Maupertuis's Ghost: Finding God in 'Action'

by Colin C. Campbell

Portrait of Maupertuis by Robert Levrac-Tournières and Jean Daullé, 1741

With the word “all” in his first law of motion, Isaac Newton displaced the science of Aristotle, forever. Aristotle’s world consisted of forms operating on formless matter to reach the goal of their different natures. Newton proclaimed, however, that all objects from red giant stars to tiny quarks “maintain a state of rest or uniform motion, unless acted on by an external force.” Newton’s world was one of mechanism and determinism, clear and simple, from which all traces of vitalism and occultism had been expunged. Change could be explained by the laws of motion, alone—the path to our world of modern technology had been established.
 
However, Newton’s laws required everything to be composed of particles moving in empty space in an eternity of time. Newton’s science proclaimed an ontology of determinism, described by physical law, based on the reality of particles, space and time. Quantum field theory, on the other hand—the best theory of physics of our time—asserts that there are no particles, there is no infinity of space and time in which these particles move, and that the future is open and undetermined. In its early stages, quantum theory retained the idea of particles. However, using them to explain experimental evidence eventually led to too many paradoxes and absurdities. It was realized that harmony could best be achieved by abandoning the idea of particles in favor of a world composed of waves of energy. Here is how this thinking evolved.
 
Niels Bohr and the Copenhagen school of quantum mechanics assumed the reality of particles and explained their wave-like behavior by asserting that a particle exists in all its possible states until a measurement is made. This combined state is described by a wavefunction. When the spin is measured, the wavefunction is said to collapse into one of the two allowed states. Schrodinger caricatured this idea in in his fable of the cat in the box that was supposed to be both dead and alive, until the box was opened. In a defiant spirit, Einstein sniffed, “I do not like to think that the Moon is only there if I look at it!”
 
In an attempt to discredit quantum theory, Einstein, with Podalsky and Rosen, proposed an experiment (the EPR experiment). It is known that certain radioactive atoms decay by emitting two photons at the same moment, in opposite directions. The Pauli principle of quantum theory predicts that if photon A has a quality called “up-spin” then photon B must have a “down-spin.” However, according to the Copenhagen school, A and B are both in a mixed spin-up and spin-down state until a measurement is made. Einstein pointed out that if photon A was measured to be spin-up (say), then this would leave photon B in both a spin-up and spin-down state, violating the Pauli principle. However, when the experiment was finally carried out, if photon A was found to be spin-up, then photon B was instantly found always to be spin-down, never spin-up, satisfying the Pauli principle. This raised an even bigger problem! If the photons really were in mixed states until a measurement was made, how could photon A instantly communicate its spin-up state to photon B, so that its wavefunction would collapse into the observed spin-down state? (Instantly means a communication that travels faster than the speed of light.)
 
One way of resolving the paradox was to assert that the particles were entangled somehow through a yet-to-be-discovered “hidden variable.” This would be a way of preserving scientific determinism. However, “hidden variables” were irreconcilable with the facts. The future, at its most fundamental level, appeared to be truly undetermined.
 
However, the overthrow of the world of Newton did not stop there. The simplest interpretation of the EPR experiment’s result was to assume that particles were a construct of Newton, with no basis in reality. If the two photons were, in fact, simply excitations in a common medium, then a single disturbance could conceivably cause excitations in two places. Furthermore, in order for his laws on motion to operate, Newton required not only the existence of particles but also two eternal realities: space and time—through which the particles could move. According to Newton, space and time would exist even if there were no particles. (In fact, it is simpler to believe that space is merely a construct that we impose on distinction and that time is merely a construct that we impose on change.)
 
Our world can best be explained by abandoning the concepts of particles, space and time and replacing them with one of energy oscillations. The energy comes in two forms – fermions, making up what used to be called particles and bosons, making up what used to be called fields. However, fermions can turn into bosons and bosons can turn into fermions and so both are aspects of the same basic “stuff” that makes up the material universe. Explaining how this stuff changes is the task of quantum field theory, as formulated by Dirac, Feynman and Schwinger. It asserts that the so-called particles underlying change are merely excitations in waves, caused by phase differences in the wave’s components.
 
Interestingly, French Enlightenment scientist Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis identified an ontological principle that is still consonant with quantum thinking on the nature of change. This was called the “principle of least action.” Maupertuis argued that all motion depends on a quantity called action (the product of an object’s mass, velocity and distance travelled). Although there may be many paths that it is possible for an object to take in moving between two points, the path that it will actually take is the one where the action is least. It turns out that Maupertuis’ action, when divided by Planck’s constant, accounts for the phase shifts in the waves that cause events to happen. This much is consistent with the observed facts, but science has no explanation for what causes the phase shifts. What we do know is that they are not the result of a deterministic system. Scientists use words like “chance,” “probability,” and “spontaneous.” Although such concepts cannot be the cause of anything, in essence, quantum field theory is consistent with a future that is open to freedom of choice, exercised by non-material causes, whether they are divine providence or human responsibility.
 
However, as Hume and Freud pointed out, our responsibility is a victim of subconscious imperatives that do not yield to logic. These dark forces are well known to orthodox Christianity. Saint Paul writes, “Unhappy man that I am, the things that I want to do, I cannot do and the things that I do not want to do are the ones that I do.” Instead of dealing with this by syllogisms and the modus ponens, Christianity employs charisms: direct inspirations of the Holy Spirit, received in our hearts and minds, through our spirits. A charism is an idea, wrapped in an emotion, which enters the intellectual and emotional centers of our minds. It is head and heart knowledge, combined in a single noetic experience. It has the power to deliver us from ourselves, with one condition – that we agree with God that we need God’s help.
 
Christianity asserts that the power and the wisdom of God lie in Christ crucified. From the outset, this has appeared to be either foolish or scandalous to the non-Christian mind. God’s logic is not ours! Our faith asserts that we are created to love and be loved. It is love that shapes our ontology, epistemology and teleology. However, in this there is a counter-intuitive catch. Loving by itself will not bring us happiness! It is the other person’s acceptance of our love, which brings us happiness. Therein lies the paradox. If my greatest source of happiness is for my love to be accepted by someone else, then I have placed control of my happiness in the hands of another.
 
If God is love, then perhaps this paradox applies to God. This seems to defy human logic; for does this not put God, on some level at the mercy of the creatures? The strength and wisdom of divine love lies in its openness and vulnerability. Vulnerability frees the person to be who they are, even if they are offensive. A love that is vulnerable permits the offensive person to make a choice, free of coercion, the only possible way for love to be returned.
 
Newton, Maupertuis and Jesus have bequeathed us with three teleologies. Newton’s is bleak and spiritually purposeless. Maupertuis’s presents us with a Providential God, who is economical in the use of energy. Jesus’s is the proclamation that there is a vector underlying natural events, that summons us to join with it to create a Kingdom, in which the supreme value is suffering love.

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Colin C M Campbell has a PhD in physics from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and taught for many years in the physics and computer science departments of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

He is an Anglican and a long-time member of the Order of St Luke, an ecumenical organization, originating in the Episcopal Church, which promotes healing prayer. He has an interest in international development, which he acquired in his youth as a CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) volunteer in East Africa.

Bibliography
 
1  Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw, The Quantum Universe (And Why Anything That Can Happen Does Happen) (Da Capo Press, 2012), 51
2 G. Richard Jansen, “ A Neurological Perspective on Original Sin” (Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 42, 1999), 262
3 John L. Mackenzie, Dictionary of the Bible, (Geoffrey Chapman, 1968), 839
4 Daniel C. Dennett, Freedom Evolves, (Viking Books, 2003), 289
5 A. Einstein, B. Podalsky and N. Rosen, “Can a Quantum Mechanical Description of Physical Reality be Considered Complete?” (Physical Review 47, 1935), 777
6 J. S. Bell, “On the Einstein-Podalsky-Rosen Paradox” (Physics 1, 1964), 195
7 S. Weinberg, (Facing Up: Science and Its Cultural Adversaries (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001)
8Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw, The Quantum Universe (And Why Anything That Can Happen Does Happen) (Da Capo Press, 2012), 53