God's computer
A glimpse into the world of quantum mechanics
Just as a thought experiment, can we not imagine it is possible that God created a database containing the building blocks of matter - protons, neutrons, electrons, etc. He then constructed programs for how each and every physical thing in the universe would look and function. He then wrote extremely complex algorithms that would create each and everything that exists by combining the building blocks into shapes, and then energizing them via light (photons) in order to set them in motion. He then created DNA and embedded instructions in the DNA that perpetuated this process, but with the caveat that the DNA replicate itself, but not forever thus ensuring that all living things would die over time.
The simple truth is that science, as hard as it tries, cannot explain how quantum particles form atoms, atoms form molecules, molecules form cells, cells form organs, and all the parts manage to hold together precisely as they should for the duration of their existence.
Parts of that creating process seems to be understood by science, or so they claim, but even the base process of holding an atom in orbit comes under suspicion. Science couldn’t explain how protons managed to stay bound together in the nucleus as they carry like charges and like charges repel. Not having an explanation, they resorted to declaring a new force of nature - the strong nuclear force - to account for, not explain, the inexplicable.
An objective person - perhaps not possible to find - would conclude a highly intelligent and powerful force had to be behind all this. In the last hundred years knowledge has exploded forth bringing us closer and closer to achieving the impossible. Elon Musk’s Neuralink implant that communicates telepathically between brain and computer to restore certain body functions; quantum computers that can perform a trillion calculations per second, bio computers, replacement parts for the body and so forth.
A logical question in my mind is this - how did those people putting all this technology together suddenly have these epiphanies that allowed them to move ever closer to doing the impossible? Where did those thoughts come from, why now, and why so very, very fast?
For my money there is only one answer - an intelligent creator is interacting with man, leading us, informing us of a realm we cannot see, and how to manipulate it for our benefit. This should be powerful evidence of a creator, and yet as man moves closer to Godlike powers he seems to be moving further and further away from God - caught up in his own arrogance perhaps, and oblivious to the truth.
Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee co-authored a book Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe. Only in the last 100 years have we been able to truly investigate the things Ward and Brownlee talk about in their book. The point is that we really do know a lot about the universe and we also know that we haven’t found life anywhere in the universe so far. The gist of Ward and Brownlee’s hypothesis is that the earth is one of a kind, and no place else in the universe is like us – that is, able to support life.
How big is the universe though? The answer to that question is that we don’t know. What we do know is the part we’ve been able to observe is massive in size – roughly 93 billion light years in diameter. How big is that in miles? Well one light year would be equal to 5.8 trillion miles. So, the observable universe would be 93 billion times 5.8 trillion miles. And, that is only the part we can observe, but we aren’t really observing it in real time if there is such a thing. Rather we are observing it as it was in the past. That requires a more complex explanation than I want to offer right now. It isn’t necessary to make the point I want to make. And that point is this – the observable universe is so big as to be beyond our ability to comprehend for the most part, it is totally hostile to life, and we know that but how did we learn that? And how was it we learned it so very quickly in relative terms? All these discoveries have come about in just the last 100 years or so after all. In relative terms one scientist stated that the earth relative to the size of the universe would be the size of a single virus. The Covid virus is about 120 nanometers in size. How big is a nanometer? About one billionth of a meter.
The video above takes note that the entire universe – not just the observable part - is infinite. We could say then that the universe is expanding, and it always will be as there is no end. How do those numbers align with the Big Bang theory? Well, I’m not sure I can even make sense of it as the Big Bang supposedly occurred 13.8 billion years ago. I guess I would buy that number, but also suggest the Big Bang wasn’t the beginning. A beginning is after all a point in time, and scientists also tell us time is an illusion. There is such a thing as a timeless realm after all – at least if we believe science. They tell us that time stops at the speed of light. If that is true then there is no such thing as a beginning if you are light, or maybe if you are a light being.
Is it just a coincidence that the bible tells us God is light? When we read the first three sentences in the bible that speak of God’s creation. Here is the third sentence:
And God said, let there be light: and there was light.
The bible makes no mention of the time prior to the beginning if we consider the beginning He was speaking of only had to do with the earth – the only place in the universe where life forms exist so far as we know. In fact, if I am right, there is no beginning for God just as there is no ending for God. There is of course a beginning for mankind, and per the bible there will also be an end to mankind – at least the mortal version of man.
Does the young earth theory make sense when looked at in this manner? Of course not. To believe all things were created just 6,000 years ago makes no sense at all. In fact, the concept of time makes no sense anywhere in the universe except on earth, and it makes no sense to any being on earth except man.
We are told there are four dimensions in our realm – height, length, width, and time. I suggest to you that time is a manmade construct and different from the other three dimensions. We can see that a material object has height, width, and length, but can we see time? If time then is not real then how can we assign a time to the creation of the universe, or the earth? All we can assign a time to is the time mankind – the sort of man God created in His own image – has been on earth. Why is that so? Because, as I noted, time is a manmade construct, so without man there would not be a thing we call time.
There is a distinction that needs to be made here though. The distinction between man made in the image of God, and all other lifeforms that might appear to be human in form. Perhaps there really were humanoids that existed 200,000 years ago as science tells us, but what did those beings accomplish over those 200,000 years? Not a lot. Civilized man – the sort of man we are – came into being roughly 6,000 years ago. Science and the bible agree on this fact.
One might ask a question – why did God wait so long to create our tiny little world? If the universe is 13.8 billion years old, then why wait until just 6,000 years ago to create our world? You see how very hard it is to understand a realm where time does not exist?
I admit I struggle with the idea that time does not exist. I can’t feel it or see it or smell it or touch it or hear it but I understand what it is, and it is really hard for me to even begin to imagine what existing in a realm where time does not exist would be like. Still, we have ample evidence to support the notion that time is in fact an illusion just as science tells us it is.
Consider quantum entanglement. Einstein called it “spooky action at a distance.” I have made the point over and over again that quantum entanglement destroys Einstein’s hypothesis that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. Speed is after all measured as a function of time. That is, how far can we travel in X units of time measured in X units of space. We can only measure speed in terms of time, and if time does not exist what then are we really able to conclude with certainty on the matter?
That video states that all quantum particles are connected – a part of a single whole. And we are made up of those particles – particles that by the way have no material components to them. That too is something science tells us. Not only is time an illusion, but so too is matter. Physical matter is made up of non-physical particles. Think of the atom. It is a proton nucleus combined with an electron field that orbits the nucleus. The space between the nucleus and the electron field is just a vacuum. There’s nothing there. How big then is the nucleus of the atom compared to the atom itself. One scientist explained it this way – if the nucleus is a baseball the atom is the size of the earth.
How does the atom stay in orbit? The electron field with a negative charge should collapse into the nucleus with a positive charge after all. It doesn’t though. How come? It has to do with the absorption and emission of photons whereby the electron gains energy – the photons energy – when it absorbs a photon and then loses energy when it emits a photon, and this is going on at speeds we can’t comprehend, or perhaps better stated, it is happening without the lapse of time at all as time is not real in the quantum realm.
What we end up with or should end up with is this. God gave us just a hint of His realm and His powers by instilling in the minds of a few men these heretofore unknown truths, and He only did so in the last 100 years.
As I’ve said over and over the words given to Daniel that we read below are profound and powerful and compelling evidence that God does exist and that He is the one true God spoken of in the Judeo-Christian bible:
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
Most I think, perceive God in human form. I like the notion that God would look like a magnificently glorious version of us as it makes him so personal, but when I think on it, I ask myself just how magnificent is He, how glorious is He? A being that has control of everything from the smallest quantum particles to the material objects scattered throughout the known and unknown universe
The notion that I would use the word computer to describe how God can do what He does seems absurd. I am guilty of doing the very thing I criticize others of doing – offering an analogy to help explain something I can’t explain. Bringing the matter down to my level of understanding in order to better conceptualize something, or in this case some being, I can in no way understand or conceptualize.
God told Moses no one could look at His face and live. I can understand that just a little. If God is the source of the energy that binds the things of this world together, and in the case of living creatures, gives them life, how could one ever wrap his mind around such a being? How big is He for instance, and how brightly would His face shine? Would looking at Him cause us to go blind, cause us to immediately melt away.
We are told there will come a time when God will reside with us. That is the time after He destroys the old earth and the old heavens and creates a new earth and new heavens, and in those new heavens there will be no need for sun or moon to provide light as the glory of God will be its light:
I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. 24 And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honor into it. 25 Its gates shall not be shut at all by day (there shall be no night there). 26 And they shall bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. 27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life.
Should we not be humbled by the mere thought of a being who is able to do these things? That is, able to control every single atom in the material universe, to define the shape it takes, and to hold it together? How enormous would one have to be in order to do that sort of thing? It boggles the mind to think a single being could in fact hold all this together so precisely, so perfectly.
The bible is evidence such a being exists. So many I know find it bordering on blasphemy to bring science into the discussion of God. And so many scientists deem it heresy to bring the matter of God into a discussion of science. Both groups are wrong though. It is God who gave us the knowledge we have today regarding the material universe, and that knowledge tells us that without light no atom would exist and therefore no matter would exist – we would not exist.
I don’t know why my mind seems so inclined to understand God, but it does. It is so very easy to dismiss those things we just can’t conceptualize. Most people it seems take the “why should I care” approach to God. It is enough for them to acknowledge the existence of God. Others, dismiss the whole idea of God altogether, and because their imagination is simply incapable of believing a single being could do what the bible says God can do.
The bible does tell us if we seek we shall find. I have been seeking for several decades now – asking God to help me understand who He is and how He can do what the bible says He can do. I don’t think there was ever a point where I didn’t believe in Him. The faith part was always solidly rooted in my mind, but I wanted more, and He has given me more. I really can conceptualize a being that resides outside the realm of time, a being that can construct and deconstruct all the material parts of the universe at will and with no lapse of time whatsoever. A being that can hold every single material object together just as He designed it.
I use the word computer and program as an analogy – something I tend to despise by the way as it tends to oversimplify things that are so complex as to be impossible to fully understand – and only because it is all my feeble mind has to work with. Still, it may not be all that farfetched after all. Today we are developing quantum computers and bio-computers after all. Quantum computers use sub-atomic particles.
I could go into a very complex explanation of how quantum computing works, but it would indeed be over the heads of most as it would require a foundational understanding of quantum mechanics to start with and that would take a long time to do, and most assuredly almost everyone who reads this would throw up their hands and declare all this to be well beyond their ability to grasp. That said, quantum computers are real, and they are so other worldly and kind of eerie in the way they work. With that said, they are perhaps the closest thing we have today that might give us just the slightest hint of how God can do what I know for certain He can do, and what the bible says He can do.
You say you don’t understand and so you don’t believe – at least a lot of people say that. If I explained to you how quantum computing works you would not understand it in all likelihood, but to say you don’t believe they exist simply because you don’t understand them is absurd. They do exist, and that is a fact. And they really can do God like things in the sense that they can do what most of us deem to be impossible. Here is an excerpt from an article titled What will quantum computer components look like?
What Makes a Computer “Quantum?”
All quantum computers use quantum bits, or qubits, to process information. The popular explanation for a quantum computer is that it leverages the fact that a qubit can exist as a superposition (or combination) of information states, which is interpreted as the qubits in a quantum computer’s processor being in some mix of 0 and 1 states simultaneously. The alternative philosophical view of quantum mechanics (or the “Many Worlds” interpretation) holds that quantum computers are inherently parallelized machines, with copies of a quantum computer running multiple computations in parallel universes!
Whatever physical picture helps you best understand the behavior of qubits, the qubits themselves are only half the story. The other half relies on the use of entanglement, a phenomenon that still baffles physicists. Einstein described it as “spooky action at a distance” as it allows qubits to be written into the same quantum state, even when separated by extremely long distances. This brings up things like faster-than-light communication and has even spawned applications like quantum radar.
Did you understand that explanation? I did, and because I have taken the time to understand quantum mechanics, and part of that understanding involves quantum entanglement. The video below might be more to your liking, and maybe – just maybe – bring you a little closer to understanding just how far we’ve come in terms of explaining at a very superficial level how God can do what He does.