Free The Cupel Recruits by Susan Willshire Page B

discussion of God for the moment, but assuming that you, and anyone else who wants to operate on that premise internally, wants to do so, then try to answer the next layer down— if there were a God, putting aside which God and whose God, but assuming it’s irrelevant which God we’re talking about, however you think of it, what might His purpose be?”
    “To create life,” David repeated.
    “So the universe is an interaction of matter, space and time for the purpose of creating life?” Saraceni hoped restating the amalgamated concept might demonstrate its inadequacy. “But why? Is anything missing from that definition?’
    Alexander had an epiphany and couldn’t believe he hadn’t said it earlier. He’d spent an entire conference in Copenhagen discussing just this concept.
    “Information!” Alexander revealed.
    “Excellent,” Saraceni rewarded, “can you summarize in a way that can be understood by the non-scientists in the room?” Alexander thought for a moment. It was his nature to think in terms of formulas and the math of it. To translate it into layman’s terms wasn’t as easy as keeping it in mathematical terms. He stumbled at the start.
    “Well, information processing is occurring all the time. Every particle-electrons, photons, they are all processing information all the time. The basic unit of information being the bit, or binary digit, which gives a choice between two alternatives, um, so, then in quantum physics the particles information-processing is counted in qubits, meaning a particle can be in a yes state and a no state at the same time,” Aquila was still struggling to find the right words, but improving.
    Saraceni interrupted, “Simpler.”
    “Well, it’s like every particle in existence at every moment has two choices. It can act in a way to say “yes” or to say “no” to any potential action, or question, or….command. But, quantum physics says that a particle can answer “yes” and “no” at the same time, so it expands the possibilities exponentially as to how it can process information.”
    “You mean like it answers itself “yes” and goes in one direction and then at the same time answers itself “no” and then it’s answering any question with all possible answers at one time?” asked Chandra
    “Basically,” Alexander answered
    “Why? What’s the advantage to that?” she asked.
    “Efficiency,” Juliet responded, “If you were trying to answer a bunch of questions, it’s faster to answer all the potentials at once. Like if someone asks you which way you wanted to take to the airport and your answer was “it depends”. If you said” If we’re leaving Saturday morning, I’d like to take the interstate and then they asked, well, what if we leave Wednesday morning and then you’d say you wanted to take the back way. You would have answered the question more thoroughly and conveyed more information concisely if, when they first answered the question, you had responded ‘If we leave on a weekday, the back way, but if we leave on the weekend, the interstate would be fastest’.”
    “So the universe cares about how efficiently we answer questions? You’re saying God cares how much information we gather?” Chandra asked Juliet, still not sure she was following. Saraceni now took back control of the class, having let them develop the idea naturally to this point.
    “Yes, whoever designed the universe cared about how we gather information. Since the universe itself is in fact a quantum computer where each particle carries and transmits information, information-processing does seem to be one purpose.”
    “Wait, now the universe is a computer?” Jane asked,” You’re saying we live inside an actual computer, like the one in my office? What are you talking about?” Being an anthropologist, Jane did have a scientific mind, but not as strong a physics background as some others in the class.
    “Not like the one in your office. The universe is