Does God play dice with the universe?
Hare Krishna. Question.
What did Einstein mean when he said that God does not play dice with the world? Answer. Einstein's statement originated from a particular scientific context and a particular conception of God which he had. So Einstein did not believe in a personal God.
Rather he referred to the orderliness that he saw in nature and he considered that as a manifestation of divine intelligence. So that was his conception of God which was formulated largely by a European thinker Spinoza without going into technicalities of his conception of God. The focus is largely on the point that he had the idea that rather than talking about God as a God as a person who who transcends or who intervenes within nature, he saw that the orderliness within nature itself was a manifestation of a higher intelligence and that he called as God.
So when the theory of quantum of quantum physics, quantum mechanics basically quantum theories were developed there they seemed very disorderly. So whether it was quantum indeterminacy. So there are certain features of quantum physics where things cannot be determined and things seem to be very disorderly and unpredictable.
And yes there are certain equations which can predict the collapse of the wave function but apart from that there are also the problem that ultimately it seems very chancy how things happen. So Einstein also said that I would like to believe that the moon continues to exist even when I am not looking at it. So this was one of his statements when he said when his point was that in quantum physics the idea is that there are no solid objects existing there are only waves and at particular points when those wave functions I'm not going to go into the technicalities but when the wave function collapses at a particular time when there is an observer making an observation and so waves become waves appear or manifest as things when there is an observer doing an observation.
So this is of course a very very bare bones simple very simple explanation of a complex subject what quantum physics is but the point is when Einstein said that if quantum physics implies that the moon does not exist if I am not looking at it this is an unbelievable thing. So his point was that God acts in an orderly way and where quantum physics talks about indeterminacy not just in terms of inability of the human mind to perceive the difference but in terms of the thing itself being indeterminate. So indeterminacy means that at some level if you put a thermometer in a lake to measure the temperature of the lake now that thermometer is meant to measure the temperature of the lake but the rather than the if the observer and the observed value are very close to each other then rather than the observer reflecting the observed value the observed value itself may change because of the observer that means if there is a very small drop of water and if we try to measure the temperature of that drop of water with thermometer then the thermometer at a higher temperature contact with the thermometer may increase the temperature of the water itself and because of that the observation may get skewed.
This is the limitation of the instrument that we are using. So this is understandable but further indeterminacy as Einstein saw it especially in something quantum entanglement and other other aspects like that of quantum theory so basically he said that the indeterminacy is not because of our inability or our incapacity that indeterminacy is an inherent feature. So basically when he saw the disorderliness that was conceived by quantum theory he that militated against his conception of God as a disorderly as manifested in the orderliness of nature and that's why he came up with the idea that God does not play dice.
Now if you look at this statement from the from the Gita's perspective we will see that yes Krishna says mayadhyakshena prakriti suryate saccharacharam that ultimately he is the supervisor of material nature but while he is the supervisor Gita also states that actually within the material nature there are levels and that material nature is also om poornamadaha poornamidam it is complete in itself and because it is complete now we understand the absolute truth is complex so material nature itself is complex so at some level material nature may exhibit orderliness and at some level it may not exhibit orderliness so why it may not exhibit orderliness it may be because we cannot perceive the orderliness it may well also be because there is Krishna wants it to be in oneself disorderly Krishna is a person and he can do whatever he wants so the point here is that both conceptions are compatible with the Gita's conception of God because God at ultimate level is or is the overseer of material things and the orderliness which we see in material nature manifests God's God's greatness and also whatever doesn't seem orderly in our in nature in our observation that can also be seen as evidence of the complexity or irreducibility of God's intelligence that means we cannot comprehend God's intelligence God's intelligence is not reducible to human level and in that sense both the orderliness within nature and the disorderliness within nature both can be seen as manifestations of God's intelligence and or God's presence or God's manifestation in this world and that's why it is not that so as when I Einstein make this thing God play God does not play dice so and he got the famous equally famous repository that don't tell God what he can do so that means that there are there are within advanced science there are systems which there are chaotic systems where their behavior of such systems doesn't seem to be according to Newtonian physics and rather than seeing their behavior in terms of laws their behavior is in terms of statistical patterns and again without going into technical complexities over here the important point is to recognize that the we can see God's intelligence or God's presence in certain ways such as the orderliness of nature but we shouldn't reduce God only to that if you reduce God only to that and then when we see some more thing which doesn't seem orderly and that then in that we will not be able to accept and more importantly beyond the immanent conception of God as he is manifesting through the orderliness of nature the more important for us is also the transcendent conception of God where he is beyond nature and where he exists in his own in his self same splendor so there God does not have to play dice God actually plays with his eternal associates in his eternal abode and therein lies the ultimate revelation towards which the Gita points and so rather than getting into the technicalities of the workings of material nature we can focus on that transcendental manifestation of the divine as revealed in the Gita and redirect our heart towards that thank.