Eunyoung Kim et al- Process Theology and Quantum Evolution

8/3/2019 Eunyoung Kim et al- Process Theology and Quantum Evolution

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Process Theology and Quantum Evolution

EUNYOUNG KIM

KAY S. BULLMICHAEL A. SODERSTRAND

Abstract Process Theology grew from the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead as a

theology consistent with the major scientific theories of the 20th

century including

Relativity, Quantum Mechanics and Evolution. Despite significant development ofProcess Theology by such modern theologians as Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb,

Schubert Ogden, Daniel D. Williams and Norman Pittenger, Process Theology continues

to be criticized for radically compromising the transcendence of God and for thedifficulty in finding the God of the Old Testament in the God of Process Theology.

However, new contributions by Roger Penrose, Danah Zohar, Ian Marshall, GrahamCairns-Smith and most recently by Johnjoe McFadden and Nick Herbert provide a

quantum mechanical basis for the beginning of life and the concept of consciousness.The non-locality associated with deep reality combined with Quantum Evolution offers a

new view of prehension in Process Theology that may go a long way toward answering

some of the criticisms of Process Theology by showing that Gods prehension in ProcessTheology provides a mechanism for the transcendence of God consistent with both

Process Theology and the God of the Old Testament.

Key words: Process Theology; Whitehead; Deep Reality; Consciousness; God Spot;

Neurothelogy; Quantum Theory; Quantum Evolution; Copenhagen Interpretation ofQuantum Theory; David Bohm Interpretation of Quantum Theory

In what follows, we discuss Process Theology in light of recent proposals regarding the

role of the brain in religious experience (ie: the God Spot), the requirement of the EPR

experiments that if there exists a deep reality beyond observation that it must be non-

local and proposals by Johnjoe McFadden and Nick Herbert regarding QuantumConsciousness. The first two of these issues, the discovery of the God Spot and thenon-locality requirement of the EPR experiments, appear to fall into the category of what

Willem Drees calls solid knowledge such as the Periodic Table of Elements in

Chemistry and the basic concepts for Darwins Theory of Evolution.

1

The proposals ofJohnjoe McFadden and Nick Herbert regarding Quantum consciousness, on the otherhand, are quite speculative and may never be subject to scientific proof. However, if we

understand the role of theology to include the articulation of meaning in the sense of

Philip Hefner,2

then incorporation of Quantum consciousness into Process Theology mayhelp to provide a better understanding of the meaning of the prehension of God. In this

paper we have tried to separate scientific fact from philosophies that are supposedly

based upon scientific fact. Here we shall attempt to develop such philosophies in a


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therapeutic manner in the sense proposed by Nancey Murphy3, but I suspect that we

fall somewhat short in this attempt. Hence, our scientific philosophies may be more of ametaphysical worldview in the sense described by John Polkinghorne.

4In either case, we

hope that the combination of the three issues from neuroscience, the EPR experiments,

and Quantum consciousness will help in the understanding of how the prehension of God

as described in Process Theology might be consistent with the omnipresence andomnipotence of the God of the Old Testament.

Introduction

Process Theology5-11

is generally categorized as a natural theology that emphasizes the

constructive relationship between science and religion. During the second half of thetwentieth century, Process Theology has emerged as one of the more important natural

theologies challenging the neo-orthodoxy which tends to reject natural theology and to

compartmentalize theology and science.11

At the beginning of the 1990s, the U.S.Congress and then president George Bush, Sr. declared the decade of the 1990s the

decade of the brain and the U.S. Government poured research dollars into studies of thebrain. Now these studies are beginning to pay off with radically new understandings of

how the brain operates and even how the brain shapes our perception of the world andour concept of what is real. In a recent book, James Ashbrook and Carol Albright argue

that these new discoveries in neuroscience break new ground in the dialogue between

religion and science and suggest that neurology is not only an appropriate partner, but thepreferred partner in that dialogue.

12

One of the neurological discoveries of the 1990s was the so called God Spot, a

region of the brain that seems to be associated with religious experience.13-21

Neo-orthodox believers argued that the fact that the human brain was wired for religious

experience showed that God is real and suggested that atheists were somehow missing avital portion of their human brain.

20On the other extreme, atheists jumped on this God

Spot concept to dismiss religious experience as a manifestation of the human brain or

even a defect of the human brain.21

The decade of the 90s, however, was not only characterized by new discoveries

regarding the brain, but also new insights into the beginning of life, the importance of

quantum mechanics to life processes, and new insights into consciousness. Much of this

is summarized in a recent book by Johnjoe McFadden.22

McFadden postulates thatconsciousness is derived from an interaction of the neurons in our brain with our own

brain waves at the quantum level in nano-tubes within the neuron cell body.

In this paper we shall explore the concept of the God Spot and McFaddens theoryof consciousness in the context of a modern process theology model of God and the

universe. Taken in a process theological context, the new concepts of neuroscience

provide a new basis for the transcendent nature of God and can even explain the God ofthe Old Testament in a Process Theology context.

Process Theology

Process theology traces its roots to the 1929 book by Alfred North Whitehead,Process and Reality which has been popularized by a 1979 corrected version

5and a 1981


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bookA Key to Whiteheads Process and Reality.6

However, the fundamentals of Process

Theology were developed primarily by Charles Hartshorne.7-9

In an obituary written byJohn Cobb of the Center for Process Theology in Claremont, California, Cobb declares

Hartshorne the Einstein of Religious Thought.10

During the period between the

publication of WhiteheadsProcess and Reality5in 1929 and the 1950s, Hartshorne

single-handedly developed the theological implications of Whiteheads philosophy and isgenerally credited as the catalyst for the process theology movement of the 1960s and

70s.11

While Process Theology is not exclusively a Christian theology, it has been

mostly developed by Christian theologians and can be seen in a strong Trinitariancontext.

23

For the purposes of this paper, we shall make use of the following key concepts from

Process Theology:

1. God is dipolara. God has a primordial or transcendent nature.11 In Process Theology this is

called the Mental Pole of God which contains divine qualities that are

eternally and necessarily true of God in any circumstance. Some ChristianProcess Theologians associate this with God the Father.

b. God has a consequent or immanent nature through which he is part of thecosmic process itself.

11In Process Theology this is called the Concrete

Nature of God which is those aspects of God that are attained through Gods

interaction with the world. God in his concrete nature is a living person inprocess and his life consists of an everlasting succession of divine events or

occasions. Some Christian Process Theologians associate this with God the

Son.2. All entities in the universe, including God, prehend with one another.11

a. Prehension is the Process Theology term that refers to the sum total of allinteractions between entities in the universe. The focus of Process Theology

is on process; hence, Process Theology refers to the basic building blocks of

the universe (ie: fermions, bosons and forces) in terms of their process asactual occurrences or actual entities. For our purposes we shall consider

actual occurrences and actual entities to be synonymous, but will use

them in context to focus on the action (occurrence) or the basic particle

involved in the action (entity) realizing that it is the interaction of the two thatis really being referred to.

b. Prehension is critical to the concept of Process Theology in that all entitiesin the universe participate in each and every actual occurrence through theprehension that they apply on the process and the prehensions that are applied

to them from other actual occurrences in the universe.

c. The Prehension associated with God consists of both the influenceemanating from God and prehending on all actual entities in the universe and

the prehension God receives from the universe and contributes to Gods

concrete nature.

d. In a Christian Process Theology, the prehension associated with God is oftenassociated with the Holy Spirit. In Process Theology this prehension goes

both ways in that God influences all other entities in the universe through his


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prehension on them and all other entities in the universe influence Gods

concrete nature through the prehension God receives from the rest of theuniverse. In the Process Theology Christian view, both of these prehensions

can be associated with the Holy Spirit. Hence, the Holy Spirit proceeds from

both God the Father and God the Son (western concept), but also the Holy

Spirit includes the influence of all the other actual entities in the universe (ie:their prehension on God) contributing to the concrete nature of God, God the

Son. Thus the Christian Process Theology interpretation is a bit of a

compromise between the Eastern and Western Christian concepts.

Quantum Theory

The purpose of this section is to give the lay reader an idea of several important concepts

from quantum theory. Since quantum theory requires a great deal of mathematics to

understand completely.24

However, in the simplified version that we will present in thispaper we have attempted to provide the key features of interest to this article in a manner

that the lay reader can have some understanding of that part of quantum theory critical toour discussion. The discussion in this paper was inspired by chapter 7 of Johnjoe

McFaddens book on Quantum Evolution which is also highly recommended.22

Heisenbergs Uncertainty Principle

Quantum theory is closely related toHeisenbergs Uncertainty Principle which is

fundamental to all laws of physics.25-26

First of all, the Uncertainty Principle does not

mean that things are uncertain. The uncertainty principle deals with the uncertainty thatis always present in any measurement. Every measuring instrument has a limit to which

it can measure. The uncertainty of that measurement is the difference between themaximum and minimum value that could provide the same measurement on the

instrument. For example, if we have a digital thermometer that measures in whole

degrees, the uncertainty in the measurement is one degree. If the thermometer says it is30 degrees Celsius, the actual temperature is somewhere between 29.5 and 30.5 degrees.

This is called the uncertainty of the measurement. The uncertainty principle states that

there is a relationship between the uncertainty in any one measurement and the

uncertainty in what is called a complimentary measurement. There are two parts to theuncertainty principle:

1. All physical quantities that can be measured have a complimentary quantity thatcan also be measured.

2. The relationship between the uncertainties in two complimentary measurements issuch that the products of the uncertainties always are greater than or equal to aconstant number related toPlanks Constant.

For our purposes we shall consider a very simple form of this principle based upon

the complimentary measurements of a particles position and a particles momentum (tobe defined later). Hence, for our example, the product of uncertainty of a particles

position and the uncertainty of the particles momentum must always be greater than or


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equal to some constant (called h-bar,Planks constantdivided by 2). SincePlanksconstantis very inconvenient (6.626x10

-34), we shall use the number ONE as our

constant, h-bar, in this simple example. Hence we would write theHeisenbergsUncertainty Principle for uncertainty in position and momentum as:

1xp (1)

where: x is the uncertainty in position andp is the uncertainty in momentum. Now bearwith me because I want to make this even simpler, but to do so I must define a few

things. Figure 1 shows an experiment that we shall use to illustrate the key features ofthe uncertainty principle as applied to position and momentum. Figure 1 shows light

shining on an opaque object with a slit in it through which the light can travel and hit a

photographic plate that will detect the light. In this experiment we have to assume that itis done in a perfect vacuum where there is nothing (like air molecules) to scatter the light

and that the opaque object is a perfect absorber of light. In particular, Einstein tells us

that light traveling in a perfect vacuum consists of a stream of very small particles, called

photons, traveling in a straight line at the speed of light. We must assume that if one ofthese photons touches the edge of the slit, it is perfectly absorbed and does not pass

through. Only the photons that do not touch the opaque object are allowed to pass

through to the photographic plate and those photons must follow a straight line as there isnothing to deflect them.

Figure 2 is a top view of the experiment of Figure 1 which simplifies the issues

involved. The uncertainty in position of any photon traveling through the slit isrepresented by the width of the slitx. If the photon is to reach the photographic plate, itmust pass through the slit, but we do not know exactly where it passed through the slit.

Hence, the width of the slit is the uncertainty of the position of the photon as it passesthrough the slit since it could have passed anywhere through the slit.

Momentum is the product of the mass of the photon and its velocity. The mass of thephoton does not change, so only the velocity can change. Velocity has two components,

the speed (which is fixed at the speed of light in this example) and the direction. Sincethe mass and speed cannot change, the direction is the only part of momentum that may

change in this experiment. Hence, if the momentum were to change, the photons willappear to deflect from their straight line and fly off at an angle. The relationship between

momentum and this change in angle is in practice somewhat complicated, so we have

simplified things here to assume it is a simple relationship such that the width of thephotographic image,y, is proportional to the uncertainty in momentum. Hence, for oursimple example, the product of the uncertainty in positionx and the uncertainty inmomentumy must be greater or equal to one.

Figures 2 and 3 show the difference between how classical physics (Figure 2) andquantum physics based upon the uncertainty principal (Figure 3) works in this simplified

example. In Figure 2a the uncertainty in locationx=2 and the uncertainty in momentumy=2 have a product of 4, well above the limit of the Uncertainty Principal, so the photons(think of them as small bullets fired at the slit) are not deflected as they pass through the

slit. In Figure 2b, the uncertainty in locationx=1 and the uncertainty in momentumy=1,so once again the photons go straight through because the product ofx andy is one andstill satisfies the Uncertainty Principle. However, in Figure 2c we have reduced the


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uncertainty in location tox=1/2 and classical physics would predict the uncertainty inmomentum to similarly reduce toy=1/2 as shown in Figure 2c. Also, in Figure 2d wehave reduced the uncertainty in location tox=1/4 and classical physics would predict theuncertainty in momentum to similarly decrease toy=1/4 as shown in Figure 2d. Withoutthe uncertainty principle, classical physics would predict that the photons would continue

through the slit in a straight line resulting in the uncertainty in momentum being the sameas the uncertainty in the position. However, this result is not consistent with the

Uncertainty Principle. Instead what happens when we perform a real experiment is

illustrated in Figure 3.In Figures 3a and 3b we see no difference between classical physics of Figures 2a and

2b and quantum physics of Figures 3a and 3b. However, when we reduce the size of the

slit further in Figures 2c and 2d, we see a remarkable difference in what happens inFigures 3c and 3d. Figures 2c and 2d are what would be expected from classical physics,

but are not what happens in an actual experiment. Figures 3c and 3d show the effect of

the Uncertainty Principle. The product of the uncertainty in location and the uncertaintyin momentum is forced, by the Uncertainty Principle, to have a product greater than or

equal to one. Instead of they decreasing whenx decreases (as classical physics wouldpredict),y increases with decreasingx in order to maintain the relationship required bythe Uncertainty Principle. So the first thing we notice about Quantum Physics is thatwhen the uncertainty in the measurement of one of the complimentary variables reaches

the quantum limit, the uncertainty of the other complimentary variable must increase

independent of the capability of the measuring instruments used. This relationshipbetween the uncertainties is a fundamental law of quantum physics like any of the laws of

classical physics and is associated not with the instrument used to do the measurement,

but with the physical phenomena of quantum physics.

The Two-Slit Experiment

Now consider the experiment of Figure 4 with two slits, rather than one slit. In Figure 4a

the two slits,x1=1 andx2=1, are just at the quantum limit so the photons pass throughboth slits in straight lines resulting in the uncertainty in the momentum measurement

being the same as the uncertainty in the position measurement, y1=1 andy2=1. However,in Figures 4b and 4c each slit is below the quantum limitx1=1/2 andx2=1/2 in Figure 4bandx1=1/4 andx2=1/4, in Figure 4c. The Uncertainty Principle predicts that theuncertainty in momentum will increase toy1=2 andy2=2, in Figure 4b and toy1=4 andy2=4, in Figure 4c. Looking at Figures 4b and 4c, we would expect that the intensity oflight on the photographic plate would spread across the entire plate from the upper limitof the uncertainty iny to the lower limit of the uncertainty iny. In particular, thereshould be no dark spots between this upper limit and lower limit. Figure 5a shows the

light intensity pattern behind the first slit, Figure 5b shows the light intensity patternbehind the second slit, and Figure 5c shows the pattern formed by adding the two patterns

of Figures 5a and 5b as we would expect to happen. Hence, in Figure 5c we might expect

to see variations in the intensity of the light across the photographic plate for the cases ofx=1/2 and x=1/4, but there should be no spots that do not have any light in the area of the

photographic plate between the two slits.


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In practice, however, rather than getting the expected light pattern of Figure 5c, we

get the light pattern shown in Figure 5d where there are dark places between the upperand lower limit on the photographic plate. In particular, a distinct interference pattern is

created like the interference pattern associated with waves, rather than particles. In fact,

when this was first observed, physicists concluded that light was a wave phenomenon and

was not made up of particles. Somehow our photon particles seem to have beentransformed into a wave.

Is light a Wave or a Particle?

Physicists spent a lot of time during the later half of the 19th

century and the first part of

the 20th

century trying to resolve the question of whether light was a wave or a stream ofparticles. However, in the early 20

thcentury Einstein was able to provide a proof that

light is indeed a stream of particles. The proof is too complex to repeat here, but he won

the Nobel Prize for this proof and the proof has been tested in laboratories all over theworld and there is no doubt of its truth. So why do these particles appear to have wave-

like qualities when the uncertainty in position goes below the quantum limit?Initially physicists thought that the wave properties came from the interaction of a

large number of photon particles much like we see waves in the water of a lake or rivercreated by the wind blowing on the surface of water which consists of a large number of

particles, water molecules. So physicists designed an experiment very similar to the two-

slit experiment of Figure 4 where they would shoot only one photon at a time at the twoslits. Surely the one photon would go through one slit or the other and we would see only

one dot on the photographic plate either behind the first slit or the second slit depending

on which slit the photon decided to go through. In practice, the experiment had to bemodified to use something other than a photographic plate as a photographic plate is not

capable of recording one photon. However, we do have many instruments available thatcan detect one photon. For example, the eye of a frog can detect one photon maybe we

need to recruit some frog physicists!

When the experiment was run to shoot one photon at the two slits and see whathappened, much to everyones surprise the same interference pattern was seen as when a

stream of photons were shot at the two slits. Now do not misunderstand the experiment.

When any one photon is shot at the two slits, only one spot characteristic of a single

photon is seen on the photographic plate (actually on a photon detector). However, as werepeat the experiment shooting a single photon each time, the spots where photons appear

on the photographic plate start to form the interference pattern that we saw when we shot

many photons at once. So if we initially had shot a stream of 1000 photons and thenrepeated the experiment shooting 1000 photons one photon at a time, the same exact

interference pattern would be seen on the photographic plate. Hence, the probability of a

photon landing in a particular spot on the photographic plate was given by theinterference pattern. Most significantly, there were dark areas on the photographic plate

as indicated in Figure 5d that were consistent with a wave interference pattern that should

not occur if single particles are shot at the two slits.

What appears to be happening is that whether the photons are sent all at once or oneat a time, the probability that a photon will be found at a particular spot on the

photographic plate is given by the interference pattern formed by a probability wave


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function passing through both slits. This experiment was repeated many times in many

different laboratories with the same results. Not only was this result obtained withphotons, it was also obtained with other particles such as electrons and even rather large

clusters of particles. As long as the slits were below the quantum limit, all single

particles shot at the slits appeared to somehow obey this probabilistic wave function

interference pattern.

The Critical Experiment of Quantum Physics

Baffled by the experiments that seemed to show that the single photon shot at the two

slits seemed to somehow be transformed into a probability wave and pass through both

slits, physicists decided to put detectors in the slits themselves so they could determinewhich slit the photon was actually going through or if the photon somehow was being

split in half and going through both slits. Much to the surprise of the physicists, when

they turned on the detectors in the slits, the wave properties disappeared and the photonalways went though only one slit landing in a pattern behind one slit or the other

consistent with a particle stream of Figure 5c. They no longer obeyed the probabilisticwave function causing the interference pattern of Figure 5d. There was no way to predict

which slit the photon would go through, but it always went through one of the other slitproducing a single dot behind that slit. Repeating the experiment many times the

physicists determined that there was an equal probability of the photon going through

either slit so repeated experiments showed the photon going through a different slit eachtime but on average as many photons went through slit one as went through slit two. As

a result, with the detectors turned on the light pattern on the photographic plate always

was like Figure 5c and in no case was the probabilistic wave pattern of Figure 5d seenwhen the detectors inside the slits were turned on.

Physicists then tried turning off the detector in one of the slits while leaving on thedetector in the other slit. The result was the same as when both detectors in the slits were

turned on. The photon seemed to randomly select one slit or the other to pass through,

but never did the physicists see the probabilistic wave pattern. There was no relationshipbetween which detector in a slit was turned on and which slit the photon went though.

There was always an equal probability of the photon going through either one of the slits.

Finally, the physicists turned off both detectors, and immediately the wave pattern of

Figure 5d returned. With both detectors still inside the slits, but turned off, the singlephoton shot at the two slits would seem to be governed by the probabilistic wave function

and appear to pass through both slits creating the interference pattern of Figure 5d. But if

either or both detectors in the slits were turned on, the wave pattern would disappear andthe photon would pass through only one slit or the other resulting in the light pattern of

Figure 5c.

Quantum Theory Explains the Experiment

Nothing in classical physics was able to explain the strange phenomena described abovewhen a single photon is shot at two slits and slit detectors are turned on or off. However,

Quantum Theory explains this and many other strange phenomena that occur when

measurement uncertainty goes below the quantum limit. According to Quantum Theory,


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when the uncertainty in one of the complimentary variables becomes less than the

quantum limit, a quantum wave function represents all the possibilities that the particlecould take. In the case of the two-slit experiment, there are only two possibilities,

traveling through slit one or slit two. When the slit size goes below the quantum level, a

quantum wave function describes the probability that the particle will go through each

slit. The quantum wave function is NOT a real wave, it is a mathematical probability thatthe particle will take one route of the other. However, this mathematical probability is

expressed in the form of a wave where the amplitude of the wave (maximum value of the

wave) is the probability that the particle will be located at that place. In the case of thetwo-slit experiment, the wave functions for each slit are exactly identical with probability

to go through either slit. Hence, two identical probability waves seem to pass through

each slit creating a probability wave pattern on the photographic plate that results in thewave-like interference pattern of Figure 5d. However, when a detector is placed in the

slit to determine which slit the photon actually goes through, the act of turning on this

detector collapses the quantum wave function into an actual photon traveling throughone slit or the other resulting in the light pattern of Figure 5c. Hence, it is the act of

turning on the detector (making the observation) that forces the photon to pick one slit orthe other to go through. Without at least one of the slit detectors turned on, there is no

way to know which slit the photon will go through so the quantum wave functions remainintact and the interference pattern associated with the quantum wave function (Figure 5d)

is seen at the photographic plate.

It is important to understand that the mathematical formulation of the quantum wavefunction in Quantum Theory has proven to describe perfectly not only the two-slit

experiment, but virtually every other experiment conducted when measurements are

below the quantum limit set by the Uncertainty Principle.25-26

The mathematicalequations of Quantum Theory are as accurate as the mathematical equations that we use

to predict the orbits of the planets, the trajectory of a space ship, or any other wellaccepted physical laws. The mathematics of Quantum Theory provides no explanation of

why or how this happens, only an accurate description of what happens. Similarly the

laws of classical physics also describe accurately what happens but provide noexplanation of why or how it happens. The laws of Newton describe what happens in a

gravity field, but provide no explanation of why gravity exists or how it attracts things at

a distance. Quantum Theory is as solid as classical physics in describing the universe,

but is also no different from classical physics in its lack of ability to explain how or why.

Quantum Theory Really Isnt Strange

Popular literature loves to refer to Quantum Theory as something very weird. The

subtitle of Johnjoe McFaddens book is How Physics Weirdest Theory Explains Lifes

Biggest Mystery. 22 But in reality, Quantum Theory is no weirder than any of the lawsof nature. As humans, we see everyday the effect of gravity, so the laws of Newton that

describe the effects of gravity do not seem weird even though these laws do not tell us

why or how gravity works. But human eyes cannot see a single photon and thephenomena of Quantum Mechanics happen at the level of a single photon where the

measurement uncertainties approach the quantum limits. Because humans have not seen

a single particle shot at two slits transform itself into a wave and pass through both slits


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simultaneously, humans think this is pretty weird behavior. However, if humans could

talk to our frog friends who can see a single photon, maybe these frogs would tell us thatsingle photons always transform to wave functions and pass through both slits. Now that

humans have scientific instruments that can see single photons and make measurements

at the quantum level, we need to start becoming familiar with these phenomena so they

do not seem so weird.

Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics

While science does not tell us how or why quantum mechanics is the way it is, scientists

do offer some possible explanations. These explanations are based upon their

understanding of the science and hence are often confused by lay people as part of thescientific theory. However, these explanations are really philosophy (or in some cases

theology), not science. Two such philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics are

important to this paper: (1) the role of the observer in making reality happen (basedupon what scientists refer to as the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics

27-28

and (2) the notion of free will inherent in the random nature of the quantum wavefunction.29

Role of the Observer in Making Reality Happen

The fact that the particles in the two-slit experiment seem to act like waves unless we puta detector in the experiment to determine where the particles actually go raises the

question of the role of the observer in determining whether a wave or particle like

distribution will occur. In the Copenhagen Interpretation,27-28

the particles actually do notgo through either of the slots when the detector is turned off. They simply appear on the

other side according to the probabilistic wave function. However, when we turn on thedetector, the act of turning on the detector forces the particle to make a decision and

either goes through one slit or the other. Without the observation performed in this case

by the detector, the particle is not forced to make a decision of which slit to go throughand hence the particle in reality does not go through one slit or the other.

Role of Free Will in Reality

Now let us address the decision that the particle makes when the detector is turned on. In

classical physics, we would be able to predict from the particles location and momentum

exactly which slit the particle would go through. However, quantum mechanics tells usthat the act of observing or measuring the position (ie: the size and location of the slits in

this case) puts a limit on out ability to measure the momentum. So when we turn our

detector on, it is impossible for us to have the information necessary to predict which slitthe particle goes through. According to the Copenhagen interpretation, this is not a

matter of us not knowing the information but rather the information actually does not

exist. Hence, the decision of which slit to pass through is NOT determined by theposition and momentum as classical physics would predict, but rather can be any of the

possible states determined by the quantum wave probability function. Hence, within the

limits imposed by the probability wave function, the particle has free will to choose its


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path. According to this interpretation, quantum mechanics has free will as an integral

part of reality.

Consciousness and the Brain

In the Copenhagen interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, the observer is critical to thequestion of what is real. However, scientists are not sure what actually constitutes an

observer. The famous computer scientist Von Neuman, however, postulates that only

observers with consciousness can perform the critical observation that turns unrealquantum wave functions into real actions of particles. This naturally leads us to the

area of neuroscience to understand what consciousness is so that we can understand

better what an observer is. However, the issue of consciousness has been a difficult onefor science from the very beginning. While ancient Greeks thought that the heart was the

source of consciousness, the Roman physician Galen was the first to teach that the brain

was the source of consciousness.29

Joseph LeDoux points out in his book, SynapticSelf,

31that for many years neuroscientists avoided confronting consciousness. The topic

was one that retired neuroscientists, facing their own mortality, would talk about, butyoung brain researchers knew better. (see LeDoux, page 19).31

However, this seems tohave changed in the latter half of the 20

thcentury as evidenced by a flurry of material of a

more philosophical nature published by reputable neuroscientists.32-45

For example,

research by Andrew Newberg and Eugene DAquili13-14

dealt specifically with the subject

of meditation, spirituality and the brain and postulated an area of the brain associatedwith the God Experience. Newbergs studies were rather significant in that they found

that subjects undergoing what they described as a spiritual experience were

simultaneously experiencing reduced blood flow to an area of the brain called theposterior superior parietal lobe. This area of the brain is associated with our ability to

differentiate between ourselves and the rest of the world. When patients have damage tothis area of the brain, they are often unable to move around because of confusion as to

what is inside and outside of their body. Newberg reported that the subjects experienced

a strong sense of being at one with the world during meditation and that this feelingwould be consistent with reduction of blood to the area that differentiates us from the

world. In his research findings, Newberg reports a strong inverse correlation between

level of meditation and blood flow to the posterior superior parietal lobe.14

A secondstrong inverse correlation was also found between the blood flow to the posterior superior

parietal lobe and the blood flow to the portion of the frontal lobe associated with

attention.14

Newberg concludes that there is a strong correlation between the feeling of

spirituality and the reduction of blood flow to the posterior superior parietal lobe (whichhe refers to as the Orientation Association Area, OAA

13). Furthermore, Newberg

concludes that the ability to reduce blood to the OAA is also related to the ability to focus

attention as monitored by blood flow to the portion of the frontal lobe of the brainassociated with concentration (which he refers to as the Attention Association Area,

AAA13

).

On January 14, 2002 ABC News aired a documentary on the work of scientist such asNewberg and the reaction of people to this work.

15The ABC News report only touches

the surface of the actual research, but does attempt to provide a relatively balanced report


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on the various interpretations and reactions to the research. In the ABC report Newberg

states:

Our work really points to the fact that these are very complex kinds of feelingsand experiences that affect us on many different levels, There is no one simpleway of looking at these kinds of questions

Professor Michael Persinger of Ontarios Laurentia University is much stronger in the

interpretation of his results:

There are certain [brain] patterns that can be generated experimentally that willgenerate the sense, presence and the feeling of God-like experiences. Thepatterns we use are complex but they imitate what the brain does normally. Mypoint of view is, Let's measure it. Let's keep an open mind and realize maybethere is no God; maybe there might be. We're not going to answer it byarguments we're going to answer it by measurement and understanding theareas of the brain that generate the experience and the patterns that

experimentally produce it in the laboratory. If we have to draw conclusions now,based upon the data, the answer would be more on the fact that there is no deity.

However, Professor Persinger is clear about his motivation to explore these results

scientifically. He is not really aiming the research at answering the question of whether

or not there is a God. However, he is very concerned that unscrupulous people mightuse techniques to provoke a spiritual experience to control people. But he also believesthere is potential for great good in the research:

If you look at the spontaneous cases of people who have God experiences andconversions, their health improves. So if we can understand the patterns ofactivity that generate this experience, we may also be able to understand how tohave the brain and hence the body cure itself.

At the University of Arizona, Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry Gary Schwartzis studying consciousness after death and the ability of mediums to contact the dead. In

his interview for the ABC News documentary Professor Schwarz states:

One of the fundamental questions is, How does a medium receive this kind ofinformation? To what extent are they using specific regions of the brain whichare purportedly associated with other kinds of mystical or religious experiences?

Schwartz describes his research as:

actually a window or a doorway, if you will, to a much larger spiritual realitywhich integrates ancient wisdom with contemporary science.

In the ABC News interview he states that the human brain is wired to receive signalsfrom what he calls a


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"Grand Organizing Design," or G.O.D. Survival of conscience tells us thatconsciousness does not require a brain, that our memories, our intentions, ourintelligence, our dreams? All of that can exist outside of the physical body. Now,by the way, that's the same idea that we have about God that something that is"invisible," that is "bigger than all of us," which we cannot see, can have intellect,

creativity, intention, memory and can influence the universe.

A recent book by Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and

Cognition at the University of California San Diego he discusses the intense religiousexperience that certain type of epilepsy patients experience.

16When this work was first

reported back in 1997, it added to the floury of newspaper articles and newscasts on the

God Spot.17-19

While the question of whether there is or is not a God still seems to beelusive as far as brain science is concerned, it is clear that the human brain can be

manipulated either from within or externally to cause people to experience a spiritual or

God sensation.13-21

For those who believe in God, this God Spot in the brain can beinterpreted as a mechanism for God to communicate with people:

13

The megatheology aspect of neurotheology is a bit more complicated becauseneuroscience itself appears to be unable to provide information regarding theultimate level of reality, whether that level is called God, nirvana, or AUB(Absolute Unitary Being). reality happens in the brain and while our imagingstudies do not prove the existence of a higher spiritual plane, they do stronglyindicate that to the brain, these states are as real as any other. Time and again,people who have experienced intense mystical states insist that these states feelmore real than everyday reality. Neurology can neither prove nor disprove thispoint, but informed speculation tells us that its possible that AUB may be as real,if not more fundamentally real, than what we perceive as ordinary reality.

For those who do not believe in God, the God Spot in the brain can be interpreted

as the source of spiritual and God experiences:21

Here lies the origin of humankind's spiritual function, an evolutionary adaptationthat compels our species to believe that though our physical bodies will one dayperish, our "spirits" or "souls" will persist for all eternity. Only once our specieswas instilled with this inherent (mis)perception that there is something more "outthere," that we are immortal beings, were we able to survive our debilitatingawareness of death.

Role of Quantum Mechanics in Neurology

The research described in the previous section establishes that there is an area of the brainthat is associated with the God or spiritual experience in human beings. However, it does

not establish a mechanism for triggering this area. Speculation in the popular media is

divided into three camps:

1. The God Spot in the brain is triggered externally from God or some otherAbsolute Unitary Being,


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2. The God Spot is triggered both internally and externally and the external triggermay or may not be from God or an Absolute Unitary Being.

3. The God Spot is triggered internally and is not a manifestation of God or anyAbsolute Unitary Being.

The second interpretation seems to be that of many of the religious leaders who relatethis to the belief that God is out there calling us in a particular direction, but that our own

internal human needs and other external pressures often out-weigh the call of God. This

second interpretation is also consistent with Process Theology in which Gods prehensionis experienced by every entity in the universe, but also each entity is influenced by its

self-prehension and the prehension of other entities in the universe.

In this section we are going to take a look at an emerging theory in neuroscience thatproposes that quantum mechanics is an important part of the phenomena that we

experience as consciousness. While classical neuroscience has looked at neuronal

activity as the source of consciousness and brain waves as an external manifestation ofneural activity, the new quantum mechanical view of consciousness suggests that

interaction of the brain waves with neurons at the quantum mechanical level provides afeedback system within the brain that we perceive as the phenomena of consciousness. A

key experiment that has led researchers to look for something more than just neuronactivity as the source of consciousness is work by American neurobiologist, Benjamin

Libet, of the Center for Neurobiology at the University of California Davis.46

This book

contains a series of essays that seriously challenge the concept of free will. Libets ownresearch dealt with monitoring brain activity of people who were asked to hold up one

finger at the time of their choosing and the finger of their choice. However, there

appeared to be neurological pre-cursers to the act that could predict both when and whatfinger would be held up. Based upon the measurement of neuron activity alone, they

concluded that the activity could be completely determined by sensory inputs to the brainsuggesting that there was no mechanism for free will.

46However, in Libets own work

there was evidence that voluntary actions may be initiated unconsciously, but before they

are consummated, consciousness can intervene to veto or reinforce the action. This isseen in Libets work where neuronal activity that is often followed by motor action, was

sometimes aborted before the action was completed.46

The question of what mechanism could abort this motor action after the neuronsstarted activity that should lead to the motor action has lead Johnjoe McFadden to the

explanation that consciousness is a complex feedback loop created by the brain waves

associated with neuron firing and the feedback to the neurons at the quantum level

through brain waves (see McFadden, page 288)22

. In developing his theory, McFaddentraces through other quantum-mechanical based theories of consciousness by such

diverse scientists as Roger Penrose47

a well-known English quantum physicist, Danah

Zohar, an American scientific philosopher48 and Graham Cairns-Smith the ScottishChemist who proposed that life originated as a quantum-mechanical reaction in

replicating clay minerals49

.

On pages 295-297 of his book22

, McFadden carefully considers two quantum-fieldtheories of consciousness, one by the great 20

thcentury philosopher Karl Popper

49and

one by the world-renowned neuroscientist Benjamin Libet51

and applies Occams razer

to combine the two theories into a third theory which he calls the Conscious-


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Electromagnetic Field theory (C-EMF theory). According to McFaddens C-EMF

theory, consciousness arises from a feedback loop in which neuronal activity produceselectromagnetic waves (brain waves) that permeate the entire brain allowing the potential

of feedback of information from every neuron in the brain to every other neuron in the

brain. However, this feedback can be received only when the C-EMF interacts at the

quantum level in nano-tubes within the neural cells. While the familiar detection of EMFwaves as is done in a radio receiver may also take place in the neurons of the brain, it is

not this normal detection process that leads to consciousness. Rather it is the quantum-

mechanical detection associated with the interaction of an EMF with matter in theisolation of a nano-tube that leads to a consciousness that has inherent in it the concept of

free will. As McFadden explains it (see McFadden, page 314):22

Man is not an automaton. Our conscious electromagnetic field exploits quantummeasurement to move particles inside our brain, providing us with thephenomenon we call free will. Consciousness drives free will. This quantumlevel control a control lacking in robots gives us the edge in our interactions

with the world outside. I believe it also lies at the heart of the mostextraordinary of human abilities: creative thinking. Great ideas are not pulledout of the air; but out of the quantum multiverse. In a sense, our minds haverecaptured the same quantum evolutionary process I believe propelled life fromits origin billions of years ago and drove the evolution of living organismstowards increasing complexity. by nurturing sensitivity to the brainselectromagnetic field, animals and particularly human beings, have recapturedentanglement with a quantum-mechanical entity the conscious mind and onceagain harnessed quantum measurement to perform directed actions. We havequantum-evolved our own free will.

Process Theology and Quantum Consciousness

So far in this article we have established three significant scientific facts or theories fromquantum mechanics, neurology and scientific philosophy:

1. Quantum Mechanics: The act of observation collapses the quantummechanical wave function forcing an entity to choose according to the

quantum-mechanical probability function a certain reality. Hence,

observation is linked to the Process Theology concept of an actual entity or

actual occurrence. Furthermore, the concept of free will, if it exists, mustenter through the quantum-mechanical choice available to the actual entity

or actual occurrence in the process of wave function collapse due to an

observation.2. Neuroscience: Recent experiments have confirmed that and identifiable area

in the human brain is associated with the human feeling of spirituality or the

experience of God. Spirituality can be triggered from within through suchthings as meditation, but can also be triggered from the outside by external

stimulation of this area of the brain. Furthermore, the feeling of spirituality is

associated with increased activity in the frontal lobe area associated with


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attention and decreased activity in the posterior superior parietal lobe

associated with orientation.3. Quantum Mechanics and Neural Science: McFadden proposes a C-EMF

theory of consciousness that suggests that consciousness is the interaction

between the EMF generated by neuron firings in the brain and the neurons of

the brain at a quantum-mechanical level within the nano-tubes present withinthe neuron cells. This quantum-mechanical interaction cannot take place,

however, in actively firing neural cells or in neural cells that are far from

firing. This interaction must take place in neural cells that are on the verge offiring and hence are within the quantum-mechanical window defined by the

uncertainty principle that allows for the quantum-mechanical wave functions

to persist without collapsing. Free will then consists of the C-EMF serving asthe observer for the quantum mechanical process and forcing the neuron to

choose to fire or not fire. Free will comes in as the choice that the neuron can

make within the quantum-mechanical probability function.

Now we are in a position to put all this together within the context of ProcessTheology and come to some interesting conclusions. The C-EMF model of

consciousness suggests that our decisions and free will both come through the quantum-mechanical interaction of our brain waves with those neurons that are within the

uncertainty principle window of firing. The experiments with the God Spot in the

brain suggest that meditation lowers blood flow to the area of the brain associated withthe division of us from the world. Hence, this would decrease the firing of the neurons in

this region placing a large number of those neurons within the uncertainty principle

window for quantum-mechanical interaction in the nano-tubes of the neuron cells. In thisstate, the neurons would be more susceptible to any EMF field applied to this area of the

brain. Thus the free-will decisions made in this state would not only be subject to ourown conscious mind through the C-EMF feedback, but also to other EMF fields coming

from outside the brain. Thus if Process Theology is correct that God consists of a

collection of actual occurrences that prehend on our own brain, it is possible thatduring a meditating state the EMF coming from God would have a greater effect on our

consciousness than during other states in which the neurons in posterior superior parietal

lobe are out of the uncertainty window due to their increased level of blood flow. Hence,

the very mechanism that the C-EMF theory proposes for consciousness and free will alsomight be the mechanism that would suggest that God would be more present in our

consciousness during meditation and prayer than when we were not meditating or

praying. This would also add credence to the belief that those who consciously seek Godthrough prayer and meditation would be more likely to be effected by Gods prehension.

Unfortunately, if C-EMF is the only effect at a distance mechanism going on in

consciousness, it seems highly unlikely that this could create any kind of strong cosmicconsciousness in the sense of God prehending on the universe as is envisioned in the

Process Theology model. EMF is screened very effectively from entering the human

brain and it would take a very strong EMF field to compete on any kind of basis with the

internal EMF of brain waves. But another aspect of quantum theory, one that seems tohave strong proof, may better explain the prehension of God. This is the issue of non-

locality. In Chapter 11 of his bookQuantum Reality, Nick Herbert details the results of


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the famous Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Pardox and the associated EPR experiments.52

In

particular, the proof provided by Bell and the verification via the EPR experiments showsthat any reality that lies behind observations must be a reality that includes non-

locality. Since physicists are very reluctant to accept the concept of non-locality,

most physicists simply postulate that no reality exists beyond our observations.52

Nonetheless, modern physics has proven without doubt that if there is a reality beyondour observation, it must include non-locality. Furthermore, if God exists, it would

seem likely that God would be a reality beyond observation. Hence, Gods reality

would be a non-local reality.To understand all of this better, we first must understand what scientists mean by

non-locality. Herbert provides a good working definition of non-locality:52

A non-local interaction links up one location with another without crossingspace, without decay, and without delay. A non-local interaction is, in short,is unmediated, unmitigated, and immediate.

If the Process Theology prehension of God includes a non-local component, then theconcept of a cosmic consciousness seems much more plausible. And since this non-

locality operates on a quantum mechanical scale, it would seem that the non-localprehension of God would operate in the environment of the nano-tubes within the

neurons of the human brain and would be unmediated, unmitigated and immediate.

Once again, our awareness of this cosmic consciousness would be enhanced by alteredstates of consciousness that might be induced by meditation and by activation of the

God Spot.

This concept, however, can be carried even further. The Christian religion (alongwith many others), depends heavily on the concept of a personal God that has a cosmic

consciousness. This is generally described as being analogous to our ownconsciousness, but permeating the entire universe. Again, with the Process Theology

concept of God as a series of actual occasions that prehend on every other actual

occasion in the universe, this prehension falling upon neurons that are within theuncertainty principle window of quantum-mechanical action, would create this type of

cosmic consciousness. This would also lead credence to the Process Theology concept

that God is not omnipotent, but rather is a cosmic persuader dependent upon the other

actual entities in the universe to carry out his or her goals. The C-EMF theorycombined with the non-locality of any reality beyond our observations provides a more

explicit mechanism for this cosmic consciousness and a means for us to better

understand and identify it. It also strengthens the case for the Process Theology conceptthat it is the interaction between God, people and the universe that is important and that

God cannot control the universe except through the active participation of the universe

which includes the human free will to either follow God or go the other direction andsuffer the consequences.

Conclusions

In the previous section we made the argument that the C-EMF theory and the non-

locality proven by the EPR experiments in combination with the Copenhagen or Bohm


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interpretation of quantum mechanics and the recent experimental finding of the God

Spot in the human brain leads us to a theory of cosmic consciousness based upon aGod that is very consistent with Process Theology. The most solid science in this is

quantum mechanics which has been sufficiently tested so that modern science accepts

quantum mechanics as a proven theory on par with the Periodic Table of the Elements in

Chemistry. However, it is important to note that the Copenhagen and Bohminterpretations are not science, but rather philosophy and will not be the subject of

scientific proof, but rather the subject of philosophical discussion. The experiments

leading to the conclusion that there is an area in the brain associated with spirituality andthe God experience appears to be solid science. But again the interpretation is in the

realm of theology and philosophy rather than science.

We have stressed in this article the opportunity for free will to be present in ourconsciousness at the quantum level through the uncertainty principle. However, a

follower of Calvin who rejects free will and believes in predestination could argue that

the God Spot functions in those who are chosen and the God Spot is defective inthose who are not chosen. This argument would hold that the existence of the God

Spot which is stronger in some than others supports the Calvinist view that God has prechosen those who are destined for salvation.

Our assertion that the C-EMF theory of consciousness in combination with the non-locality required by the EPR experiments allows for a mechanism for God to persuade

us through the God Spot but leaves us with free will to deny his persuasion, does not

rule out some other mechanism by which God has omnipotence and can do anything heor she pleases to the universe. However, the Process Theology concept of a weak God

who depends on persuasion does get around the age old problem of how a God who is

completely good could allow evil to occur in the universe. But it gets rid of the problemat the price of limiting the power ascribed to God. However, the unmitigated,

unmediated, immediate nature of the non-locality of deep reality provides both anomnipresence and a sense of omnipotence for the God of Process Theology that seemed

to be lacking from previous Process Theological descriptions of God.

The concept of cosmic consciousness proposed in this paper is not proposed as a

proven theory or even as what the authors believe is the most likely theory. It is proposedas a theory that makes good use of the scientific data available and provides a theory for

discussion that the authors believe could prove useful to further the investigations both

scientifically and theologically into the relationship between human beings and God. Wesee this as a starting point for further discussion, rather than an answer to all our

questions.

Notes

1. Willem B. Drees, Religion and Science Without Symmetry, Plausibility, andHarmony, Theology and Science, 1:1 (London, Frances and Taylor, 2003).

2. Philip Hefner, Theology and Science: Engaging the Richness of Experience,Theology and Science, 1:1 (London, Frances and Taylor, 2003).

3. Nancey Murphy, On the Role of Philosophy in Theology-Science Dialogue,Theology and Science, 1:1 (London, Frances and Taylor, 2003).


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4. John Polkinghorne, Physics and Metaphysics in a Trinitarian Perspective, Theologyand Science, 1:1 (London, Frances and Taylor, 2003).

5. Alfred N. Whitehead,Process and Reality, (New York: Macmilan, 1929). See alsoAlfred N. Whitehead,Process and Reality Corrected Edition, ed. D. R. Griffin and D.W. Sherburne (New York: Free Press, July 1979).

6. Alfred N. Whitehead,A Key to Whiteheads Process and Reality, ed, D. W.Sherburne (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Sept. 1981).7. Charles Hartshorne, Whiteheads View of Reality, (New York: Pilgrim, June 1981).8. Charles Hartshorne,A Natural Theology for Our Time, (New York: Open Court,

August 1992).

9. G. W. Shields,Process and Analysis: Whitehead, Hartshorne, and the AnalyticTradition, (New York: SUNY Press, Nov. 2002).

10.John B. Cobb, Charles Hartshorne: The Einstein of Religious Thought, (ClaremontCa: Center for Process Studies, 2000), available only on line at:

http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/unitarians/hartshorne.html11.D. W. Diehl,Process Theology, Process Theism, (Kingsbury Indiana: The Believe

Project, 2002) available only on line at: http://mb-soft.com/believe/txn/process.htm.12.James B. Ashbrook and Carol R. Albright,Humanizing Brain: Where Religion andNeuroscience Meet, (Cleveland Ohio: Pilgrim, 1997).

13.Andrew Newberg and Eugene DAquili,Brain Science and the Biology of Belief:Why God Wont Go Away, (New York: Ballantine, 2001).

14.Andrew Newberg, A. Alavai, M. Baime, P. D. Mozley and Eugene DAquili, Themeasurement of Cerebral Blood Flow During the Complex Cognitive

Task of Meditation using HMPAO-SPECT Imaging,Journal of Nuclear Medicine,38:95P, (1997).

15.Michael Martin, Spirituality and the Brain, Produced by Joe OConnor (ABCNightline Documentary, January 14, 2002).(http://abcnews.go.com/sections/scitech/Nightline/neuro020114_spirit_feature.html)

16.V. S. Ramachandran and S. Blakeslee,Phantoms in the Brain, (New York: WilliamMorrow and Company, 1998).

17.Steve Connor, GodSpot is Found in Brain, Los Angeles Times, (Los Angeles:Wednesday October 29, 1997).

18.Robert Lee Holtz,Brains God Module May Affect Religious Intensity, (BICNews,October 31, 1997). (http://www.iol.ie/~afifi/BICNews/Health/health19.htm).

19.D. Tull, The God Spot Is the Human Mind Touched by God or is God a Construct ofthe Human Mind? (Parascope, Inc. 1997).(http://www.noveltynet.org/content/paranormal/www.parascope.com/articles/slips/fs22_3.htm)

20.Eugene G. DAquilli and Andrew B. Newberg, The Mystical Mind Probing theBiology of Mystical Experience, (New York: Fortress Press, 1999).

21.Matthew Alpers, The God Part of the Brain A Scientific Interpretation ofSpirituality and God, (New York: Rogue, 4

thedition 2001).

22.Johnjoe McFadden, Quantum Evolution, (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000).23.John Polkinghorne, Science and Christian Belief: The Faith of a Physicist(London,

SPCK, 1994; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).

24.David Bohm, Quantum Theory, (New York: Dover, Inc., 1979).


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25.E. U. Condon, Remarks on uncertainty principles, Science, vol. 69, no. 1796 (May31, 1929): 573-574.

26.D. C. Cassidy, Answer to the question: When did the indeterminacy principlebecome the uncertainty principle?,American Journal of Physics, vol. 66, no. 4(April 1998): 278-279.

27.Niels Bohr, Causality and Complementarity, The Philosophical Writings of NielsBohr, Vol. IV, ed. Jan Faye and Henry Folse, (Woodbridge: Ox Bow, 1998).28.M. Audi, The Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, (Chicago: University of

Chicago Press, 1973).29.Ben Best, The Case for Free Will and Determinism, available on the web at:

http://www.benbest.com/philo/freewill.html.

30.Julius Rocca, Galen on the Brain: Anatomical Knowledge and PhysiologicalSpeculation in the Second Century AD (Boston: Brill, 2003).

31.J. LeDoux, Synaptic Self:How Our Brains Become Who We Are, (New York:Viking, Penguin, 2002).

32.R. W. Sperry, Mind, brain and humanist values New Views of the Nature of Man

ed. J. R. Platt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Reprinted 1966).33.R. W. Sperry, Consciousness, personal identity and the divided brain,Neuropsychologia, vol. 22, no. 6, 1984, 661-673. (Reprinted in: D. F. Benson and E.Zaidel, The Dual Brain (NewYork: Guilford Press, 1985).

34.M. S. Gazzaniga, The Bisected Brain, (New York: Appleton-Century, 1970.35.Karl P. Popper and J. C. Eccles, The Self and Its Brain, (New York: Springer, 1977).36.M. S. Gazzaniga and LeDoux, The Integrated Mind, (New York: Plenum, 1978).37.A. Marcel and E. Bisiach, Consciousness in Contemporary Science, (Oxford:

Clarendon, 1988).38.M. S. Gazzaniga, The Social Brain, (New York: Basic Books, 1988).39.F. Crick and C. Koch, Towards a Neurobiological Theory of Consciousness,

Seminars in Neuroscience, vol. 2, no. 2 (1990): 63-75.40.P. Stoerig, Varieties of Vision: from Blind Responses to Conscious Recognition,

Trends in Neurosciences, vol. 19 (1996): 401-406.41.J. Szentagothai, Downward Causation,Annual Review of the Neurosciences, vol. 7,

no. 1 (1984): 1-11.

42.W. Singer, Consciousness and the Structure of Neuronal Representations,Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences,vol. 353, no. 1377 (1998): 1829-1840.

43.G. Edelman and G. Tononi,A Universe of Consciousness. How Matter BecomesImagination, (New York: Basic Books, 2000).

44.A. R. Damasio, The Feeling of What Happens: Body and Emotion in the Making ofConsciousness, (New York: Harcourt-Brace, 1999).

45.S. Zeki and A. Bartels, Toward a Theory of Visual Consciousness, Consciousnessand Cognition, vol. 8 (1999): 225-259.

46.Benjamin Libet, Anthony Freeman and Keith Sutherland, Keith, The Volitional Brain Toward a Neuroscience of Free Will, (New York: Imprint Academic, 2001).

47.Roger Penrose, The Emperors New Mind, (London: Vintage, 1989).48.D. Zohar, The Quantum Self, (London: Flamingo, 1991).


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49.A. G. Cairns-Smith,Evolving the Mind On the Nature of Matter and the Origin ofConsciousness, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).

50.Karl Popper,Knowledge and the Mind-Body Problem: In Defense of Interactionism,ed. M. A. Notturno (London: Routledge, 1994).

51.Benjamin Libet,Neurophysiology of Consciousness, (Boston: Birkhauser, 1993).

52.Nick Herbert, Quantum Reality: Beyond the New Physics, (New York: AnchorBooks, 1987).

Eunyoung Kim is a Ph.D. Student at Oklahoma State University in the Department ofEducational Psychology with an expertise in the interaction between language and

culture. She holds a Masters Degree in Education (California State University, 1996)

Neurobiological Applications to Second Language Acquisition for Adult Learners(Sacramento, CA, CSUS, 1996). She is also the proprietor ofSynapse International, acompany which promotes ground-source heat pump technology and provides for

international exchanges for educational purposes. She is the author of numerous articlesin both English and Korean and the textbookKorean Language Course (Dubuque IA,

Kendall-Hunt, 1994).

Kay Sather Bull is professor of Educational Psychology at Oklahoma State University.

He holds a doctorate in Educational Psychology (University of Wisconsin, 1978) and an

MBA degree (Roosevelt University, 1972). Dr. Bull is an internationally known expert

in learning theory and curriculum development. He has written hundreds of onlinetextbooks and is an expert in online instruction. He was a major contributor to the

Encyclopedia of School Psychology (Westport CT, Greenwood Press, 1996) writing thechapters on Ability Grouping, Mastery Learning, Study Skills, and Metacognative Skills.He was also a contributor toLearning Disabilities: Dissenting Essays (London, FarmersPress, 1987), OM-AHA! Problems to Develop Creative Thinking Skills (Glassboro NJ,Creative Competitors, Inc., 1986) and Simple Gifts: The Education of the Gifted,Talented, and Creative (Madison WI, University of Wisconsin, 1978). He is very activein national and international educational organizations and serves regularly as aconsultant to various educational institutions.

Michael Alan Soderstrand is Emeritus Professor of Electrical and ComputerEngineering at University of California, Davis, CA. He holds a doctorate in Electrical

Engineering (University of California, 1972). He is one of the founders of the field of

Active-R filters and of the field of Residue Number Arithmetic for Digital Signal

Processing. He has taught classes in Science and Religion at the San Francisco BibleCollege and courses in Electrical Engineering at University of California, the Naval

Postgraduate School, Seoul National University and Oklahoma State University. He is a

Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), winner of the MyrilB. Reed Best Paper Award for the 2000 IEEE Midwest Symposium on Circuits and

Systems and the author of over 200 articles in Electrical Engineering. He has published

numerous textbooks in Electrical Engineering and two major edited collections,ActiveFilter Design (New York, IEEE Press, 1981) andResidue Number Systems: ModernApplications in Digital Signal Processing, (New York, IEEE Press, 1986). He holdsthree patents in active filters and digital signal processing for communications.


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Figures

Figure 1. Single-Slit Light Experiment

PhotographicPlate

Opaque ObjectWith Silt

Light Rays


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Figure 2a. Top View of Figure 1

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=2 Y=2


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Figure 2b. Expect that cutting slit size in half would cut photographic image in half

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=1 Y=1


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Figure 2c. Cutting slit in half again should cut photographic image in half again

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=1/2

Y=1/2


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Figure 2d. Cutting the slit in half one more time should cut photographic image in half

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=1/4

Y=1/4


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Figure 3a. Repeat of experiment in Figure 2 with Uncertainty Principle ( 1xy )

Herex=2, y=2, so xy=4>1. So everything is fine.

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=2 Y=2


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Figure 3b. We now cut the slit size in half and see that the photographic image is also

cut in half. Herex=1, y=1, so xy=1. We are still fine, but on the verge ofa problem.

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=1 Y=1


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Figure 3c. Now we cut the slit in half again tox=1/2. The Uncertainty Principlerequires the product to be greater than or equal to one. The result is that

the photographic image instead of being cut in half toy=1/2, actually

expands toy=2 in order to satisfy the Uncertainty Principle ( 1xy )

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=1/2

Y=2


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Figure 3d. Any further reduction in the size of the slit results in further expansion of

the photographic image to satisfy the Uncertainty Principle. Herex=1/4,so the photographic image increases toy=4 in order to keep the productxy=1.

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

LightRays

X=1/4

Y=4


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Figure 4a. The two-slit experiment

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

Light

Rays

X2=1Y2=1

X1=1

LightRays

Y1=1


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Figure 4b. The two-slit experiment with each slit cut in half (x=1/2)

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

Light

Rays

X2=1/2

Y2=2

X1=1/2

LightRays

Y1=2


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Figure 4c. The two-slit experiment with slits cut again in half (x=1/4)

OpaqueObject

PhotographicPlate

Light

Rays

X2=1/4

Y2=4

X1=1/4

LightRays

Y1=4


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Figure 5a. Intensity of light detected on the photographic plate for three different slit

sizes of slit no. 1 showing the spread due to the uncertainty principle.


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Figure 5b Intensity of light detected on the photographic plate for three different slit

sizes of slit no. 2 showing the spread due to the uncertainty principle.


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Figure 5c Incorrect result predicted by classical physics when the two slits are opensimultaneously (simple sum of Figures 5a and 5b). Notice that there are

no areas of zero light intensity within the range of y (horizontal axis), the

spread of the light on the photographic plate.


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Figure 5d. Correct result of two-slit experiment is predicted by the quantum wave

function. Notice that the light intensity has distinct areas of zero

intensity (dark lines) associated with interference throughout the area of y

(horizontal axis), the spread of the light on the photographic plate.

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Eunyoung Kim et al- Process Theology and Quantum Evolution

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