Chapter 15.                   Part B 

In the modern view, under Science, we assume that the strong force, the weak force, and the laws of electromagnetism, and gravity apply everywhere and always have done so. It is true that we have not yet found a way to translate our model of gravity into the system of ideas and equations that describes the other three, but we are confident that a unified field theory does exist. Ours is a single coherent universe, we assume.

            Do I, and do most people today, truly believe the universe is a single, coherent system? That is what Science is about. The alternative - superstition - is simply not palatable for most people in the West today. Whatever the flaws in the current scientific worldview - and it is not logically airtight, as we have seen - we, nevertheless, have seen it achieve far too many successes for us to gamble on any of the superstitious alternatives. People today, by and large, do not turn a sick child over to a shaman for treatment. Who today would try to fix his vehicle by casting pennies or lighting incense sticks or chanting? In today's world, for better or worse, we, in the West especially, are citizens of the Age of Science. The evidence says that is a solid Bayesian choice, therefore, a fully rational one.

Let’s keep this first implicit assumption of Science in mind. All is connected to all else in a coherent, systematic way. (Nicholas Maxwell discusses this view and its problems at length in his book "From Knowledge To Wisdom", pp. 107 to 109.) (3.)

                         

                       

                                                 artist's impression of entangled particles

However, and in the second place, we also know today that this universe is a kind of aware in the sense that small changes in one part of the universe can sometimes cause subtle changes in another, distant part - instantly. Particles in all corners of the universe are, as the physicists call it, "entangled". Quantum theory experiments have proved that such is the case as surely as Newton’s laws of motion and of gravity have been shown by generations of engineers to be accurate, human-scale approximations of relativistic mechanics.    

Particles found in matched pairs in the sub-atomic world can be separated and steered apart as they travel. But if we then do something to reverse the spin of one of the two particles, its former partner – unacted upon by us in any way – will undergo a complementary, mirror-image change of its own. And the signal by which the first tells the second to reverse its spin travels from one to the other instantly, i.e. in no time, which is a violation of Einstein’s Relativity Theory, and thus of all of our pre-quantum-theory models. (Roebke sums up well in an article published in 2008.) (4.)  

            Can we then call the coherent system of particles and forces "self-aware"? Quantum entanglement theory tells us that particles are connected in some way we do not understand yet, and the evidence supporting the theory indicates that the connection between them is instantaneous. Not super-luminary, but instantaneous. 

            It is worth re-iterating that here again, we must make a choice, a cognitive choice on which model to use as we interpret the most recent data from Physics. In light of all of the evidence and reasoning currently available, belief in the quantum model appears to be our most rational choice.

            But belief in this model further implies that the universe is a kind of aware. This view too is a choice. So why would we choose to think, even provisionally, that the universe is a kind of aware? There are at least four good reasons.

            In the first place, if we touch a living entity in one part and we then detect a simultaneous or near-simultaneous reaction in another part, a reaction that can be replicated and studied over and over, we describe that entity as being aware. Even amoeba can move away from strong light. Even the seeds of plants, as they germinate, send a shoot upward, away from gravity, and a root downward, toward gravity. Higher organisms in which a stimulus occurs at one location and the response is seen somewhere else are assumed in Biology to have a controller of some sort between the two sites. The entanglement of particles in the universe fits this basic model of "awareness".

            In the second place, the choice to view the universe as a kind of aware also makes more scientific sense than choosing to view the universe as an unfeeling machine, as Laplace did, because the idea of an aware universe enables us, at least in part, to account for the synchronous behaviors found in the movements of schools of fish and flocks of birds, and the flashes in swarms of fireflies. Presently, how the individual animals in these collectives know what their fellows are about has defied explanation by the best modeling and experimentation of the best scientists in several specialized branches of both Physics and Biology. But in their research, the scientists keep observing that synchonous movement in those collectives of separate organisms over and over again. It's real. 

            In the third place, seeing the universe as an aware entity fosters in us an inclination to engage with whatever moral conclusions our worldview then entails in a way that is personal and heartfelt. Stand up for your values. The universe is always watching. And judging. History has shown us repeatedly that only a moral code that is heartfelt can stand up to the kinds of pressures that tyrants bring to bear on the citizens in their societies. Moral codes that are only cerebral don't motivate their adherents. Purely cerebral morals can be rationalized and pushed in any direction that a tyrant desires. (Even the scientists in Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union were co-opted.) A worldview that sees the universe as aware rules out our very human tendency to rationalize our way into moral laziness. An aware universe is watching us, and judging us, second by second.   

            Finally, in the fourth place, taking a larger, more global view, seeing the universe as quantum theory models it, rather than as the Newtonian paradigm models it, commits us to the concept of free will. If, as we flow into the future, there are many possible paths before us, rather than only one that is inescapable, then we can, by cleverly chosen actions, influence the probabilities of which path will happen, around us and to us. We have a degree of free will. In other words, the quantum view feels like life. Life the way we live it. I do hold people responsible for their actions. In fact, no one I know lives daily life as if the cars around her in traffic are particles driven by unchangeable forces toward inescapable outcomes. Those cars contain drivers who are aware, thinking, responsible human beings. If they aren't, they shouldn't be driving. If your car cuts mine off in traffic and almost causes it to swerve into a lane of oncoming cars, I'm going to be mad at you, not your car. Similarly, I reject outright any moral code that excuses rapists, pedophiles, and murderers, and in my experience, so does any other citizen I have ever met. Quantum theory fits how life feels: we have free will; we can be held responsible, in a fair degree, for at least some of the events in which we are involved