item
From Physics to God
- Lemma
- Od fizike do Boga
- Serbian
- Fizika i Bog (en)
- Stevanovic, Aleksandra
- Modern physics :QM - Modes of interaction
- 30-4-2017
- Malnik, Ljubo [Author]. From Physics to God: Close Encounters of Physics and Metaphysics
- From Physics to God : Close Encounters of Physics and Metaphysics - Belgrade: Sluzbeni list SRJ, 1996.
- Physics - Metaphysics
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In the book, the author discusses the issue of physics and metaphysics interrelation in the context of religion. The very title is very interesting and thought-provoking since it presents the author’s path on which he seeks God through physics.
The author describes two worlds, one of matter and one of spirituality. Our perception today stems from Cartesian res extensa mainly and that is how we shape the world. Cartesian and Descartes’ "Cogito Ergo Sum" is characteristic to us. We thus equalize identity with mind, but not with entirety and integrity. In physics, experiment marks the border between physics and metaphysics and this creates separateness of the world that hinders cognition. Hence, there is only a particular experience of the world.
However, if physicians would not wander into metaphysics, but search only within the space of physics, the latter would have never been developed. That is why the encounters of physics and metaphysics are inevitable. Moreover, contemporary physics oscillates like a pendulum between science, strictly defined, and metaphysics, whose domain it is not allowed to seek answers in.
The author elaborates that the act of Creation is beyond human cognition so that even though it is understandable that a physicist denies Biblical story of Creation, it is not justified that they explain it since it is incognizable. Thereby, unaccepting should not be equal to negation.
There is no world without its creator. For contemporary physics, creator is Chance, that is, the Creation is the result of accidental fluctuations of the density of energy. The author realizes that this cannot be explained, in the same way as believers cannot explain the God’s creation, because is it beyond human knowledge. Contrary to religious mystic, scientist (physicist) does not recognize the cognition of soul, but reason (intellect), and that is why he would not end his search for truth, because the more he knows, the more he would think he can know. That is why physicists sometimes, realizing that they have reached the border of cognition, start negating previous knowledge. Physics then starts negating itself. It actually seems, as pointed by the author, that metaphysics is inevitable since nature is immanently transcendental.
Through the book, the author presents general stance of physicists and problems they encounter in diverse spheres due to the lack of unity and dissociation of scientific and other disciplines. In many aspects, by spreading its scientific cognition span, physics has taken different areas of metaphysics and formed an image of the contemporary world that is difficult to perceive and explain. That is why an ordinary educated man finds it difficult to understand the world, but is left to believe in the image scientists present him with. Such perception of reality is close to mythical, according to the author.
The author further presents the symbolical language of physics and its equations, implying that it in fact encounters metaphysics more often than presumed. Then, description of these fields is given but the author leaves a choice to the reader to search the existence of God or not.
In the final paragraph, the author claims that every road to knowledge finally leads to God. After widening the frame of cognition more and more, at the last point, there would be areas that human cognition cannot perceive, and that belongs to the domain of God. However, the necessity of metaphysics to physicians does not imply the setback of physics, for they are different even though there are domains in which they relate.
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