TY - GEN

T1 - Science and Theology: The Prospects for Fruitful Mutually Beneficial Cooperation

AU - Копейкин, Кирилл Владимирович

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - The main scientific problems of our time — the hard problem of consciousness, the problem of completing the second quantum revolution and the problem of the ‘great silence’ of the Universe — can be solved by turning to theological tradition. The fact is that modern physics builds a model of the world through the introduction of numerical values. These values allow us to compare the elements of the real physical world with mathematical objects — numbers. This mapping exists in the process of realising procedures of measurement, which is a study of the relation of one physical element to another. Thus objective science describes the world not as it is ‘in itself’, but only via the projection of different elements of the world on devices of measurement. The physical theories that result from this practise are thus theories of relations. By virtue of the ‘relativity’ of mathematical (structural) theories, the physical theories are opened up to substantive interpretations. The uniqueness of the current situation is that today we seem to have reached the limits of structural knowledge. ‘Deeper’ structures of the Universe that could be accounted for in the formal language of mathematics are not there. Thus it follows that the structures of the Universe that we can observe now are fundamental, ontological. But does this achievement mean that we have reached the limits of knowledge? Not at all! Further movement is possible in the direction of filling the mathematical syntactic structure with semantic existential content. As science originated as the study of the text of the Book of the World, complementary to that of the Bible, then when one searches for the semantic interpretation of the mathematical structures revealed by science it is reasonable to turn to the Bible as a source of meanings for filling formal mathematical structures of the physical world. The problem of interpreting (mathematical) texts is a hermeneutic problem and, therefore, traditionally theological. It is logical to presume that the correspondence between the internal mathematical (‘psychical’) model and the external physical world is not limited to only the structural similarity but can be extended to the ontological sphere. This will make it possible to create a new conceptual ‘two-dimensional’ language. Such a language would allow us to describe both the objectivity of the ‘external’ physical world — quantum world and the world of the Universe as a whole — and the subjectivity of the ‘inner’ psychical world.

AB - The main scientific problems of our time — the hard problem of consciousness, the problem of completing the second quantum revolution and the problem of the ‘great silence’ of the Universe — can be solved by turning to theological tradition. The fact is that modern physics builds a model of the world through the introduction of numerical values. These values allow us to compare the elements of the real physical world with mathematical objects — numbers. This mapping exists in the process of realising procedures of measurement, which is a study of the relation of one physical element to another. Thus objective science describes the world not as it is ‘in itself’, but only via the projection of different elements of the world on devices of measurement. The physical theories that result from this practise are thus theories of relations. By virtue of the ‘relativity’ of mathematical (structural) theories, the physical theories are opened up to substantive interpretations. The uniqueness of the current situation is that today we seem to have reached the limits of structural knowledge. ‘Deeper’ structures of the Universe that could be accounted for in the formal language of mathematics are not there. Thus it follows that the structures of the Universe that we can observe now are fundamental, ontological. But does this achievement mean that we have reached the limits of knowledge? Not at all! Further movement is possible in the direction of filling the mathematical syntactic structure with semantic existential content. As science originated as the study of the text of the Book of the World, complementary to that of the Bible, then when one searches for the semantic interpretation of the mathematical structures revealed by science it is reasonable to turn to the Bible as a source of meanings for filling formal mathematical structures of the physical world. The problem of interpreting (mathematical) texts is a hermeneutic problem and, therefore, traditionally theological. It is logical to presume that the correspondence between the internal mathematical (‘psychical’) model and the external physical world is not limited to only the structural similarity but can be extended to the ontological sphere. This will make it possible to create a new conceptual ‘two-dimensional’ language. Such a language would allow us to describe both the objectivity of the ‘external’ physical world — quantum world and the world of the Universe as a whole — and the subjectivity of the ‘inner’ psychical world.

UR - https://www.brepols.net/products/IS-9782503596686-1

M3 - Conference contribution

SN - 978-2-503-59668-6

T3 - Science and Orthodox Christianity

SP - 131

EP - 145

BT - Orthodox Christianity and Modern Science: Past, Present and Future

A2 - Ventis, Haralambos

A2 - Tampakis, Kostas

PB - Brepols Publishers

ER -