scott Aaronson – MIT associate Professor quantum computation – Lecture 11: Decoherence and Hidden Variables

bornagain77

Interestingly, this has caught people's attention. There's a biorxiv posting in June of 2022 with contradictory results and prestigious names and institutions. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.07.14.500130v1 I have reviewed neither paper. hoosfoos

This has little or nothing to do with the above article. Today I see the following article: https://scitechdaily.com/disproving-a-60-year-old-hypothesis-most-silent-mutations-are-actually-harmful/amp/ Perhaps someone here would like to review and comment. Blastus