From Guy Inchbald
Recent correspondence about processes versus particles as the fundamental phenomena of the universe rather misses the point (3 July, p 31, and 17 July, p 24). It is the same argument that has been going for at least 2500 years since the days of the Taoist sage Lao Tzu.
Whether we choose to model a particular phenomenon as an object or a process is purely subjective. Quantum wave-particle duality is an up-to-date example of this. A wave is essentially a process, while a particle is essentially an object. An electron has some attributes of each, and yet is neither. We choose the aspect which happens to be useful to us at the time.
The not-very-related issue as to who made God may be resolved similarly. As scientists, we note that there is no logical distinction between the phenomena produced by God and those produced by the universe – anything which comes from the one also comes from the other.
Formal logicians would say that this implies a logical identity of God and the universe. In simpler language, they are just two aspects of the same thing, and to ask which made the other is as meaningless as to ask whether an electron is a wave or a particle.
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