Of Agnostics, Atomic Bombs and Schroedinger's Cat

Well it seems we've had a fit of posting activity over here on the virtues (or lack therof) of being an agnostic. Last night I had posted some of my thoughts on why the whole agnostic thing didn't fit for me. It was not the whole story, and some of the comments on Dan's post have compelled me to add some more thoughts over here.

In particular a comment Alex made intrigued me.
"lets take knowing the construct of the molecule, and the atoms which build it, and the electrons, protons and neutrons, etc.. There was a time where this was not known, or understood. Until it was, there were theories, or guesses. I would not think that those theories or guesses would be enough for someone to "know" what a molecule is made of. After the discovery, the guess turned into understanding."

I thought it kind of ironic that Alex turned to atomic physics to try and make his point. In turn, I would argue that the closer you get to the atom and all it's pieces, the further you get away from proof and "certainty" and the more you live in "Theory Land". Many of the fundamental priciples of quantum physics are based on the notion that the very state of a particle such as the electron has never, could never, and will never be able to be defined (sound familiar?). Therefore, we could never actually see an electron. This notion is described by the Heisenburg Uncertainty Principle and further illustrated in a thought experiment called Schroedinger's Cat. I ran across a cool poem about said cat that I thought I would share.

Schroedinger, Erwin! Professor of physics!
Wrote daring equations! Confounded his critics!
(Not bad, eh? Don't worry. This part of the verse
Starts off pretty good, but it gets a lot worse.)
Win saw that the theory that Newton'd invented
By Einstein's discov'ries had been badly dented.
What now? wailed his colleagues. Said Erwin, "Don't panic,
No grease monkey I, but a quantum mechanic.
Consider electrons. Now, these teeny articles
Are sometimes like waves, and then sometimes like particles.
If that's not confusing, the nuclear dance
Of electrons and suchlike is governed by chance!
No sweat, though--my theory permits us to judge
Where some of 'em is and the rest of 'em was.
Not everyone bought this. It threatened to wreck
The comforting linkage of cause and effect.
E'en Einstein had doubts, and so Schroedinger tried
To tell him what quantum mechanics implied.
Said Win to Al, "Brother, suppose we've a cat,
And inside a tube we have put that cat at
Along with a solitaire deck and some Fritos,
A bottle of Night Train, a couple mosquitoes(Or something else rhyming)
and, oh, if you got 'em,One vial prussic acid, one decaying ottom
Or atom--whatever--but when it emits,
A trigger device blasts the vial into bits
Which snuffs our poor kitty. The odds of this crime
Are 50 to 50 per hour each time.
The cylinder's sealed. The hour's passed away. Is
Our pussy still purring--or pushing up daisies?
Now, you'd say the cat either lives or it don't
But quantum mechanics is stubborn and won't.
Statistically speaking, the cat (goes the joke),
Is half a cat breathing and half a cat croaked.
To some this may seem a ridiculous split,
But quantum mechanics must answer, "Tough Shit!"
We may not know much, but one thing's fo' sho':
There's things in the cosmos that we cannot know.
Shine light on electrons--you'll cause them to swerve.
The act of observing disturbs the observed.
Which ruins your test. But then if there's no testing
To see if a particle's moving or resting
Why try to conjecture? Pure useless endeavor!
We know probability--certainty, never.
'The effect of this notion? I very much fear'
Twill make doubtful all things that were formerly clear.
Till soon the cat doctors will say in reports,
"We've just flipped a coin and we've learned he's a corpse.
'So saith Herr Erwin. Quoth Albert, "You're nuts.
God doesn't play dice with the universe, putz.
I'll prove it!" he said, and the Lord knows he tried
In vain--until fin'ly he more or less died.
Win spoke at the funeral: "Listen, dear friends,
Sweet Al was my buddy. I must make amends.
Though he doubted my theory, I'll say of this saint:
Ten-to-one he's in heaven--but five bucks says he ain't."

Cecil Adams

Before I go on, I will go on record to say that Schroedinger's Cat completely falls apart when Matt is the observer. If Matt is the guy watching the box, upon opening said box, the cat will be dead 100% of the time.

In any case, what's my point and what the hell does this have to do with being agnostic?

The Atomic Bomb. Probably one of the most visual examples of what can happen when a bunch of theories are put to good, or not so good use. How is it that we could have put the pieces of the atomic bomb together while at the same time knowing very little about the little bits and pieces that make the bomb tick (pardon the pun)? Or the more important question. What drove these scientists to pursue what they admit to be unknowable? Why is the notion of the electron any less of a guess than the notion there is a God? All the electron has going for it is indirect evidence of it's existence. We can see the effects of electrons, but no one has ever, or will ever see an electron. All we see is shadows, or perhaps more accurately their skidmarks. Is it really all that different with God? No one has ever seen him, but there is plenty of indirect evidence all around us that many, myself included, are ready to accept as compelling enough to believe that god exists. If I can make that leap for the electron, surely I can also make it for the Creator.

If you look into Thomas Huxley's (the father of Agnosis) proposition on matters of the supernatural, it is loosely based on "we can never know, so why bother trying?" I have no quarrel with the "we can never know part", what really irks me though is the idea that because we cannot know, we should not bother trying, or beleiving if you will. Where would we be as a scientific community if this mentality ruled the day? Why didn't they all give up and wait for someone else to provide a picture of the electron. In the face of such uncertainty, why can a scientist persevere and pursue, and ultimately know that the electron exists? Why then raise the white flag when it comes to matters of utmost importance, or THE matter of utmost importance?

Maybe it's just me, but I would rather believe something, chase it down and be proved wrong than to live my life sitting on the fence waiting for the answer to be delivered to me. Just seems like the ultimate cop-out to me.

The next step gets a bit fuzzy for me - and that is how you make the step from knowing that there is a god to knowing that this god is the one described in the Bible. This is where everything needs to become personal and you truly need to experience before you can beleive.