The May issue of Discover magazine has a very interesting article on a topic we've addressed from time to time on this page. We've noted that much, if not all, of our experience of the universe is in fact subjective, that not only the phenomena of sense experience - things like color, sound and fragrance - but also that which appears to us to be objectively real - matter, space and time - are in fact ultimately created by our minds. If this is true then the irreducible ground of reality is mind, not matter.
This seems to be the implication, not only of much philosophical speculation, but also of much of contemporary physics, especially quantum physics. As physicist James Jeans once said, the universe looks more like a grand idea than a grand machine.
The article in Discover (which is not yet available online) makes a similar case and concludes that the universe is "biocentric," i.e. that it's a creation of human minds. I think this is probably true of qualia (sensations) and what we call time, but to say that it's true of the universe as a whole seems to me to be a bit of a stretch. To be sure, it may well be that all of cosmic reality is indeed mind-dependent, but that it's dependent upon our minds for its existence seems to me to be the least likely alternative. It seems more plausible to suppose that Jeans' grand idea is the product not of human minds but of a cosmic mind, the mind of God.
The authors of the Discover article shy from considering this possibility, not wishing, perhaps, to suggest anything that has religious connotations, but it makes much more sense of the evidence they adduce than does their biocentrism.
Consider just one example from the quantum world. Pairs of sub-atomic particles formed simultaneously share a property known as entanglement. These particles are somehow mysteriously connected to each other even if they are separated by vast distances across space. If one of the pair undergoes some alteration the other undergoes a corresponding alteration even though any message sent from the one to the other would have to travel at near infinite speed in order for the second particle to know that the first has been altered. How does this happen? There's no physical explanation for this instantaneous connectivity. If, however, these particles, and everything else, are really part of God's consciousness, the problem of entanglement is explained. Every event is immediately known by God, and His mind imposes the laws that govern the behavior of these particles.
It seems like an obvious solution for anyone who already believes that quantum phenomena are observer-dependent, but perhaps we're going to have to unravel more of the mysteries of the universe's structure and behavior before those scientists still in the grip of a metaphysical naturalism begin to wean themselves away from their theophobia.
RLC
