There is a field of physics called Quantum Mechanics. Unlike Classical physics, sometimes called Newtonian Physics, quantum mechanics does stuff that seems like magic. While much of it is theoretical, some of its theories have been proven by experimentation in the last few years.
One of the most fascinating concepts to me is quantum teleportation, which involves something called entanglement. While I have taken several years of collage physics, I don’t pretend to know anything about this as I’ll attempt to explain this in simple terms. Quantum teleportation evolves putting two sub atomic particles (electrons or photons) close together where they become entangled . Then one particle is moved an arbitrary distance away (could be inches, miles, or light years). When one particle is acted on, the second particle responds in the same way. A crude example is having two coins spinning on their edges very close together. In this state they are nether heads or tales. Now one coin is moved away, say 100 miles away, still spinning. You take the first coin and slam your hand down on it, causing it to flatten and come up heads. If you do the same to the other moved coin, it will always come up tales, the opposite. [1]
Another simplified explanation below
Quantum teleportation works by creating pairs of entangled photons and then sending one of each pair to the sender of data and the other to a recipient. When Alice receives her entangled photon, she lets it interact with a “memory qubit” that holds the data she wants to transmit to Bob. This interaction changes the state of her photon, and because it is entangled with Bob’s, the interaction instantaneously changes the state of his photon too.
In effect, this “teleports” the data in Alice’s memory qubit from her photon to Bob’s.
MIT Technology Review
I don’t know about you, but this sounds like magic. Two photons that use to be together are moved thousands of miles away, and you change something in the first photon, and the exact same changes happen in the second photon! Of course, when electricity was first discovered, it seems like magic to most that did not understand it. In years to come will we fully understand quantum teleportation, and the magic will be gone?
When I read about these principles of quantum mechanics, I wonder if this is how God communicates with us. Is this how prayer works? Does the “spirit” use quantum teleportation to put ideas in our head? Are the electrons in our brain entangled with God’s from when He created us, so He can now use this to communicate with us? What do you think about quantum communication?
[1] In physics the coin is a spinning electron, where it is spinning either up or down. When the first observed electron is spinning up, the other one is always spinning down.
Wheat & Tares 
Where could we get the most probable answers?
1. The BYU Religion Department
2. The BYU Science Department
3. Wikipedia
I know next to nothing about quantum mechanics, but I’ve had days when it seems that God has slammed my coin whenever it gets spinning.
Didn’t Einstein supposedly call this phenomenon “spooky action at a distance?” The universe is pretty amazing and I think we understand a teeny tiny part of it, which why I think our understanding of God and how (if?) He communicates with us isn’t knowable. But it interesting isn’t it? I also wonder if this is how teleporting in Star Trek works.
Yes Toad, you know you are dealing with weird stuff when Einstein uses the word “spooky”!
Here in the “real” world, world we know there is no such thing as magic – just things we aren’t seeing. Once a trick is revealed, there is no mystery.
I suppose the same is true of “God-magic” – once we know more we’ll understand that the mechanisms follow “natural” principles and are not magical/spiritual at all. That’s exciting.
For me, the final frontier is to know the “economy” of God. Like @Toad alludes, the answer to “Why” is probably more fascinating than “How”.
As science continues to peel back the curtain, it will be interesting to see if there is anything or anyone there.
Remember that when Newton’s theory of gravity was proposed, critics objected because it asserted “action at a distance” between objects without proposing a mechanism by which such action occurred. How could the Earth and the Sun experience mutual gravitational attraction if they weren’t in physical contact? Or between the Sun and say any and every other star in the galaxy, even at a distance of hundreds or thousands of light-years? That remains a live topic in modern physics, as shown by periodic reports about gravity wave detections and graviton searches. But we don’t doubt the reality of gravity, even if the mechanism is not fully explained yet.
Likewise with evolution. When Darwin’s theory was published in 1859, the biggest objections was no mechanism was identified as able to account for the reliable and stable transmission of characteristics from parents to offspring, with minor modifications. [Darwin’s term was “descent with modification,” not “evolution.”] It wasn’t until the discovery of the structure and role of DNA in the mid-20th century that the mechanism of genetics was identified and, subsequently, elaborated that “the theory of evolution” really carried the day.
So I’m sure the mechanism for quantum entanglement will at some point be nailed down. Yes, it seems like spooky action at a distance, but it seems to be a stubborn if puzzling feature of reality that will, sooner or later, find a better explanation. It’s still a stretch to connect any of this with God, religion, or communication over vast distances. But it does show what a strange universe we live in.
Toad, being a mild Trekkie (or Trekker), I think the Star Trek explanation for teleportation is converting the matter to energy and back. I’ve always thought that was a little ridiculous, because if that amount of energy escaped containment, you could probably say goodbye to everything within a radius of at least a few thousand miles or more. I did read a Popular Mechanics article a few years ago saying quantum mechanics could be used for teleportation in the relatively near future, but that the scanning process in preparation for such teleportation would, as of now, kill us in the process.
Seeing posts like these sprinkled in is quite refreshing. Thanks Bishop Bill.
I’ve only scratched the surface of quantum theory. I’m very much interested “qubits” and their impact on computation and AI applications. The next couple of decades should be fascinating.
As far as a possible application to prayer, it’s fun to speculate. Your possible explanation seems as viable as any other I’ve seen.
I was told of one out of body experience published by a non-member in which she was supposedly able to view the process of prayer. Any time a prayer was offered a beam of light went from the human towards heaven. The more intense or sincere the prayer, the more intense the beam of light. Group prayers also had higher intensity. These beams would in turn be intercepted by “machines” in Heaven. Angels would then come to these machines, transcribe the info onto a “tablet” of sorts, then take it to Heavenly Father for review. My knee-jerk reaction to this story is that it sounds quite ridiculous (but fascinating too), but when you start looking at the nuances of LDS theology (seer stones, urim and thummim, etc.) it really isn’t that far-fetched. My biggest problem with the story is that I think God is far more removed in the process than he would be in reality.
My personal favorite theory is that if Spirit is pure and fine matter, it stands to reason that there is refined energy as well. Perhaps we all have literal “phone lines” connecting us to the Godhead at any given time, in which a signal of sorts can flow freely. Or maybe it’s just wireless, and we all have our own unique frequencies for projecting and receiving this refined energy.
Regardless, my more immediate concern is keeping the receiver close to my ear. It’s not always as easy as it sounds.
Quantum mechanics are fascinating and weird. Speculating about how the gospel could work following natural laws is also fascinating and weird. Orson Scott Card gets into some of this speculation in his sequels to Ender’s game, Xenocide and Children of the Mind. I find it to be a lot of fun. It’s been 10+ years since I’ve read those books, but I remember him having a theory about people being connected (or sealed to each other) with invisible eternal bonds that can’t be broken, which I found fascinating- that could be related to entanglement somehow. I have no idea.
@Beenthere, I’ve recently been learning and thinking about the “economy” of God. What that means and how it could work. @Eli, I think that energy is probably a big part of it. I’m fascinated by the way Eastern religions such as Hinduism talk about energy, and how that could be related to “glory” that we are expecting in the next life.
My belief is that no matter what your religion is here on Earth, we are all going to have A LOT to learn in the next life. Mormons like to think we have more truth than other religions. If that’s even true, I would view it that maybe we have .02% of the truth, whereas other may religions would have .019% of the truth. Our advantage is negligible in the grand scheme of things, and in the next life we will be learning from that .019% that they currently have. The most important thing in this life is to live true to the Truth that you have learned for yourself.
I love the idea that everything is connected and the universe is actually made up of a series of relationships. I am not sure if I would say God made it that way or if I would say that is what God is, but either way I think it’s a cool way of thinking about spirituality and connection.
Hadn’t heard the coin example – crazy! I’ve read and listened to podcasts on these ideas but have no business writing about them so glad you did.
“I love the idea that everything is connected and the universe is actually made up of a series of relationships.”
As I’ve gotten older I’ve become quite convinced of the particular view of the Kingdom.
“..of *that* particular view…”
TBS has a series called “Miracle Workers” starring Steve Buscemi as God and Daniel Radcliffe as an employee who answers prayers in the “lost keys” department. The first episode was hilarious.
Having a degree in Physics, I thought I’d chime in. First, I’d admit that I don’t understand quantum mechanics. This puts me in good company with a number of Nobel Prize winning physicists who openly admitted that they didn’t understand QM either. (Einstein, Bohr, Feynman, etc. according to quotes with varying levels of credibility.) I’d offer a correction to the OP and say that QM, while completely counterintuitive and very hard to grasp, isn’t theoretical and isn’t new. We’ve been running experiments for nearly a century validating QM, and have probably tested the results of QM theory to greater levels of precision than any other area of science. QM has very real-world implications that have been used to understand and create all sorts of things that seem practically mundane to us now including:
– atomic clocks which are the basis for the entire GPS system. (“GPS system” is redundant, I know.)
– Lasers, not just for distracting cats, but CD/DVD players, etc.
– MRI machines. Fun fact, they should really be called NMRI machines (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging) but people quickly figured out that no one wants to climb inside a machine with ‘nuclear’ in the name. It works by literally jiggling the nuclei of the atoms in your body.
– Computers, particularly solid state memory and all those transistors that they can put on chips these days.
So, QM: confusing as all get-out? Absolutely. Mysterious or untested? Not so much.
As to quantum entanglement and quantum teleportation specifically, those two ideas are on the newer end of QM and haven’t yet been developed into something useful beyond a neat science trick done by scientists. I just wanted to add a couple of additional pieces of information, though. First, quantum teleportation only refers to the transport of information, not matter. So this is not related to getting Mr. Spock down to the surface of any planets. Second, quantum teleportation requires sending additional information through normal (“classical”) means. There are definitely cryptography applications here, as quantum communications will allow you to be absolutely sure if someone else has intercepted your messages. Finally, both quantum entanglement and teleportation do not allow for the transmission of information at faster than the speed of light. To use the coin analogy when I stop my coin and see that it is tails, I might instantly know that yours is heads (and you’ll instantly know that mine is tails) but because I didn’t get to choose whether mine stopped on heads or tails, I can’t send any information with it (i.e. some sort of instructions, “if you get heads, buy the chocolate ice cream, if tails, get strawberry.”).
One more bit. I’ve read all the Ender books more time that is really warranted, but the bonding between all objects described by the Enderverse is not bound by time and space, but is bound by will. Those connections might be a representation of the will or soul that all sentient beings have. They can be altered by the (subconscious) choice of the people involved. Probably not a good analog to Mormon sealings. Fascinating to think about (and certainly influenced by OSCs Mormon theology), but also, they’re sci-fi books.
Clark are you conflating quantum theory with relativity?