I cite Dembski, who states, “As a Christian theist, I’m happy to regard the collection of all possible worlds as residing in the mind of God and then see God, in an act of creation, as actualizing one world, ours, to the exclusion of others. . . . Unlike materialism, which makes matter the starting point for inquiry, information makes the actual world and the possibilities associated with it the starting point. Information thus allows the world to be whatever it is. . . . We know that a world exists and that it realizes certain possibilities to the exclusion of others, thereby generating information.”

“[Dembski’s] argument is that intelligence creates information, which in turn can manifest itself materially, and that intelligence is thus the preeminent first cause. This puts matter causally downstream from both intelligence and information, making it a subordinate and derivative concept. . . .Dembski not only takes information to be the fundamental substance, but also clearly believes . . . that this substance ultimately originates with a personal God who intentionally gives being to the world, ordering its material structure and guiding its inhabitants for a purpose.”

I will now post selected excerpts from Dembski’s book, Being as Communion: A Metaphysics of Information, some of which I have included in my books and have made reference to in blogs. I strongly recommend this book to those who wish to understand the theory of communication. “For a thing to be real it must be able to communicate with other things. If this is so, then the problem of being receives a straightforward resolution: to be is to be in communion.” [Taken from the back cover piece] Dembski compellingly documents that “information in nature is ‘communion,’” and this extends to communion between the Mind of God and the mind of Man by the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

I am sharing a quote from Christof Lameter, whom I cited in my second book:

“If God can act in reality through coordinating large amounts of quantum events for a purpose at a higher level then it is possible to assume that the same can be done with the human brain. God can effectively communicate with humans by direct stimulation of neurons in the human brain generating images and memories. God is able to communicate with humans in a direct way. May this be an explanation for the working of the Holy Spirit? Visions and other religious experiences could be understood through this process.”

I cite Alvin Plantinga in my second book who also addresses the openness of the universe to novel information. Here are my comments:

Plantinga states that classical science does not claim that the universe is causally closed. His statements are consistent with special divine action in the world. Just as God, who is immaterial and Spirit, can act in the physical universe, so too can the immaterial minds of human beings. There is no objection to special divine action or for human free action, dualistically conceived. Plantinga goes further to state that the indeterminism of quantum mechanics offers even less of a problem for divine action than classical science. “. . . special divine action . . . is by no means incompatible with quantum mechanics . . . because . . . quantum mechanics doesn’t determine a specific outcome for a given set of initial conditions, but instead merely assigns probabilities to the possible outcomes.” Plantinga states further, “Perhaps He is also very much a hands on God, constantly active in history, leading, guiding, persuading and redeeming His people, blessing them with ‘the internal Witness of the Holy Spirit’ (Calvin) or ‘the Internal instigation of the Holy Spirit’ (Acquinas) and conferring upon them the gift of faith.”

In my studies and writings I have relied significantly upon the work of William A. Dembski. I am sharing his comments that consider how God, who is immaterial and Spirit, interacts with the material world, including the human brain. Quantum mechanics gives nondeterminism to the universe which characterizes it as being informationally open and accommodating free will. Here is Dembski’s informative quote taken from my book, The Boundless Love of God: A Holy Spirit Story:

“. . . such [an open] universe will produce . . . patterns of events that stand out against the backdrop of randomness. . . . Such patterns [intended by God] could reasonably be interpreted as constituting novel information inputted from outside the system . . . in a nondeterministic universe, diving action could impart information into matter [e.g. a neural synaptic network] without violating any physical laws by which matter operates . . . A deity capable of co-opting randomness would impart information by arranging outcomes [with small probabilities and specification], but do so by channeling the material energy in ways that violate no principle governing matter. If divine action takes this form, the problem of finding the missing material energy by which God introduces novel information into the world simply does not arise. . . . information is then being transferred without any transfer of material energy. . . . Quantum mechanics . . . offers such a picture of the universe, allowing God free play at the quantum level. . . . In a world of irreducibly chance or random events [integral to the neural synapse], as some interpretations of quantum theory allow, [the Mind of] God can channel such events [and communications] toward preordained ends.”

Since the mind of Man is created in the image of the Mind of God, the postulate that Dembski shares reasonably applies to the immaterial mind of Man which can also channel communications of encoded information toward preordained ends with meaning and purpose.

von Baeyer cites comments by Niels Bohr made to Anton Zeilinger concerning the “mediating role of information”:

“Its crucial, underlying assumption is Bohr’s proclamation that physics in general, and quantum mechanics in particular, do not describe the world itself, only what we are able to say about it. Bohr demands that we wake up from the spell of Democritus - the illusion that we can come to grips with the objective material world, without acknowledging, or even trying to understand, the mediating role of information. We never see a chair, Bohr would say: we receive sense impressions that give us information which our brains somehow process into the idea . . . of chair [via instantiated neural codes transmitted through synaptic networks and “read”/interpreted by the human mind, addressed in my books]. We don’t see, or detect, or measure an atom: we gather information about the atom and encode it in a mathematical construct called a wave function, which enables us to make predictions about information we may gather in future experiments. To leave information, from which we gain all of our knowledge of nature, out of consideration when discussing the nature of the physical world is a gross and outdated oversimplification. If, however, we accept that information, not matter, lies at the root of quantum mechanics, reductionism, that faithful, flawed handmaiden of science, requires us to ask: what are the fundamental building blocks of information? Zeilinger replies: propositions; Wheeler calls them answers to questions: and the simplest of those, in turn, is an elementary proposition, a yes-or-no question with an answer that’s called a ‘bit’ of information. It is impossible to imagine a simpler question than one that requires a yes-or-no answer.”

I am sharing complex descriptions of information and its relation to the quantum and ultimately to the human mind, as well as the Mind of God! We must understand the fundamental importance of information and how it relates to energy and matter. In upcoming blog posts this topic will be addressed.

von Baeyer discusses Anton Zeilinger’s work in quantum physics in the last chapter of his book. I share an excerpt from his book that will serve as the foundation for points I will make in subsequent blog posts that relate quantum mechanics and information:

Like John Wheeler he [Zeilinger] wants to know why the quantum? Like Schrodinger he wants the answer to speak to the broad public; and like Pauli he feels intuitively that the answer, when it comes, will turn out to illuminate human nature itself.”

The relationship between quantum mechanics and information rests in probabilities. Please read on.

von Baeyer asks, “But what is the wave function? Its interpretation as a probability provides a clue. Probabilities . . . are shorthand expressions of partial knowledge - of information. Similarly, the wave function of an electron in an atom contains information about the likelihood of finding the electron in various places. It is a map of potentialities - a catalogue of possibilities. It is information, pure and simple; and its shape determines the form of the atom.”

I share this quote from von Baeyer since it is important to understand what a wave function is and how it differs from wave length and wave form. I have discussed wave forms as they apply to synaptic transmission through neural networks in some of my latest blog posts.

von Baeyer discusses entropy in the context of information in his book. He referenced Ludwig Boltzmann who “pointed out that . . . the value of entropy rises from zero, when we know all about a system, to its maximum value when we know least. . . . Entropy is . . . about our lack of information.”

God, who is the ultimate Source of all information, held the “maximum value” of informational entropy at the Beginning of creation when He had not yet specified how information would be instantiated into given creations. All possibilities existed in the Mind of God. As God specified how information would be selectively actualized, possibilities were ruled out, and aspects of given created systems became known with the value of entropy approaching, or becoming, zero.

As one reads this blog post one may understand better how information, as a topic, can escape one’s attention and comprehension. I have addressed entropy in the context of information here and in my books so that readers can come to an understanding of it, especially beholding God’s glory in His creation of our universe and all within it.

In my more recent blog posts I have discussed wave function and wave forms in the context of synaptic transmission. I refer the reader back to the three part series entitled “Waves in Our Brains.” von Baeyer discussed the wave function in Chapter 5 of his book, and I include a significant excerpt from it that deals ultimately with . . . information:

“If the wave function does not represent a faithful picture of an atom, what exactly is it? In different experiments one can measure the positions, the velocities, the energy levels, the magnetic effects and a variety of other properties of the electron. All these properties can be predicted from the wave function, which therefore acts as a succinct mathematical encoding of information resembling a map of potentiality - a catalogue of possibilities. If the wave function is nothing but a storehouse of information needed to make correct predictions, then the stuff of the world is really, at bottom, information.”