Predestination, Parallel Universes and the Web of Life

The Unitarian Universalist seventh principle was born through our democratic processes. A four-year study (similar to the one the UUA and its congregations recently undertook) culminated in the proposal of the first six principles in versions close to their current form. At the 1985 General Assembly there was much debate about its adoption. The debate wore on, patience waned and then from the floor the Reverend Paul L’Herrou proposed the seventh principle. Rather quickly some final wordsmithing was accomplished and the seven principles were adopted. That was its birth and this is the story of how I came to understand the web of life.

I’m a thinker by nature and one of the ways I think is to write things down; it helps my process. When I was around 16 I began to write a five-act play on religion. We read Shakespeare and he wrote five-act plays; I didn’t know any better. At the time I had ideas for Acts I, II and III. Turns out five acts may be right.

The first act recalled a child’s innocence. My parents were Episcopalian and Presbyterian and brought me up in the Presbyterian Church. My mother was, and is, the religious one. My father much less so in a formal way. In fact, the night before the day of my baptism in the Community Congregational Church in Conesus, New York, both my father and my grandmother were baptized. They had never been. My grandmother's parents were Universalists and found no need for baptism. As we sang at the solstice gathering, “We are a circle, within a circle.”

The play was loosely autobiographical – what else did I know? Act I was the "Jesus Loves Me" stage. Church taught me in a rote manner that Jesus Loved me, for the Bible told me so.

The second act introduced a questioning mind. Pat Biblical stories started to grow holes. My left brain approach to life analyzed the Bible from a true/false standpoint. How could it be possible to collect in an Ark built of cubits two, and only two, of every creature? How are there so many races in the world if we all started from Adam and Eve? Where did the first wives for Adam and Eve’s sons come from?

My take on the Presbyterian approach to life could be summarized by the message that life is completely ordained at or even prior to birth. We have no real choices. God knows ahead of time if I will be saved or condemned. (I grew up in a predominately Italian Catholic neighborhood and knew that as far as they were concerned, I was clearly among the condemned.) Worse to me than the concept of predestination was the presumption that, although God knew what path I would take at every turn, I still had to suffer deciding what were the right choices!

For a short time I flirted with a Spiritualist church in downtown Rochester, NY. While it provided some different perspectives it was a bit too way out. Now look where I am.

The third act would, of necessity, be speculative. It was the current edge of my life. It seemed to me that the character would have little choice than to develop a strong agnosticism and if that were the case wouldn’t the protagonist need to remove himself from Church attendance? The play writing ended with the semester. The second act was nearly completed and the third act not started. My English teacher said she would be interested to read how the play came out. I suspect she knew, as I didn't, that that play could never be quite complete.

In college I majored in mathematics, although I toyed with the idea of being a physicist. I chose to stay with mathematics in large part because I had had the head of the Physics department for my first two semesters of physics and disliked him greatly. I no longer have any idea why. A road not taken. I fell away from church; my interest in Physics eventually brought me back to formalized religion.

Although I never took any physics courses after my first year in college, I continued to have an interest in particle physics. Generally speaking, that meant learning about what was happening at the subatomic level: smaller than an atom. My first exposure was from a book my father purchased from a science book club. In 1967 I read Kenneth W. Ford’s The World of Elementary Particles and wrote a book report for a high school physics assignment. This was exciting stuff. To put the time into perspective, I learned all my formal physics schooling using slide rules.

Fast-forward twenty-two years to 1989: I was married, had two children and management responsibility for about 200 employees. I picked up a book called The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav. Starting with classical physics, then following developments in quantum physics over time, he describes a perspective where the physics and philosophy are largely indistinguishable. When you thought you were reading about one, you realized you were really reading about the other. In reflection, reading this book became a pivotal point in returning me to organized (or disorganized as the case may be) religion. I moved from Act III to Act IV.

The Newtonian world of physics is what we see and feel in every day life. It is gravity, the earth moving about the sun, mirrors and how light bounces off them. Born in the 20^th century, the quantum theory of the universe layered over the Newtonian world./span>

Regardless of whether it stands up in the long run, quantum theory has brought many new tools into our lives. Without quantum theory we would not have lasers, for surgery or for star wars; the electron microscope and transistor were invented based on its predictions, as were superconductors and a host of other technologies. We can ignore the theory, but we can not ignore the massive changes it has made on our lives. I suggest we do not ignore the theory either because it can inform our understanding of the web of life of which we are all apart.

How can quantum theory link to the spiritual, let alone provide insight into the web? The link is the uncertainty principle and the apparent randomness the theory projects. Physicists had adjusted to probability in physical phenomena long before quantum theory. For example, if something is radioactive and has a half life of a million years, it means half of the material decays in a million years and half has not changed. However, when we talk about a specific atom, say a radium atom, we cannot predict when, or if, that particular atom will undergo radioactive decay.

Quantum physics is more mysterious than Newtonian physics and very difficult to describe, except in the language of physics, which is mathematics at a level I don't pretend to understand. In words, however, the key is this concept: all the possibilities remain as such until a measurement is made.

For example, if an electron could be at point A, B or C, it is not until we make the measurement that the potential for choice no longer exists. Frost could be down either path, they are both possible until he writes the poem or until we read it.

Quantum theory makes some truly astonishing predictions about nature and they affect how it is I have come to start to understand the web of life, our interconnected nature. It also affects how I see we make personal changes.

Loosely, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle states that you can't know exactly where an atom, or an electron or whatever particle you are talking about is, and at the same time know how it is moving. You would think that if an atom really exists, then part of that existence must be that it should be definitely locatable and its momentum measured. According to quantum theory, this is just not so. While this is perplexing, and even seems a bit incredible, I think the same principle applies to my life in Act IV. If I concentrate very hard and use the most sophisticated tools at my disposal, I have the ability to either determine exactly where I am, or determine where I am headed. I am unable to do both of those simultaneously. Perhaps I will develop that skill in Act V – Enlightenment, but given my progress in Act IV, I’m unlikely to ever find out.

I spent most of my life heading, as quickly as I could, somewhere without specifically deciding that was where I wanted to be. The Cheshire Cat is right, you know: taken long enough every path eventually leads somewhere. Not only did I not understand where I was going; I didn’t have much understanding of where I was.

Fool that I was while living life this way, I thought myself in total control. I knew exactly where I was and where I was going. Actually, all that I really knew was the shape of my balance sheet and the size of my paycheck. Marriages, divorces, moving from one job to another, promotions, increases in pay and responsibility. These were clearly progress, momentum heading mainly in a positive direction, with a downdraft here and there to keep me humble.

Position and motion measurements in physics are only as good as the tools one uses for the measurement. So too when we measure ourselves. Then the tools we use are the questions we choose to ask and the honesty of our answers. Financially, I knew my balance sheet position because I asked the right questions and applied the appropriate finance tools to provide results. What I was unable to address was my overall status as a human, or my movement toward humanity. I measured, and therefore led, a one-dimensional life.

Well not really, but a little hyperbole never hurt anyone. In fact, like a grade B horror movie, the spiritual kept raising a bony hand from the grave to which I had consigned it, and requesting a bit of attention. Poetry periodically flowed from my pen without left brain interference. I found surcease from life's troubles in rambles through the country. I read books that jumped off of the bookshelves into my hands; books like The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

When we are continually running in life we neither measure current position nor momentum of change. All is in the running. To assess our true strengths and weaknesses, understand what we like and what we do not like, we must stop.

A friend of mine wrote “Happy December 1^st; let the stress begin.” For many of us the holidays are very stressful. Obligations pile up; we over commit. Traditionally we make New Year’s resolutions—often the same ones as last year. We might even recognize we are out of control.

In whitewater rafting if you dump overboard, you are to go down stream feet first (rather than leading with your head), remember to breathe and get yourself to an eddy. Once you are in the eddy you have a chance to reconnoiter, figure out where you are and get some assistance. Dimly I perceived that I needed to find ways to "eddy out" of life's rush from time to time.

I tried returning to the Presbyterian Church. I could not choke down the beliefs and finally in 1992 I found my first UU congregation. Alleluia. Then, I stood up in the canoe and promptly dumped overboard into the rush of unplanned life. As with many others in the 90s, I was laid off in a corporate merger and subsequent downsizing. Fortunately, my network of associates provided leads to a job that resulted in my moving to Cincinnati. There I knew no one. I brought with me a list of the four local UU congregations and after a few months settled in at my new religious home.

Because I had a house to sell in New Jersey, I brought only a few things to Ohio to put in an apartment: My furniture consisted of one filled bookcase; a card table to act as all purpose table, four folding chairs (two more than I actually needed) and three lamps. I brought enough utensils and pots to cook, a sleeping bag and mat for sleeping, clothes, a computer and lastly my electronic piano and a bicycle for exercise. I bought a small portable radio. No television, no stereo. I walked to and from work, rather than commute 40 miles as had been my previous lifestyle.

For me, eddying out meant meditating most days, and allowing my mind to clear. It meant singing in the church choir, something I had not done in 25 years. That was a good decision: There I met my partner, Jan. It meant reading more books, since I did not vegetate in front of the TV. It meant just sitting and thinking. In that quiet, pieces started to come together. I began to gain an understanding of what was really important to me. Frankly, it was depressing to understand how much time I had spent in activities conflicting with my purported beliefs.

After that experience I had it figured out, right? Not this Type A personality. I need to constantly remind myself that God worked six days and rested on the seventh for a reason—but that’s a message for another morning.

So I forget. A lot. But I remember sooner. I think I ask better and more timely questions of myself. I have given up my left brain logical approach to addressing life. Rather I take life more as a mystical whole and recognize there are streams and currents I do not know that in some way affect me. I understand that I do not understand. The Newtonian world does not convey meaning to all of my senses; the Quantum world leaves me amazed and in awe.

That currents exist that affect me in ways I cannot feel no longer seems peculiar. I recognize that I accept as "truth" that the Earth rotates around the Sun at an awesome speed. Yet I have no feeling for that speed. I have no sense of whizzing through space. And yet, I believe it to be so. So too I believe in the web of life.

Neils Bohr, one of the early pioneers of quantum physics, said, "Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it." And so far, all experiments performed uphold quantum theory.

At the far reaches of the theory is Bell's theorem. If quantum theory is correct so is Bell's theorem. Without going to any kind of detail, Bell's theorem essentially states that if quantum theory is correct, then local causes do not provide a complete explanation of how things happen. Local here means communicating at up to the speed of light.

For example, I have a switch in my house that will cause a lamp to turn on or off. If the switch is on and I turn it off, under local causes, the lamp will go off sometime after the time it takes for light to travel from my switch to the bulb. If it happens faster than the speed of light, then local causes doesn't hold and there must be another explanation. Experiments have demonstrated for certain physical phenomena that local causes does not hold.

If it takes more than local causes to explain cause and effect, then mathematically there are three possible explanations (1) there is no such thing as free will. All is preordained. Oh boy. If this is the correct explanation, Calvin was right in the basic idea of predestination. Maybe I should have stayed with the Presbyterians, although the cause of predestination may not be clear. Number two: every choice creates parallel universes, each reflecting a different outcome. One Frost goes down the right fork; another journeys down the left fork. Never the twain shall meet, and all possible events create separate universes. Or (3), if there was a big bang, then everything is indeed connected in a web that covers the universe. A change in any part of the universe can affect everything great or small in the rest of the universe, no matter how far away. The web is infinite in power and complexity.

Bell’s Theorem: only three possible ways to describe interconnectedness within the world. I remain too vain to accept superdeterminism as required under the first alternative. The concept of parallel universes, each with similar roots, but splitting into uncountable numbers causes no moral problems. All choices produce new universes and one me makes the first choice and a second me makes the other choice, which means there is no real choice.

As a UU I choose to have faith in the third alternative and its wonderment that the web stretches in its own way over everything. Every action I take ripples instantaneously throughout the universe. All other actions in the universe affect me in ways I will never understand and know. And here is the faith component: I believe good begets good and random acts of kindness are not so random in their overall positive effects.

So for me, our seventh principle trumps all the others, which are merely commentary: methods in which we choose to implement our covenant to affirm and promote respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

James Montgomery Jackson
December 27, 2009

Readings: "The Road Not Taken" (Robert Frost) and Selection from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)