What do all of you think of quantum physics, time travel, parallel worlds, etc

[RonJohnSilver]

Although a non-scientist, I have long been fascinated by the field of quantum physics, but as a non scientist, I can't evaluate its validity. From what I've read about it, if quantum physics is valid, the world as we know it becomes really odd.....things being in two places at once, the act of observation affecting what is real, etc. And the logical implications of it seem to open up the possibility of time travel, parallel universes, invisibility, teleportation (ala Star Trek). I mean, it's really fascinating, but I have to wonder if it is a valid, yet marginally understood science, or is it just a corruption of God's creation and order...similar to evolution?

I note that Lambert Dolphin, the Christian physicist and Chuck Missler, both point out that the Bible seems to allude to things that are far above our comprehension. LD says, in one of his many writings, that, in eternity, we'll be able to go back in time to view past events, although not affect them. I'd like that...seeing the ark up close, seeing Elijah embarrass the false priests, David, Samson,.of course, the life of Jesus. I've often wondered what my life would be like if I had followed different paths....I guess everyone has at some point. And quantum physics seems to allow for those experiences. So again, it's very much an Alice in Wonderland type of system, with few things as they seem, but I simply don't have the expertise to know if it has any basis in fact or if it is all nonsense. The field of physics has its basis in math, which someone said, is the logic of God,....so it is based in fact and quantum physics arises from that, which seems to give it credence, but I still wonder.

Missler says in one of his tapes, that we know there are other dimensions, which would explain how Jesus could appear and disappear at will, not to mention UFOs, the entire spiritual world, etc. I think it was L. Dolphin who speculated that Heaven was, in fact, all around us, just not in this dimension, and if so, why not parallel universes? Does it contradict any Scripture? For me, I don't think God has even scratched the surface of His creativity, so why not? So, any scientists out there?

 

[mattfivefour]

No scientist here, bro. Quantum physics, string theory, relative state formation ... it all hurts my head. I read Steven Hawkin's "A Brief History of Time" and spent a good deal of time struggling to grasp the concepts. Singularities are easy ... it's all the rest that addles this poor brain.

So given that God clearly never intended me to be a physicist, I leave that to others and allow their discoveries to refresh my awe at the awesome Creator who in His hand holds not only galaxies ... but my faltering hand as well. And I not only console myself with Deuteronomy 29:29 but heed its instruction as well.

 

[GlennO]

I have a copy of Julian Barbour's "The End of Time - The Next Revolution In Physics"

Not being college educated, I'm still enchanted by His creation from DNA to the galaxies.

Barbour's 1999 book brings an easy reading style and useful figures and illustrations.

From Chapter 1...
Nothing is more elusive than time. It seems to be the most powerful force in the universe, carrying us from birth to death. But what exactly is it? St Augustine, who died in AD 430, summed up the problem thus: "If nobody asks me, I know what time it is, but if I am asked then I am at a loss what to say."

Chuck Missler is heavy into "Dimensionality". I believe there is scientific consensus on 8 threorized dimensions.

Wisdom as Pre-Genesis........really fond of this
"Pro 8:22-31
(22) "The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old.
(23) Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth.
(24) When there were no depths I was brought forth, when there were no springs abounding with water.
(25) Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth,
(26) before he had made the earth with its fields, or the first of the dust of the world.
(27) When he established the heavens, I was there; when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
(28) when he made firm the skies above, when he established the fountains of the deep,
(29) when he assigned to the sea its limit, so that the waters might not transgress his command, when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
(30) then I was beside him, like a master workman, and I was daily his delight, rejoicing before him always,
(31) rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the children of man.

It should be clear this stuff is he created will be vastly re-arranged once He has made his point.

As He has created (spoke into existence) Matter, Light, Time, Gravity... He is just warming up!

 

[TexasThunder]

So given that God clearly never intended me to be a physicist, I leave that to others and allow their discoveries to refresh my awe at the awesome Creator who in His hand holds not only galaxies ... but my faltering hand as well. And I not only console myself with Deuteronomy 29:29 but heed its instruction as well.

Brother you always have such an elegant way of expressing your thoughts here with us! It is interesting to ponder the ideas, theories, and possibilities of such things mentioned in this thread. In the end though, I just don't know if such things are real or possible. We can postulate all we want about the wonders of the universe, but the glory of it all should go back to God!

Science likes to talk about the "Big Bang Theory" or "Evolution" etc.... but if such things are true, the lumber yard down the road must have blown up and built all the homes and buildings near me... For all our high minded ideas, our arrogance, or feelings and ideas that "we" are the masters of our world... I still cannot make a tree, or cause rain to fall from the sky and water the flowers in my garden, only the Lord can do that. I think there is alot we do not know and may not know till we get home, there is also alot we just have wrong!

The older I get, and the more I study the Bible, it amazes me how awsome and wonderful our God is, what He has done, what He has made, and the Love He has for us!reach

 

[GlennO]

Brother Adrian -

Deuteronomy 29:29...truly an elegant insight!:

Way to connect the dots Bro!

Glenn

 

[Adopted Son]

If we can imagine it, it is possible!

We are so infinitesimally under informed, we cannot imagine how little we know! Our imaginings and dreams are but pinheads of what is possible with God! I too cannot adequately appreciate all the quantum physics theories out there, but of those I have invested a little time understanding, there is no reason God could not have made things as these theories suggest. In fact, I am pretty sure we are living in a "reduced physical laws" existence. (as in time affecting our perceptions) I believe the speed of light barrier is a natural law intended to keep us separated from another existence.

 

[GlennO]

Adopted Son

Your reference to the speed of light barrier and the "reduced physical laws" existence align with my notions.

You may find interest in this:

Feedback: Too Many Theories? - Answers in Genesis

Glenn

 

[RonJohnSilver]

Read an interesting quote by Michio Kaku from his book 'Physics of the Impossible', in discussing the 'fine-tuning' of our world, he says....

"..So either we are left with the conclusion that there is a God of some sort who has chosen our universe to be 'just-right' to allow for life, or there are billions of parallel universes, many of them dead.....".

And he then goes on to elaborate on the second option, that of parallel worlds. Sad to me how people will go to any extreme to avoid having to acknowledge a creator. If such things exist, I know that God made them for a purpose and we'll know soon enough.

I also wonder sometimes about 'intellectuals' who have died and if they will be able to see us as we romp through the cosmos while they languish in hell. I wonder if Carl Sagan, for example, will watch us scamper over the planets, discovering the things that he only speculated about and how emotionally and intellectually painful that will be for him, thinking...'those people were right, and now they are enjoying the worlds I only dreamed of, and it could have been me there with them....'

 

[Carl]

I remember thinking about multiple dimensions while taking higher math in college. Most of the science and technology that is in use today is still based upon the mathematics developed in the 1500s through the 1800s. There is room for parallel universes according mathematics.

Quantum physics has developed in mans struggles to explain the atom, energy, and mass. Each time a question is answered another couple of questions are generated.

I don't pretend to understand any of it. I just accept what sounds reasonable to me. We haven't seen anything yet!

 

[SonSeeker]

All I know is that every atom in the entire universe (or parallel universes) is held together by God's Word alone. And that's all I need to know.

 

[SonSeeker]

Actually there's something else I know.
The 24 Elders that John saw in Revelation is us! He traveled from our past to our future and saw us before we were born.:
That's a pretty good example of time travel, don't you think?

 

[GlennO]

Naw...you didn't see me I was way in the back row:

 

[AnnS]

I posted this awhile back on this thread:
History of the Light-Speed Debate Part II
from the March 30, 2010 eNews issue
Koinonia House - The Ministry of Chuck and Nancy Missler (visit our website for a FREE subscription)

[Last week we began an overview on the possibility that the speed of light has been slowing down since the beginning of the universe. This is a continuation of that article.]

Since 1987, when V. S. Troitskii argued that light speed had originally been about 1010 times faster than now, a multitude of papers on cosmology and the speed of light have shown up in journals and on the web. The theories abound as to what is changing, and in relation to what, and what the possible effects are.

As the storm around the 1987 report settled down, Barry Setterfield got back to work, investigating the data rather than playing around with pure theory. Meanwhile, halfway around the world from Australia, in Arizona, a respected astronomer named William Tifft was finding something strange going on with the redshift measurements of light from distant galaxies. It had been presumed that the shift toward the red end of the spectrum of light from these distant galaxies was due to a currently expanding universe, and the measurements should be seen as gradually but smoothly increasing as one went through space. That wasn't what Tifft was finding. The measurements weren't smooth. They jumped from one plateau to another. They were quantized, or came in quantities with distinct breaks in between them.

When Tifft published his findings, astronomers were incredulous and dismissive. In the early 1990s in Scotland, two other astronomers decided to prove him wrong once and for all. Guthrie and Napier collected their own data and studied it. They ended up deciding Tifft was right [T. Beardsley, Scientific American 267:6 (1992), p. 19;. J. Gribbin, New Scientist 9 July (1994), 17; R. Matthews, Science 271 (1996), 759]. What was going on? Barry Setterfield read the material and studied the data. The universe could not be expanding if the red shift measurements were quantized. Expansion would not occur in fits and starts. So what did the red shift mean? While most others were simply denying the Tifft findings, Barry took a closer look. And it all started to make sense. While many articles continued to be published regarding theoretical cosmologies with little regard for much of the data available, Barry was more interested in the data.

Yet, his work is not referenced by any of the others. The Stanford paper is just about forgotten, if it was ever known, by the folks in mainstream physics and astronomy. However, not only are the measurements still there, but the red shift data has added much more information, making it possible to calculate the speed of light back to the first moment of creation. So Barry wrote another paper and submitted it to a standard physics journal in 1999. They did not send it to peer review but returned it immediately, saying it was not a timely subject, was of no current interest, and was not substantial enough. (It was over fifty pages long with about a hundred and fifty references to standard physics papers and texts.) So Barry resubmitted it to an astronomy journal. They sent it out to peer review and the report came back that the paper was really interesting but that it really belonged in a physics journal. So, in 2000, he sent it off to another physics journal. They refused it because they did not like one of the references Barry used: a university text on physics.

There is a reason that Barry's work is not being referenced by mainstream scientists - or even looked at by most. If Barry is right about what the data are indicating, we are living in a very young universe. This inevitable conclusion will never be accepted by standard science. Evolution requires billions of years.

And there is a reason why the major creation organizations are holding his work at an arm's length as well: they are sinking great amounts of money into trying to prove that radiometric dating procedures are fatally flawed. According to what Barry is seeing, however, they are not basically flawed at all: there is a very good reason why such old dates keep appearing in the test results. The rate of decay of radioactive elements is directly related to the speed of light. When the speed of light was higher, decay rates were faster, and the long ages would be expected to show up. As the speed of light slowed down, so the radioactive decay rates slowed down.

By assuming today's rate of decay has been uniform, the earth and universe look extremely old. Thus, the evolutionists are happy with the time that gives for evolution and the creationists are looking for flaws in the methods used for testing for dates. But if the rates of decay for the different elements have not been the same through time, then that throws both groups off! Here was an "atomic clock" which ran according to atomic processes and, possibly, a different "dynamical" clock, the one we use everyday, which is governed by gravity - the rotation and revolution rates of the earth and moon. Could it be that these two "clocks" were not measuring time the same way? A data analysis suggested this was indeed happening. Tom Van Flandern, with a Ph.D. from Yale in astronomy, specializing in celestial mechanics, and for twenty years (1963-1983) Research Astronomer and Chief of the Celestial Mechanics Branch at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington D.C., released the results of some tests showing that the rate of ticking of the atomic clock was measurably slowing down when compared with the "dynamical clock." (Tom Van Flandern was terminated from his work with that institution shortly thereafter, although his work carries a 1984 publication date.)

In recognizing this verified difference between the two different "clocks," it is important to realize that the entire dating system recognized by geology and science in general, saying that the earth is about 4.5 billion years old, and the universe somewhere around ten billion years older than that, might be thrown into total disarray. The standard science models cannot deal with that. The standard creation models cannot, at this point, deal with the fact that radiometric dating may be, for the most part, telling the truth on the atomic clock. And, meanwhile, the Hubble spacecraft keeps sending back data which keep slipping into Barry Setterfield's model as though they actually belonged there.

[The majority of this article was excerpted from "History of the Light-Speed Debate" by Helen Setterfield, originally published in the July 2002 Personal Update NewsJournal]

Related Links:

• History of the Light-Speed Debate - Koinonia House
• Speed of Light Slowing Down? - WorldNetDaily
• Physical Constants and Evolution of the Universe - Astrophysics and Space Science
• The Atomic Constants, Light, and Time - Setterfield.org

eNews for March 30, 2010

 

[enturner]

For me, the most difficult issue to understand is how God can so accurately predict what people will do (example: Peter, Judas, many in the OT as well) while at the same time, these people can still have free will. Of course, one could argue that Judas had already made his decision ahead of time and God knew it, but what about Peter? Based upon the Bible, we know that God knows the future, thus the only thing left to question is nature of free will.

 

[mattfivefour]

For me, the most difficult issue to understand is how God can so accurately predict what people will do (example: Peter, Judas, many in the OT as well) while at the same time, these people can still have free will. Of course, one could argue that Judas had already made his decision ahead of time and God knew it, but what about Peter? Based upon the Bible, we know that God knows the future, thus the only thing left to question is nature of free will.

Free will is free will or it is not "free will" at all. Our problem is that our finite minds can comprehend neither omniscience nor omnipresence, anymore than we can truly comprehend infinity. The highest level of knowledge in man, and the highest achievements of his wisdom, are as foolishness to God. He is so far above us in order of magnitude that we just cannot comprehend Him. That is one of the reasons Jesus came. For then we saw exactly how the exact nature of God manifests and what true godliness looks like.

The fact is that for a God who simply spoke and created everything that is (Genesis 1:3-26), who has named all of the stars (Psalm 147:4; Isaiah 40:26) and numbered every hair on every head (Luke 12:7) and who at all times knows exactly the state of every minute part of every atom in the universe (Hebrews 1:3), it is nothing to also know everything that every single person will do in the future as surely as though it were the past. We cannot comprehend it. But we need to believe it, because the Bible teaches it. God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) gave us His Word that cannot err because it is truth (John 17:17) , in order that we may have a true record of who He is, what He is like, and what He requires of us. In other words, according as his divine power, he has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. (2 Peter 1:3)

How He can know everything that I will ever think or do yet allow me to have total free will in what I think or do and make every decision as seems best to me is so incredibly fantastic that my mind cannot even begin to comprehend it. But His Word teaches it, so I accept it. We always gt into trouble when we try to judge the things of God with our human wisdom. One day we shall know ... for the Word says we shall know even as we are known. (1 Corinthians 13:12) Until then I will take it the same way I have taken my salvation— on faith.

 

[GlennO]

My take on it is, since He created time as he created gravity and all the other "laws" in this plane of existence, He can unwind or suspend such constraints and certainly is not limited by them. We exist in a dimensionality (if you will) of how many I can not comprehend, we are finite He is self-existent/eternal (that "bakes my noodle" as the Oracle in the Matrix said to Neo):

Just because he can see the beginning and the end simultaneously, does not negate our course of our decisions (e.g.free will) in our lives. Of course as Sovereign God he also has the prerogative to intervene (thankfully in our lives from "time to time"

 

[MikeD]

I would have to agree with MattFiveFour on this one. However, I do remember one conversation I had with one old truck driver way back when.

Quantum Physics is very easy. When you're traveling down through Tennessee, coming up and over Mt Eagle, and you suddenly realize, you've topped the mountain a little too fast and realize your breaks aren't going to hold. Every thing that's ever happened to you in your entire existence instantly is crammed right down in your stomach. And you realize that, quantum physics is about to make a big mess of your entire existence!!

Sorry to be so simplistic but, I had to share that!! :

 

[mattfivefour]

: That old truck driver understood it well!

 

[Faith]

As a woman, I don't give much thought to 'time travel' unless it's the Rapture....

I soooo long for the Rapture.....:

I think more about the 'love' for Christ and others we will share ,and the 'beauty' that will surround us...

No more pain or sorrow....ing

My mansion in the sky, the New Jerusalem....

Yes, that's enough for me...

Thank you, Lord....

 

[JC1949]

Free will is free will or it is not "free will" at all. Our problem is that our finite minds can comprehend neither omniscience nor omnipresence, anymore than we can truly comprehend infinity. The highest level of knowledge in man, and the highest achievements of his wisdom, are as foolishness to God. He is so far above us in order of magnitude that we just cannot comprehend Him. That is one of the reasons Jesus came. For then we saw exactly how the exact nature of God manifests and what true godliness looks like.

The fact is that for a God who simply spoke and created everything that is (Genesis 1:3-26), who has named all of the stars (Psalm 147:4; Isaiah 40:26) and numbered every hair on every head (Luke 12:7) and who at all times knows exactly the state of every minute part of every atom in the universe (Hebrews 1:3), it is nothing to also know everything that every single person will do in the future as surely as though it were the past. We cannot comprehend it. But we need to believe it, because the Bible teaches it. God who cannot lie (Titus 1:2) gave us His Word that cannot err because it is truth (John 17:17) , in order that we may have a true record of who He is, what He is like, and what He requires of us. In other words, according as his divine power, he has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue. (2 Peter 1:3)

How He can know everything that I will ever think or do yet allow me to have total free will in what I think or do and make every decision as seems best to me is so incredibly fantastic that my mind cannot even begin to comprehend it. But His Word teaches it, so I accept it. We always gt into trouble when we try to judge the things of God with our human wisdom. One day we shall know ... for the Word says we shall know even as we are known. (1 Corinthians 13:12) Until then I will take it the same way I have taken my salvation— on faith.