In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.The same was in the beginning with God.All things were made by him; And without him was not anything made that was made.[John 1:1-3, KJV]
Evidence of a Matrix in the Mind of God Do you think you have a firm grip on reality? This chapter may cause you to question how much you really know about the world we live in. The first chapter in Genesis raises two significant questions for scientists regarding the creation of the
"heavens and the earth." They are: 1. Could God have simply spoken to create everything that exists?
2. Could the universe have been created out of nothing?
This chapter considers evidence that it may have happened exactly like that.
The Information Age
Many will never embrace chapters one and two in Genesis, yet some important barriers to its acceptance are 95
Amazing Evidence: Grounds for Belief disappearing. Let's look at the most basic aspects of the account.
First, Genesis opens with the statement, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1, NIV). As we read further, we see that everything God created he simply spoke into existence. For example, when he created light we read,
"And God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light.'" In other words, God was able to create everything simply by communicating information. The implication is that everything in the universe was made from nothing at all. The writer of Hebrews sums it up like this:
"Because of our faith, we know that the world was made at God's command. We also know that what can be seen was made out of what cannot be seen. " (Hebrews 11:3, CEV).
The problem for scientists is that no one has yet demonstrated a way to create something from nothing. But recent advances in science and technology have made the story seem less incredible, for the information age is opening up new windows of understanding.
Almost everyone today has become aware of the concept of virtual reality, but it actually goes back centuries. The truth is that everything you know about the universe exists only in your mind. In essence, your mind is a virtual reality environment that has been formed by all your experiences, and your genetic heritage. Even though your memories, thoughts, and dreams may seem real, they all consist of absolutely nothing more than information.
In a purely theoretical sense, any virtual world is not made of anything physical. Such worlds consist of nothing but information, and and information is a unique concept. One cannot say it is made out of paper, ink, or even electrons. It simply consists of states of being that are easily transferred from one medium to another. The substance that transmits information existed before and after the information passed through.
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Amazing Evidence: Grounds for Belief Therefore, one might define information as a meaningful arrangement of matter or energy that does not necessarily add or take away from the matter or energy present, either during its creation, or when it is erased. The information on this page is not black ink or pixels - it is ideas, images, and arguments. Although it is conveyed by variations in color, as you read it becomes thoughts, and then memories. If we then tell a friend about these memories, they travel through the air, only to end up as new thoughts. The point is, information has absolutely no weight or mass, and is literally made of nothing.
A Crash Course in Quantum Mechanics
The universe is incredibly complex, and for all intents and purposes, from our viewpoint, appears to be infinite. Of course it would be ludicrous to suggest that it could exist as a virtual reality on some piece of hardware. But there is another way a virtual reality containing our universe could exist, and it was first suggested by a famous scientist who was a close friend of Einstein.
But first, please forgive me, this is about to get a little abstract. If you can hang in there I think you will be rewarded with a new understanding. You may ask, are there any clues that our physical universe might actually be a virtual reality? One simple clue to look for would be a bit-like consistency to reality.
A bit is the tiniest speck of information that can be recorded. Any virtual world reveals it is made of bits when you zoom in on it.
For example, digital images aren't continuous, but are made of bits called pixels. Digital movement isn't smooth, but jumps from one bit to the next. Even values in a calculator must jump in increments that reflect the number of digits of the calculator. If we acknowledge that bits are one sign of a digital world, then the next step is to look for evidence of a bit-like consistency in our own reality.
Obviously, atoms themselves are small particles that could constitute bits. In fact, protons, neutrons, and electrons all 97
Amazing Evidence: Grounds for Belief infer a consistent bit-like structure at the lowest levels. But particles are not the most basic form of existence. Physicists believe that even particles are made up of something else, namely energy. So the first place we should look is in energy itself.
And that leads us to Quantum Physics. Max Planck was a theoretical physicist in the early 1900s. Planck became confused when he observed that a cooling object did not follow the predicted curve at extremely low energy levels. Further experimentation led him to conclude that energy does not consist of continuous waves as previously thought. Instead, it actually jumps from one energy level to the next. Planck blamed this effect on tiny energy packets, far smaller than electrons, which he named quanta. He theorized that all energy consists of these
"particle-like small packets of energy called quanta." (Wikipedia, Quantum Mechanics, 2007). At first, his findings met with resistance, but further research has continued to confirm them.
Today they are generally accepted as fact.
Max Planck in 1918. (Wikimedia Commons).
To further understand why this implies we live in a digital reality, consider this analogy. If you hold a magnet in your hand and wave it back and forth, you create the simplest form of a magnetic wave. If you could wave it fast enough, you would see 98
Amazing Evidence: Grounds for Belief it emit light. This is because light consists of magnetic waves at extremely high frequencies.
But because light waves ultimately consist of photons which is another name for quanta, we believe that all electromagnetic waves actually jump from one level to the next.
This then suggests that the universe is digital in nature, for it is behaving much like a wave in a computer game.
The implications of these packets go deep. Einstein was a good friend of Max Planck, and Einstein concluded that all matter is made up of energy. It is a principle that ultimately led to the atomic bomb. So most now believe that everything in the universe consists of quantum packets, and it seems logical to conclude that everything therefore has digital attributes, just as virtual realities do.
As one might expect, Quantum Mechanics is a little counter-intuitive, and it took decades for mainstream science to accept conclusions. Max Planck also struggled with how this could possibly be true. His struggle was made even more difficult, because Max Planck did not pretend to be a Christian.
In fact, he stated, "I do not believe in a personal God, not to mention a Christian God." Yet he could not escape the implications of his own theory. Like Einstein, he claimed to have arrived at the conclusion that God exists as a result of his scientific work.
Today, when we think of the word Matrix, we think of the movie, which is based on the premise that reality as we know it could exist inside a computer. But few are aware that in 1919, Max Planck was the first to use the word to describe a virtual universe – out universe. His proposal that all creation might be virtual came in his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize. He said:
"We must assume ... the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
In other words, in trying to solve a scientific riddle, Max 99
Amazing Evidence: Grounds for Belief suggested that reality exists not in a computer, but inside the very mind of God. This kind of thinking agrees with Genesis, and even more with the belief of a very personal God who loves his creation. Skeptics were once quick to argue that matter cannot be spoken into existence. But today, skeptics are debating other topics because this one leads them straight to God. And although Quantum theory does not prove we live inside the mind of God, it does provide a model that is consistent with the Bible. Christians have always accepted this aspect of Creation with a little faith, but modern advances are now proving it more scientific than ever thought possible.
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