Is Anything Real?

In 1637 A man did a simple thought experiment. He got up out of his chair and walked away from his writing table and began to pace the room. As he walked around he imagined himself a ghost floating around the room without any body. He floated around his writing table, past the bed and over to the window. Finding it was quite easy imagining not having a body he then decided to try something else. He tried to imagine not having a mind, and found...it was impossible. Though a mind separated from the body is something we can imagine, imagining not having an intellect is impossible to do. You cannot imagine yourself out of existence. Out of this simple experiment the man, who's name was Rene Descartes, coined one of the most famous philosophical statements ever written, "I think, therefor I am." 

This statement, whether intending to or not brings up some interesting questions such as, do I make up my own reality? Is anything real? How much of my world is all in my head? If I do make up my own reality, is God real, or is he my own constructed explanation for the absurdity which is existence? Maybe you find these questions stupid and meaningless, but they raise questions that I think are worth discussing. 

In 1935 Physicist Erwin Shrodinger was discussing with Einstien about the strange nature of entangled particles. Quantum physics was a very new concept and was leaving the science community baffled by its discovery. In quantum entanglement two subatomic particles interact together and are then separated. When this happens the particles become "entangled" together. Neither particle is in any definitive state. To describe this in a way easily visualized Shrodinger put it this way. Suppose there is a cat in a box with a radioactive entangled particle and a jar of poison. When this particle decays a detection device detects the radiation and smashes the bottle of poison, but since the radioactive substance is both decayed and not decayed at the same time, for a moment in time, to the universe outside the box, the Cat can be considered both alive and dead at the same time, because the state of the cat is "entangled" with the state of the particle. However, when you open the box, the cat is either alive, or dead, never both. So at what point does quantum superposition end and reality begin? 

Obviously it is a morbid thought experiment, and Shrodinger does not imply that  a cat can actually be alive and dead at the same time, but it illustrates a mathematical principle. So What does this have to do with Descartes?  Shrodinger's Cat illustrates a very interesting concept about quantum physics. Certain things do not appear to obey the "rules" of our reality. Another example closely following the previous thought experiment is an actual experiment which helped establish the theory of quantum physics in the first place, and that is the wave/particle duality of electrons. Without going in to too much detail, it was found that the simple act of observation changed whether an electron would behave as a wave or a particle. If we simply watch the electron fly through a double slit experiment, it will appear a wave with a nice light and dark interference pattern, but as soon as you try to measure this electron, it no longer acts like a wave as it should, it acts as a particle with no interference pattern. The only thing that changed was our way of measuring the electron. 

So now to answer the question of what this all has to do with us, the very fact that we observe the universe,changes the way it interacts with us. Gone are the days of absolute knowing, gone are the days of proving. Nothing can be known for sure, only tested and observed. Our own observations of "reality" around us can't even be taken as truth. Is that tree green? Well, it definitely has the appearance of a color that I associate as green. Is that tree really there? Well, it definitely feels like it is to my touch as my brain translates impulses received by my hand and carried to my brain. Yet it is all in our mind in the end. Everything around us is an interpretation. So what can we know? Are we lost to fend for ourselves as our brains construct, let's be honest, a pretty darn awful universe around us? 

That is one way to look at it for sure, but I like to think of it another way, what if our brains have the power to change the universe around is for good? What if we have the power to change our own destiny, to surmount our own problems, and to conquer our own fears? What if we have the power to make the world bright, full of love and happiness, joy, truth, exploration, and knowledge? What if that is our purpose to exist in an otherwise meaningless reality? What if we were created for a purpose, to give life to reality? Descartes had it both right and wrong at the same time, what his statement should have read is, I think, therefor HE IS. The very fact that I have intelligence and that I cannot imagine myself out of existence points to a creator not subject to my rules, he does not change to the whims of my mind, he is not created that I can think him out if existence, else, I could think myself out of existence since I would be god myself. I think, therefor God is. He replaces the I am, for my intellect could not have constructed all that there is. I may create the reality around me, but what or who created my intellegence? Jesus said of himself, "Before Abraham was...I AM." John 8:58.  Before Abraham had an intelligent thought, before he had begun to construct reality around himself and before he had begun to create a nation who served The Lord, God was. "He is before all things and by him all things consist." Colossians 1:17 "for in him we live, and move, and have our being..." Acts 17:28