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The God Theory: Universes, Zero-point Fields, And What's Behind It All (2006)

von Bernard Haisch

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On the one hand, we have traditional science, based on the premises of materialism, reductionism, and randomness, with a belief that reality consists solely of matter and energy, that everything can be measured in the laboratory or observed by a telescope. If it can't, it doesn't exist. On the other hand, we have traditional religious dogma concerning God that fails to take into account evolution, a 4.6 billion-year-old Earth, and the conflicting claims of the world's religions. In The God Theory, Bernard Haisch discards both these worldviews and proposes a theory that provides purpose for our lives while at the same time is completely consistent with everything we have discovered about the universe and life on Earth. To wit, Newton was right -- there is a God -- and wrong -- this is not merely a material world. Haisch proposes that science will explain God and God will explain science. Consciousness is not a mere epiphenomenon of the brain; it is our connection to God, the source of all consciousness. Ultimately it is consciousness that creates matter and not vice versa. New discoveries in physics point to a background sea of quantum light underlying the universe. The God Theory offers a worldview that incorporates cutting-edge science and ancient mystical knowledge. This is nothing less than a revolution in our understanding.… (mehr)
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Haisch is an astrophysicist and author of over 130 scientific publications, but also a keen spiritual seeker. The "God theory" is his attempt to reconcile his scientific and mystical views.

THE "JUST RIGHT" UNIVERSE

The theory starts with the observation made by Martin Reese, British Astronomer Royal, in his book Just Six Numbers: that there are a mere six numbers that specify the strengths of physical constants in our universe and therefore define the fabric of our material reality.

It has been shown that if the values of these numbers would be slightly different, life would not be possible in our universe -- they seem to be finely-tuned, "just right" for enabling our existence.

Now, if the values of these six numbers were determined by a random process, the odds of coming up with exactly the values required for a life-hospitable universe would be slim indeed -- like rolling six dice and getting six of the same number.

THE CULT OF RANDOM

But while most scientists who ponder these issues admit that our existence does appear to be made possible by some pretty well matched laws and finely tuned constants of nature, they simply assume that these laws somehow either always existed or sprang out of nowhere; that the "just right" universe must have been created by chance.

Their argument is based on the theory of "eternal inflation", developed by Stanford University physicist Adrei Linde. It postulates the existence of an infinite number of universes, each of them exhibiting the remarkable uniformity and continuous expansion in all directions characteristic of ours.
Bubbles

The formation of each universe in this theory through the process of inflation can be compared to the blowing of a bubble, with new universes inflating like new bubbles on the surfaces of the old ones, yielding something like an infinite foam of ceaseless expansion and creation.

Each bubble in the foam is a new universe with laws and dimensions that may have utterly strange properties compared to our physical laws and space-time continuum.

A PURPOSEFUL UNIVERSE

Since this is a never-ending, infinite process, all possibilities must be realized somewhere, and all kinds of worlds and presumably all manner of life forms must arise.

And by the laws of probability, this unconscious process with no apparent purpose will eventually produce one universe that is "just right," purely by chance, to support the evolution of beings with sufficiently complex material brains to create the illusion of consciousness.

Haisch's God Theory, on the other hand, suggests a quite similar process to the one suggested by Linde. The crucial difference though, is that instead of postulating an unconscious and purposeless force that drives the universe-creation process, Haisch suggests that this process comes about through the intention of a higher-order consciousness for the purpose of experiencing itself in its infinite diversity.

THE PRIMACY OF CONSCIOUSNESS

In the light of Haisch's God theory the fundamental enigma posited by quantum mechanics, namely that human observation definitively creates the properties of matter, is solved in a straightforward manner:

Our actions create the stuff that reality is made of simply because our actions are nothing else than actualizations of the ideas created by our consciousness, which itself is a particular manifestations of "God" -- that infinite, all-encompassing consciousness that originates everything in the universe we inhabit and beyond.

AGAINST FUNDAMENTALIST REDUCTIONISM

Haisch articulates a solid answer to the reductionist scientific interpretations of consciousness that see nothing in it than a purely biochemical phenomenon in the brain:

"The most fundamental argument against the scientific view of consciousness is, in my view, conclusive, yet ineffable... The fact that I am alive and conscious is a deep, direct, inner experience that transcends all other rationally acquired knowledge... If consciousness arises out of ordinary matter, it is really just a rather complex configuration of matter itself, and thus no different from the simple chemical interpretation, just a bit more florid and fuzzy in its articulation."

On the other hand, to argue that a truly non-material consciousness evolves from matter itself, as many softer versions of the reductionist view do, is to argue for the same duality of matter and spirit that is posited in the spiritual view of consciousness:

"Of course, proponents of the mind-from-matter viewpoint are uncomfortable with the word "spirit," but that is nonetheless as good a word as any for the inferred trans-material consciousness it would imply. Taken this way, the only difference between the mind-from-matter view and the spiritual view is that, in one, matter creates spirit; in the other, spirit creates matter."

Haisch believes that this difference is resolved by the world of inner experience:

"My consciousness, my spirit, thinks and creates ideas and then actualizes them by acting upon the world of matter... the primary impulse for creativity comes from consciousness; that is where ideas originate. It is my contention, and the crux of the God Theory, that ideas created by a spiritual consciousness are the cause and basis of the physical world.

What I am saying is, of course, nothing like a proof. I am contending that the direct inner experience of consciousness trumps logic and proof."

THE NATURE OF EVIDENCE

Haisch points out that "the evidence for the existence of an infinite consciousness is abundant in the accounts of the mystics and the meditative, prayerful, and sometimes spontaneous exceptional experiences of human beings throughout history," while the evidence for random universes is precisely zero.

And while most scientists will reject the former type of evidence as merely subjective, this would simply "reduce the contest of views to a draw: zero on both sides".

NO NEED FOR INTELLIGENT DESIGN

One of the most interesting corollaries of Haisch's God Theory is its compatibility with Darwinian evolution, despite its reliance on an infinite intelligence as the source of all creation:

"For it is one thing to propose, as the God Theory does, that the underlying fundamental laws of our universe are the result of intelligent ideation -- in other words, that certain of God's ideas became the laws of physics for this particular universe... It is quite another thing, however, to claim "intelligent design," in the sense of divinely micro-engineered life forms that trump the process of evolution entirely. Setting a universe off and running with a potent set of laws is not the same as purposefully engineering its component parts."

IMPERFECTION AS A REQUISITE FOR DIVINE LOVE

On the other hand, Haisch also gives a profound and suggestive answer to one of the most poignant questions posed by vehement proponents of reductionist materialism:

"If human beings really are God's children, why has it taken billions of years of all too often nightmarish, horrific natural selection to bring us into existence?... in his book God After Darwin, theologian John Haught makes a compelling case that Darwin's theory, far from ruling out a God, gives us insight into an intelligence that pours its creative essence into the universe and gives it free rein to go and make things happen. Rather than pulling puppet strings, this deity relinquishes control to its creatures so that new and autonomous things may arise. This enhances creation by bringing forth the unplanned, the unscripted, the random, the "other" that flows naturally from this act... The universe is thus invited to participate in its own crafting. This ongoing, participatory act of creation is, in fact, the ultimate expression of God's love."

In Haught's own words:

"Love by its very nature can not compel, and so any God whose very essence is love should not be expected to overwhelm the world either with a coercively directive power or an annihilating presence. Indeed, an infinite love must in some ways absent or restrain itself, precisely in order to give the world the space in which to become something distinct from the creative love that constitutes it as other. We should anticipate, therefore, that any universe rooted in an unbounded love would have some features that appear to us as random and undirected."

LIGHT AS THE SOURCE OF ALL CREATION

Throughout the book, Haisch comes up with a series of subtle and intuitive ideas about how the nature of light relates to the nature of consciousness, and the role it plays in the creation of reality.

Take the fact that what we perceive as pure white light, is composed by infinite shades of color that become visible by using filtering devices -- slides or frames of film are nothing else than complex filters that subtract certain colors from white light and let others pass through to create all sorts of images and complex "motion pictures".

Notice that there is a process of creation by subtraction involved here:

"The white light is thus the source of infinite possibility, and you create the desired image by intelligent subtraction, causing the real to emerge from the possible. By limiting the infinitely possible, you create the finitely real... in fact, motion pictures are a concrete example of how a filter, the film, by selectively subtracting from formless potential, can generate virtual reality."

Haisch suggests this is analogous to the process of creation that the mystics of all ages have described:

"... this metaphor provides a comprehensible theory for the creation of a manifest reality (our universe) from selective limitation of infinite potential (God). This is what I think mystics mean when they speak of the realm of the Absolute (the Godhead) as opposed to the realm of polarity (the created universe)."

And then applies the same analogy to the God Theory:

"For our purposes here... I will call the Absolute the Godhead... we can conclude that our physical universe comes about when the Godhead selectively limits itself, taking on the role of Creator and manifesting a realm of space and time and, within that realm, filtering out some of its own infinite potential... Viewed this way, the process of creation is the exact opposite of making something out of nothing. It is, on the contrary, a filtering process that makes something out of everything. Creation is not capricious or random addition; it is intelligent and selective subtraction."

THE ZERO POINT FIELD

This intuitive reflections on the role of light in the process of creation have a remarkable parallel in the research conducted by Haisch throughout his career on the role of the electromagnetic zero-point field-a concept studied by Albert Einstein and other physicists at the turn of the twentieth century-as the ultimate source of the fundamental properties of matter.

The zero-point can be conceptualized as a pervasive sea of light emanating from the quantum fluctuations of microscopic objects.

And although this light is of an extremely low frequency, its total energy is enormous:

"... a seething sea of particle pairs, energy fluctuations, and force perturbations popping in and out of existence... [the zero-point field] may represent an unlimited source of energy available everywhere, and perhaps even a way to modify gravity and inertia... "

Haisch's interest in the zero-point field started with intuition about its possible role in Big Bang theory:

"Could the zero-point energy be a pre-existing sea of energy? And could some part of it somehow have been rendered unstable thus becoming our universe? It seemed like a rational conjecture at the time."

Haisch's later research in collaboration with Alfonso Rueda, a physicist at California State University in Long Beach, allowed them to derive, through complex mathematical analysis, Newton's "fundamental equation of motion" (F=ma), a cornerstone postulate of modern physics:

"... A postulate is a law that you assume to be true, not one you can prove or derive... this suggested a radical new understanding of one of the most fundamental properties of matter -- inertia... Under [Rueda's] analysis, mass becomes, in effect, an illusion. Matter resists acceleration, not because it possesses some innate property called mass as Newton postulated, but because the zero-point field exerts a force whenever acceleration takes place. To put it in somewhat metaphysical terms, there exists a background sea of quantum light (the electromagnetic zero-point field) filling the universe, and that light generates a force that opposes acceleration when you push on any material object. The action of that quantum light is what makes matter the seemingly solid, stable stuff of which we and our world are made."

Moreover, Haisch reflects about the parallels between the possible role of the quantum light emanating from the zero-point field as the origin of matter, and the fundamental role that light plays in our perception of time and space in Einstein's special relativity theory:

"...special relativity theory exchanges the cart and the horse of classical physics. Instead of an absolute space and time filled with an ether that sustains the epiphenomenon of light, light becomes the fundamental thing whose propagation determines the flow of time and the measure of distance. We can almost say that light creates space-time. I suggest here that light, in the form of a universal electromagnetic zero-point field, also creates and sustains the world of matter that fills space-time."

If light is at the very core of the creation of our universe, may the words "let there be light," which appear in various versions across mystical traditions, express more than a poetic mythology?

Haisch thinks they do. And to support his argument, he cites several passages of ancient scriptures that seem to do just that.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

The one that seems to confirm Haisch's theory about the foundational role of light in the cosmos with quite stunning accuracy comes from a text known as the Haggadah, a collection of legends within the Jewish Kabbalah:

"The text seemed to comment on the well-known opening line from the Genesis, 'Let there be light,' which to a scientist, makes little sense... how can light be made on the first "day of creation," when the sun and the moon and the stars-the plainly obvious sources of light in the sky-were not brought into being until the fourth?... As if to patiently explain the foolish (like astrophysicists, I suppose) who may have missed the point, the Haggadah forthrightly states: 'The light created at the very beginning is not the same as the light emitted by the Sun, the Moon, and the stars, which appeared only on the fourth day.'"

The passage continues:

"The light of the first day was of a sort that would have enabled man to see the world at a glance from one end to the other. Anticipating the wickedness of the sinful generations of the deluge and the Tower of Babel, who were unworthy to enjoy the blessing of such light, God concealed it, but in the world to come it will appear to the pious in all its pristine glory."

Haisch can't help but wonder about whether this is a reference to the universal light radiation that originates in the zero-point field that may be involved in the origin of the properties of matter in a fundamental way.

THE BRAIN AS FILTER

Haisch proposes that the brain acts as a sort of filter of the infinite, overarching consciousness that he calls "God" to create our perception of reality -- again, an analogous process to the creation of a motion picture by using a film to filter pure, white light.

Meditation, prayer and narcotic substances used by the mystics throughout the ages can be seen in this context as agents that bypass the filtering function of the brain, allowing us to directly perceive the immensity of universal consciousness, to experience our innate oneness with the creative intelligence of the cosmos.

As a meditator, this is a concept that makes intuitive sense to me.

Anyone who has experienced the sudden epiphanies that regular meditation can bring about would not be too surprised with the idea that ancient mystics could have gained a deep insight on the origin of the universe and beyond-If what one gets in touch with through meditation is an infinite intelligence, then it seems natural to conclude that its purpose as creator of everything would be the very first thing one should be able to sense when in close contact with it.

THE THE VERY SIMPLE, PRAGMATIC LESSON

If we are instantiations of a higher-order consciousness whose purpose is to realize its infinite potential by creating the physical reality of the multiverse, then our work towards realizing our own potential as human beings is, in a very fundamental and rational sense, a sacred thing: we are directly fulfilling God's purpose by becoming all that we can be.

Like many other spiritual traditions and gurus, the God Theory invites us to rejoice in the acknowledgement of our oneness with that infinite intelligence that Haisch calls God -- to find a reason for happiness and fulfillment in the mere realization of what we are, regardless of what we do.

But the God Theory tells us that there is also an equally important action-based component to spiritual growth: to fully align ourselves with the nature of the source we all come from, we must also work towards reaching our full human potential.

Being and doing are, in this view, complementary concepts that reinforce each other in a yin-yang, symbiotic relationship. ( )
2 abstimmen alanfurth | Oct 31, 2012 |
I'm reading this more for the cogent explanations of scientific theory than for the theology, which I'm finding fairly trite and New Age-ish. I agree with his gut feelings, but not his conclusions, and I'm appalled that he considers Neale Donald Walsch, author of Conversations With God, as a formative influence on his beliefs. ( )
  2wonderY | Jan 12, 2012 |
Haisch is an astrophysicist with a discomfort regarding the idea of a meaningless universe, and a gift for explaining scientific theory in simple terms. He was raised a strict Catholic, but lasted through only a year of Seminary, after which his interests turned to science.

Although he outgrew fundamentalist Christian beliefs, he’s never been able to embrace the impersonal universe pictured by most of his fellow scientists. Science today is based on the premises of materialism (the belief that reality consists solely of matter and energy), reductionism (the idea that complex things can be explained by breaking them down into constituent parts) and randomness (the conviction that all natural processes follow the laws of chance). Haisch begs to differ, arguing that the only logical conclusion of these assumptions is that an infinite number of universes exist, which he finds nonsensical and “morally repugnant.” He accepts current scientific theory as a given—such as the Big Bang, a 4.6 billion-year-old-earth, and evolution—but simply feels the evidence argues against random universes, and leans more toward an “infinite conscious intelligence.” This intelligence he labels God, for lack of a better name.

The God Theory, then, is Haish’s attempt to answer fundamental questions about human nature in the light of modern science. It’s based on the simple premise that we are, quite literally, one with God, and God is, quite literally, one with us. His discussion leads to some fascinating and important corollaries:

[1] The God of his theory cannot require anything from us for his own happiness.
[2] The God of his theory cannot dislike, and certainly cannot hate, anything that we do or are.
[3] The God of his theory will never punish us (forget about heaven and hell) because that would ultimately amount to self-punishment.

Haish touches on cosmology and the inflation theory, the consciousness debate, the implications of quantum mechanics, the “zero-point field inertia hypothesis” (that one’s a mouthful) and more, but never treads where an inquisitive non-scientist can’t follow, as he lays out his argument for a purposeful universe.

I found the book thought-provoking and a lot of fun. ( )
2 abstimmen DubiousDisciple | Dec 12, 2011 |
Explanation by astrophysicist on why he finds it more reasonable to believe that matter is a product of consiciousness rather than consciousness being a product of matter. He appeals in part to the theory that the electromagnetic zero-point energy field is the primary cause of mass, a theory of which he is one of the two initial proponents. The book written for non-scientists is a fairly straight forward argument against the materialistic worldview that still dominates the thinking of most physicists and biologists. ( )
1 abstimmen Jotto | Aug 13, 2010 |
Quite readable, though written by a brilliant astrophysicist and colleague of Puthoff. The Theory is basically that God created the Universe as a way to experience Himself. Prior to the Big Bang, He was simply potential. Everything in the Universe, including us, is God, experiencing himself. This fits quite well with my own philosophical musings, and it solves the “if there is a God, why does He allow pain” conundrum. There are hints that we are capable of rather quite a bit more than science currently acknowledges. The book soundly trounces the Reductionist scientific establishment, the dogmatic believers in scientism who would rather believe that consciousness is simply a result of chemical interactions than admit the evidence of their own hearts. A book that deserves a much larger audience.

( )
1 abstimmen BobNolin | Mar 10, 2008 |
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On the one hand, we have traditional science, based on the premises of materialism, reductionism, and randomness, with a belief that reality consists solely of matter and energy, that everything can be measured in the laboratory or observed by a telescope. If it can't, it doesn't exist. On the other hand, we have traditional religious dogma concerning God that fails to take into account evolution, a 4.6 billion-year-old Earth, and the conflicting claims of the world's religions. In The God Theory, Bernard Haisch discards both these worldviews and proposes a theory that provides purpose for our lives while at the same time is completely consistent with everything we have discovered about the universe and life on Earth. To wit, Newton was right -- there is a God -- and wrong -- this is not merely a material world. Haisch proposes that science will explain God and God will explain science. Consciousness is not a mere epiphenomenon of the brain; it is our connection to God, the source of all consciousness. Ultimately it is consciousness that creates matter and not vice versa. New discoveries in physics point to a background sea of quantum light underlying the universe. The God Theory offers a worldview that incorporates cutting-edge science and ancient mystical knowledge. This is nothing less than a revolution in our understanding.

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