24.1 Physical sub-degrees

In order to understand how these three functions of the physical degree might be accomplished, we have (as should be expected in theistic science) to consider the three sub-degrees of the physical. Let us continue our method used in the mental and spiritual chapters by seeing how the sub-degrees of each are related. Let us expand Table 23.1 by writing in the three sub-degrees of the physical, giving now Table 24.1. Because both the spiritual and the physical are images of God in their own ways, we should see some similarities in their respective sub-degrees.

In Table 24.1, we see first the sub-degree 3.1 called here ‘effects of loves’, or equivalently, ‘effects from loves’. In physics we do not know so much about love, but we do know about organizing principles. In theistic science, because principles everywhere follow from love, we can think of this degree 3.1 as being where the spiritual and mental enter into nature and become an organizing principle for what is going to happen. Present-day physics does not know much about this mental influence. This is, however, the prediction based on science from our scientific theism.^24.2We can think of the 3.1 sub-degree as ‘effects of love on principles’. It must be ‘soft’ or ‘receptive’ to the prior degrees, as that is the way our desires and intentions enter into the world and have effects there (as they do in every moment of our waking life).

This sub-degree 3.1 has another important role, which is to fix the common space to be used in the universe. Remember that all the previous mental degrees had their own spaces and own metrics, which I speculated might be some kind of associative spaces of meanings. In the physical degree, however, the meanings are less apparent, and the space of the universe appears to be a large common manifold with no associative to its metric. In physical space, contrary things can exist close to each other and readily interact, so we conclude that there are no remaining psychological components in the space of the universe.^24.3The question of how physical space comes to be and comes to have its metric is, in physics today, the field of quantum gravity. Theistic science will make some suggestions concerning the foundations of quantum gravity or (more generally) the investigations of pre-geometry (what exists before spatial geometries).

In Table 24.1, we see secondly the sub-degree 3.2 called here ‘effects of thoughts’, or equivalently, ‘effects from thoughts’. Again, physics does not know much about thoughts but only about the rational laws that are often the content of thoughts. Because these laws describe the constant operation of causes, we can think of this 3.2 sub-degree as describing ‘effects of thought on causes’, in particular on regular and propagating causes. In this physical sub-degree there must be quasi-deterministic physical laws of propagation, where ‘quasi-deterministic’ means still subject to the principles of the prior degree 3.1 (especially if those principles change from new mental intention or influx there).^24.4In physics today, it is field theories of electromagnetism and quantum field theory which deal with ‘quasi-deterministic physical laws of propagation’. Quantum field theory treats electromagnetism and other kinds of field interactions in terms of ‘virtual particles’ and ‘virtual events’. We therefore expect theistic science to make suggestions concerning the foundations of quantum field theories.

Also in Table 24.1, we see the third sub-degree 3.3, called ‘effects of actions’, which deals with the production of final effects in the physical world by actualizing any remaining potentialities or propensities.

Here we are on the firmest ground about understanding this in terms of everyday experience and in terms of physical theory. We think that surely today’s very successful physics is concerned with actual changes in our observations of those changes. If classical Newtonian mechanics were true, we would know exactly the final effects. They would be the motion of atomic corpuscles around in space, each atom having a specific location at any given time. However, the current theory is not Newtonian mechanics but quantum mechanics. In quantum theory, the individual bodies in the world do not have specific locations at each time but behave more like fields of propensity. These fields do give specific results but only intermittently: during what quantum physics calls ‘measurements’. In Part II we began to discuss those features of the quantum world. Now we will see if they can fit into the sub-degree 3.3 at the end of our multi-level generative structure of the universe. To see what can fit into a sub-degree, we have to consider its sub-sub-degrees, and that means a whole new round of analysis. All the above sub-degrees (3.1 and 3.2) will have their sub-sub-degrees too.