Chapter 16.                                      (continued) 


 

However, and in the second place, we also now know that this universe is a kind of aware. Changes in one part of the universe produce changes in another, distant part—instantly. Like an eyelid blinking when a dust mote enters an eye or the kidney-shaped halves of a Venus flytrap snapping shut when a tiny insect lands between them or even a grove of trees detecting airborne chemical signals from other trees that are being attacked by insects and the uninfected trees promptly beginning to exude chemicals that repel the insects before the first of them even arrive, parts of the universe are connected in amazing ways.⁴ How the parts are connected is still a mystery to physicists, but that they are connected is no longer in doubt. And living things may take time to react, but a big point about sub-atomic particles is that they don't. Their action-reaction is instant.   

Particles in all corners of the universe are entangled, physicists say. Quantum experiments have proved that such is the case as surely as Newton’s laws of motion have been shown by generations of engineers to be accurate, human-scale approximations of relativistic mechanics. (Joshua Roebke describes this research in an article published in 2008.⁵)

Particles found in matched pairs in the subatomic world can be separated and steered apart as they travel. But if the spin of one of the two particles is reversed, its former partner—unacted upon 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, in no time, which is a violation of Einstein’s relativity theory, and thus of all the models that predated the quantum theory. (Roebke summarizes this well.⁶)

Can we then call the coherent system of particles and forces “self-aware”?

Here again, we must make a cognitive choice between 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 its own kind of aware. Or let’s take the big leap and say conscious. This view too is a choice. So why would we choose to think, even provisionally, that the universe has awareness? There are at least four good reasons.

First, the evidence says so. If we touch a living entity in one part and we then detect a reaction in another part, a reaction that can be replicated and studied over and over, we describe that entity as being aware. Amoeba move away from strong light. As plant seeds germinate, they send a shoot upward, away from gravity, and a root downward, toward gravity. Higher organisms in which a stimulus occurring at one location produces a response 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.

Second, the choice to view the universe as being aware also makes more scientific sense than choosing the alternative view, that is, to see the universe as an unfeeling machine, as Laplace did. The idea of an aware universe enables us, at least in part, to account for findings in other branches of science, like 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 modelling and experimentation of the best scientists in several specialized branches of both Physics and Biology. But in their research, the scientists continue to observe this kind of synchronous activity in collectives of separate organisms. It’s real.

Third, seeing the universe as an aware entity fosters in us an inclination to engage in a personal way with the moral conclusions that are implicit in our worldview. Stand up for your values because the universe is watching. Why does this matter? History has shown us repeatedly that only a moral code that is heartfelt stands up to the kinds of pressures tyrants bring to bear on citizens in their societies. Moral codes that are merely cerebral don’t motivate. Such morals can too easily be rationalized and pushed in any direction a tyrant desires. In Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, even the scientists were co-opted by the tyrants. A worldview that sees the universe as aware reduces our human tendency to rationalize our way into moral laziness. A universe seen as being aware is then seen as one that is watching us, and judging us, second by second.

Finally, 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 by intelligently chosen actions we can influence the probabilities of which path we will land on. We have a degree of free will.

In other words, the quantum view feels like 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 them in traffic are particles driven by unchangeable forces toward inescapable outcomes. Cars contain drivers who are responsible human beings. If they aren’t, they shouldn’t be driving. If your car’s path crosses my car’s path and I have to steer sharply left and almost swerve my car into a lane of oncoming traffic, I’m going to be mad at you, not your car. 

Similarly, I reject any moral code that excuses murderers as being not responsible for their actions, and so does every other person I’ve ever met. Quantum theory fits how life feels. We have free will; we can be held responsible, to a fair degree, for the events in which we are involved.