In a parallel series to my current series on connecting to nature in terms time and place, I am resharing some of my earlier writings about nature. I recently recovered some of the past blog posts and thought I would share them with you.
This one is from 2013 which was an update of an earlier set of notes I had. These reflections considered how advances in quantum physics might validate centuries-old theological thoughts. I found it interesting that people were thinking about nature through a quantum lens centuries before it is proven. And the implication of a quantum world has on what we know of causality.
In the framework of the four key principles, this post is firmly in the reflection section. The thought process below can definitely be better refined. But I don’t want to change the post too much from its original state.
Blog post from March 2013
The title of this blog is based on the book “Tawhid and Science” by Osman Bakar. I read the book over eighteen years ago and it left me thinking. Looking at old notes (18/09/1995), I found a few pages of my penned thoughts on the theme of causality. I hope by sharing my thoughts, it would spark more thoughts in the mind of the readers. These are just my thoughts which may be wrong for only God knows the truth.
The theologians said: (quoted from the book)
Everything in this world is made up of “atoms” be it matter, space or time. Quantised! No relation between one “atom” and the next…no question of causality. The link between them is God’s Will which made the world continue as we know it.
The Muslim theologians quoted above are actually the Asharites, one of the earliest conception of nature in Islamic thought. Their theory is based on the discrete and discontinuous character of matter, space, and time. For more details on their theory, there is a good article here by the same author.
The scientists argue: (quoted from the book)
There is causality only that God is the First and Ultimate Cause….The scientific perspective on causality seeks to explain the world and all phenomena, including the miraculous, in terms of “natural causes” or by appealing to the nature of things, given to them by God…The world is dependent not only on God’s will but also His being. It is clear however that the aspect they glorified is His Being and Intelligence.
In the view of modern atomic/quantum theory, much of the theologians’ ideas ring a bell. As a Muslim scientist, I cannot deny that matter has proven to be made of atoms. And even smaller components, like the protons, electrons, quarks and leptons. Now they have proven the existence of Higgs Boson – the so-called ‘God’ particle. Though these atoms unlike the “atoms” of the theologians have mass. Yet there is a contradictory dual identity in these sub-atomic particles which none have yet managed to answer satisfactorily. For example, the electrons have a dual characteristic of wave and particle. It cannot be defined in terms of both space and time. This comes closest to the Asharites’ “atom” again. Its ability to “move” from one shell to the next in a quantised form, yet not having any identity in between the shells makes it even more similar.
I can also understand the scientific/philosophical stand where they emphasise on the “natural cause” of things. Without these “laws”, the whole foundation of experimental techniques will collapse. If B does not follow naturally from A, then it is uncertain what results would occur. This is especially true in two identical experiments carried out independently of each other. Should we even assume there will be results since results come about only if the law of causality is true.
For me, there is no contradiction between them. The Asharites, in modern terms, are looking at the quantum1 world where uncertainty principle holds. It is the domain of the unseen and of miracles. It reflects an aspect of Allah’s power, something we know little of.
Let’s take the instance of the fire in Prophet Abraham’s a.s. story (where he was thrown into the fire and Allah said to the fire “Be cool”). In the quantum world, the fire has nearly infinite possibilities of being/having other properties other than burning. I believe it is Allah’s Will that causes the fire to usually burn over all other possibilities. This is done by having the probability of fire being hot greater than any other outcome. Probability is the likelihood of an event, in this case the fire being hot, while time provides the duration of the event. Over time, each realisation of fire burning meant the mind forms the knowledge of causality that fire burns. So in the macroscopic world, where time governs, fire is always known to burn.
While in the case of Prophet Abraham a.s., it was Allah’s will that the fire became cool. In the quantum world, the fire has a small probability of becoming cool. But this small probability can and was actualised. In the macroscopic world, because the mind has always associated fire with burning, it becomes a miracle.
Such example clearly demonstrates Allah’s powers and influences in our world and lives. It shows that His Will and Being is the Ultimate Reality. We, with our intellect and free will, also have a reality. Albeit a subjective reality as our reality depends on the Ultimate Reality. Wallahu a’lam.
- I was involved in modelling the aerodynamics of a hard disk drive. At the read-write head where it is in nanoscale, the traditional fluid dynamics breaks down. ↩︎
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