Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel?

Is Quantum computing the new Tower of Babel?  Don’t worry if you’re not sure what a quantum computer is.  Even if you know nothing about quantum computers, this is an interesting question.  I’ll even give you the answer tight up front.  It’s no.  And it’s yes.  No and yes at the same time.  Which, not coincidentally, is a big part of what quantum computers are about.  Up until quantum computing, everything about computers was based on something being on or off.  True or False.  One or zero.  Now – with the wonderful world of quantum computing, it can be yes, no, and maybe – all at the same time.  

Enough with the quantum computing lesson.  Let’s get into the title question.

The Tower of Babel

Ge 11:1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech. 2 As men moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

OK – we’re not talking about the exact same kind of language.  Quantum computing languages, like any computer language, are for humans to talk to machines – not human to human.  But computer languages do perform a similar function.  And at the level the computer actually uses to function – they are all the same.  It’s not like an American computer has a different language than a Chinese one. 

At the level of 0’s and 1’s (called bits) for what is now being called legacy computers (like the one you’re reading this on now – or the one your hard-copy was printed from) all use the exact same combination of 0’s and 1’s to do the exact same things.  With quantum computing, it’s not bits, but qubits, which can be 0, 1, or both at the same time.

So, while not the language we normally think of, at its core it is one language understood by all computers and one language understood by all quantum computers.

Ge 11:3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar. 4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

Obviously, computers aren’t built with stone, tar and bricks.  However, there is a major upgrade in the materials used for quantum computers as compared to legacy computers.  If you compare the image above to the computer you (probably) have at home, you’ll see they are quite different.  Plus, your home computer runs quite nicely at the temperature in your apartment, condo, house, Etc.  Quantum computers must be very close to absolute zero degrees.  That would be -459.67 Fahrenheit.  Or -273.15 Celsius. 

No, they aren’t building a tower to reach to the heavens.  Not literally anyway.  More on that shortly.

Ge 11:5 But the LORD came down to see the city and the tower that the men were building. 6 The LORD said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

Back at that time, in order to thwart the plans of people, God introduced various languages.  Interestingly, the effects of that are becoming less and less.  While not common enough in the U. S., many other countries have their kids learn more than one language.  And I don’t mean just take a couple years of French or Spanish – but to really learn it and be able to talk with people in various languages. 

And then there are things like Google translate.  This page can be translated into more than 100 other languages by choosing one from the Translate list towards the top right of the page.

Ge 11:8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Question – Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel?  And if so, will God allow it to continue to completion?

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel?

Before we get into what God might do, let’s look more into the question of whether or not quantum computing is the new Tower of Babel.  Earlier, I said it was.  And that it wasn’t.  But what does that mean?  How can the answer be both yes and no?  It really is both yes AND no.

And it’s not like those sports analysis things you may have read.  They give maybe 10 reasons why some team will win a championship.  And then they turn around and give 10 reasons why that same team cannot win the championship.  But really, in sports, like most things in life – a team either wins or loses.  It’s just not possible to do both.

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel? — No

No – quantum computing is not the new Tower of Babel.

Remember verse 4:

Ge 11:4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

This verse is described many different ways in various commentaries.  The specific questions we want to examine here are (1) why a tower that reaches to the heavens and (2) what is meant by we may make a name for ourselves.  Building a city is no longer any great thing to accomplish.  Cities are all over the place.  Even exotic cities in the middle of the desert.  The same is true for being scattered over the face of the earth.  This has already been done.  There are no new lands to found.

Here is one way the motivation for the tower is explained:

Although there was doubtless a religious significance to the tower, it probably did not represent a developed state of idolatry. It appears certain that it represented a humanistic venture from which God was excluded. The later development of idolatry here seems to indicate that this tower signifies early man’s attempt at self-salvation—another way to heaven. God had commanded Noah and his sons to populate the earth, a command which necessitated their scattering abroad. Now they announced their purpose to stay together and to build a city and tower for themselves, with the tower reaching unto heaven itself, that they might make a name for themselves—a name which would hold them together.

The Tower of Babel was built some time before 2500 BC.  It was also after the flood and after the command from God to repopulate the earth:

Ge 9:7 As for you, be fruitful and increase in number; multiply on the earth and increase upon it.”

So here are the reasons why quantum computing is not the new Tower of Babel, as far as this issue is concerned.  These people didn’t want to be scattered any more.  They wanted to stop travelling – stop leaving some family and friends behind – but stay in one place and defy God’s command to repopulate the earth. 

We saw that the re-population part is no longer an issue.  However, we must also consider the part God plays in this.  Back in Genesis – those people were out to defy God.  That means they both knew that God was real and they knew what God’s command was.  Neither of those is necessarily true today.  From all the research I’ve done into this area, I see no indication at all pointing to quantum computing being about an attempt to defy God.  God seems to have nothing to do with it.

The five occurrences of the first person pronoun in their recorded speech hints at thoughts of self-sufficiency and self-exaltation. Here is the first recorded evidence of man’s disposition to thwart God’s purpose by an attempted inbred self-sufficient exclusiveness. This was repeated by the Hebrews whom God placed at the crossroads of the ancient world that they might become the disseminators of God’s revealed truth concerning the coming Messiah to the nations of the ancient world. At Jerusalem they built themselves a city and a temple around which they centered their interest and their lives to the exclusion of the pagan world and often made of the temple and even the city itself an object of worship—an idol, instead of worshiping the God of the temple. Thus God allowed their forceful dispersion among the nations in order to fulfill His purpose to get His message to those nations. Again and again the Christian Church has repeated this error and thus failed God’s purpose of world evangelism through her.  ^[1]Haines, L. (1967). The Book of Genesis. In Genesis-Deuteronomy (Vol. 1:1, pp. 56–57). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

While self-sufficiency and self-exaltation are certainly involved, the rest of what is said here doesn’t apply either.  The people involved in this project want to do something that was never done before.  It would be a pathway to fame – and probably fortune.  Most likely driven by huge egos.  But God?  No – I still don’t see it.

Another commentary says this:

we be scattered over the face of the whole earth  – Towers (or ziggurat temples) and their associated cities were the heart of economic distribution systems in ancient Mesopotamia. The goals of building both—which this passage clearly presents—amounted to the rejection of God’s command and blessing in Gen 9:7.  ^[2]Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible (Ge 11:4). Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.

This is very similar.  Economic distribution is no longer strictly about passage of goods from one place to another.  Huge amounts of money are available to be made through computing with the internet as the pathway.  Quantum computers can, allegedly, solve whole new classes of problems – some at a much faster rate, and some that were previously impossible to solve at all. 

But again, there’s the issue of God’s command and blessing.  The evidence that the people leading this charge care or even know about Genesis 9:7 just isn’t there.

Let’s look at one more:

11:4 These people wanted to become famous as the Nephilim (giants) were before the Flood. Motivated by pride and arrogance, they wanted to make a name for themselves. lest we be scattered: They feared that they might be dispersed—by implication, by the Lord—and not achieve the greatness they sought.  ^[3]Radmacher, E. D., Allen, R. B., & House, H. W. (1997). The Nelson Study Bible: New King James Version (Ge 11:4). Nashville: T. Nelson Publishers.

This one says they didn’t want to be like God.  Instead, they wanted to be like the Nephilim that were on the earth before the flood.  While there are a number of suggestions about who the Nephilim were, one thing they do seem to agree on is that they were extremely powerful.  That’s very much in line with wanting to achieve something that was not possible before.  In an age where knowledge is power, quantum computing could bring incredible power.

The bottom line to our question – Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel? – would be no.  At least it’s no as relates to wanting to thwart the will of God.

But there’s more to this question.  Let’s keep going.

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel? — Yes

To look at the “yes” side of this question, we turn to thenextweb.com.  They recently published an article titled Researchers prove the arrow of time is irrelevant to quantum computers.  The article begins with this:

An international team of scientists recently published groundbreaking research indicating quantum computers aren’t handicapped by a classical view of time. Grab a cup of coffee, we’ll explain.

Just to be sure we’re all on the same page of the same book, the classical view of time is that it marches onward.  There’s no going back.  Time machines are things of science fiction and time travel can never actually be possible.  For example:

Imagine a movie scene where a car drives off of a cliff, plummets downward, and finally explodes when it impacts with the ground below. That makes perfect sense, even viewed through our limited understanding of physics. The same idea can be applied to our understanding of the real world.

…

But what if we’re not talking about straight lines and single trajectory arcs? What if we toss a handful of glitter up in the air and freeze the frame when the majority of flakes are at their apex?  (In other words, a single image at a point in time, where most of the glitter has reached the top of the path it’s taking – and are about to stop going up and to start going down.)

You could, theoretically, run a classical simulation to determine where each would land going forward, but doing the same thing backward would be exponentially more difficult and require a much more powerful computer processor.

Not quite time travel.  But being able to predict both the past and the future from a known state.  Or from a “given” state, where a scenario is manually given to the computer – and it’s job is then to predict backwards and forwards from there.  

How is this possible?  For that, we go to an article titled The First Quantum Computer You Own Could Be Powered by a Time Crystal from futurism.com.

Time crystals can exist — it’s already been proven. Previously, two teams of researchers created their own time crystals that bend the laws of space and time. One of these, from the University of Maryland, used a chain of charged particles called ytterbium ions. Meanwhile, the other team from Harvard University created an artificial lattice using synthetic diamond.

Both setups demonstrated the quantum system behind such an object, and both produced new materials that work as time crystals.

Since it was first conceptualized in 2012 by physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, time crystals have made its way out of the theoretical and into the real world. It took — you guessed it — time, because time crystals are essentially impossibilities. Simply put, a time crystal is like conventional crystals, but with an added twist. Instead of just lattices repeating in space, it also repeats in time by breaking what’s called a time-translation symmetry.

OK – that’s a lot of scientific mumbo-jumbo to most people.  What does it mean?  Let’s go back to thenextweb.com to take a fun, understandble look.  The article is titled Check out these 5 wild and wacky quantum computer facts for cool people.

Time-travel is real and quantum particles can do it.

It’s a well-known fact that it takes 1.21 gigawatts of power for a Delorean to travel through time, but not every lab has enough space to fit a car inside. Also, Deloreans can’t time travel, quantum particles actually can.

Work published last year by an international team of scientists indicate they exploited quantum mechanics to send some tiny quantum particles back in time. It’s a far cry from the Tardis, but we gotta start somewhere.

For anyone who has seen any of the Back to the Future movies – you get this.  True – we’re only talking particles for now.  However, it’s impossible to imagine that sending particles back in time is the end goal here.  Time travel – backwards and forwards has been a desire for scientists and science fiction writers for a long time.

What does time travel have to do with the Tower of Babel?

Plenty.  

Whether any of us choose to admit it or not, time is a restriction that’s placed on us by the way our universe was created.  Not by chance.  By God. 

For the first people on earth, water would likely have been their first restriction.  As they were spreading out over land, the presence of a large body of water – an ocean or very large sea – would have been an obstacle.  But was that really an insurmountable problem?  No, because part of their command from God was this:

Ge 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Ge 1:27 So God created man in his own image,
in the image of God he created him;
male and female he created them.

Ge 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Ge 1:29 Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. 30 And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.

God told them to fill the earth and subdue it.  Not keep going until you reach some water – then stop.  It’s more like the implied command was – when you reach water keep going.  Given this, it’s only natural that God would have given them the ability to construct a means to cross that water – as they did.  

Enter the Tower of Babel

Rather than obey God’s command to repopulate the earth after the flood, Noah’s descendants eventually decided to go against God’s command.  Rather than spread out, they wanted to go up.  In fact, they wanted to reach the heavens.  And they did it to defy God.  They did it thinking it was a way for them to subvert God’s will that they continue to spread out.  As we saw, they failed miserably.

Ge 11:8 So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. 9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Enter time travel

Now that the land has been populated, what’s next?  Living underwater was a thought at one time.  But it doesn’t seem to be happening.  Given our inability to construct buildings that survive severe natural events on land – I certainly wouldn’t be volunteering to go live underwater.  At least on land there’s a possibility of being able to escape a building that’s crumbling.  But under the ocean?  Forget it.

The same was true for space travel.  When I was a kid, there was all this talk of going to a planet near Alpha Centauri.  We haven’t even put a man on mars, let alone get out of our solar system.  The prospect of getting to another group of planets around Alpha Centauri isn’t even something we hear about any more.

The only way to go at this time is in fact “in time”.  Go back to the past.  Go to the future.  As in Back to the Future.  There are a whole lot of issues with that.  What would we do to individual people or even entire civilizations if we could travel back in time.  And it gets even worse with multiple people going back and undoing what previous travelers had done.  

I’d have to believe that’s at least one of the reasons God put us in a universe that inexorable marches forward.  There’s no going back.  No redo’s.  No undo’s.  No messing things up.

At the very least, time travel is an attempt to subvert God’s will.  It’s people trying to do something that we weren’t meant to do. Even if we refuse to admit it.

Everything in the Bible is really about the future.  Yes, the past is in it.  But it’s to learn about and especially to learn from.  It’s not because God wants us to go back and change things.  He doesn’t want us to correct what happened before. 

He doesn’t even want us to go back and proclaim the Gospel to the people who lived in the Old Testament times.  Remember that we read this earlier:

The five occurrences of the first person pronoun in their recorded speech hints at thoughts of self-sufficiency and self-exaltation. Here is the first recorded evidence of man’s disposition to thwart God’s purpose by an attempted inbred self-sufficient exclusiveness. This was repeated by the Hebrews whom God placed at the crossroads of the ancient world that they might become the disseminators of God’s revealed truth concerning the coming Messiah to the nations of the ancient world. At Jerusalem they built themselves a city and a temple around which they centered their interest and their lives to the exclusion of the pagan world and often made of the temple and even the city itself an object of worship—an idol, instead of worshiping the God of the temple. Thus God allowed their forceful dispersion among the nations in order to fulfill His purpose to get His message to those nations. Again and again the Christian Church has repeated this error and thus failed God’s purpose of world evangelism through her.  ^[4]Haines, L. (1967). The Book of Genesis. In Genesis-Deuteronomy (Vol. 1:1, pp. 56–57). Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

God has told His people, more than once, how we can be saved.  He doesn’t tell us to do it ourselves.  To the extent that we don’t do what He commanded us to do – The Great Commission for Christians – it’s at least partly our fault that others are not saved.  To try to provide salvation through a means other than that provided by God condemns not only us, but those who follow our misguided attempts.  

Now – whether we consider God part of the equation or not – going back in time to try to “fix” things is nothing short of opening the door to exactly those kinds of misguided attempts. Even if that’s not our objective – it’s going to happen.  

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel? — Yes

So we’ve look at the “no” answer.  And we’ve looked at the “yes” answer.  Both are correct. 

The next question is how does God view this answer of Yes AND No at the same time?  After everything we’ve looked at, I have to believe that the answer from God’s point of view is “yes”.  Following from that, the truth is – for any Christian – if God view’s time travel is an attempt to subvert His will – then our view should be the same.  Ultimately, that means trouble will come from this adventure into quantum computing.

Further, no matter how well-intentioned any Christian group might be, do we honestly think that any means of time travel wouldn’t also be used for purposes that are not at all in line with God’s will?  

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel? — what’s next?

Back with the original Tower of Babel, we read the punishment from God was:

the LORD confused the language of the whole world. From there the LORD scattered them over the face of the whole earth

But what about now?  As I said – there’s no more scattering around the world.  New languages would be a temporary problem.  One that would be quickly solved by people with computers.  Does that mean God is stuck?  There’s nothing He can do about what we’re trying to do?

Well, not really.  Actually, not at all.  Since God is not bound by the time restrictions that we have, He already knew this day would come.  And He already has a plan to deal with it.  Do I know what that plan is?  No.  Can I imagine some possibilities?  Sure.

How about an EMP?  An ElectroMagnetic Pulse.  Whether it came from the sun or a man-made weapon, an EMP could destroy all the computers.  That would certainly put an end to this modern Tower of Babel.

For our last look at what’s next (maybe), we turn to Hebrew University, Jerusalem.  Sputniknews.com has an article titled Computer Race, Placing Encryption at Ever-Greater Risk.  The opening segment is this:

Israel’s government has handed a tender to build a national quantum communications system to Hebrew University, Jerusalem. The project aims to develop homegrown technology to protect data privacy, although given the privacy risks inherent in quantum computing, there are questions over who or what the system will be directed at.

This is about Israel’s program – reported by a Russian News Organization.  That explains the point of view – concern about how this will turn out.  Of course, Israel isn’t the only country interested in quantum computing.  Russia is also working on it.  As is China.  And the U.S.  As well as other countries.  And companies.  So the race is on.

Here’s what’s happening:

The University says the US$2.13 million system, to be developed at its Quantum Information Science Center laboratory, will use single photons as the communications medium — quantum bits make it possible to perform calculations in new ways that are not possible in current communications systems or even supercomputers.

Current methods of encrypting data are increasingly vulnerable to attacks, as the increased power of quantum computing comes online.

Quantum communication systems use the laws of physics to secure data and are therefore resistant to attacks.

The bottom line is that quantum computers will supposedly be able to break current security systems very quickly.  That last statement is really only about half way true.  Yes, quantum systems will provide for better security.  At least against current computer capability.  But really, who doesn’t believe that the same folks who are working on making their own data more secure aren’t also working just as hard on trying to break the quantum security systems developed by everyone else?  No one’s talking (that I’ve seen) about the upcoming battle of quantum systems.  Whose will win?

There’s a reason that’s important.  In the time of the original Tower of Babel, the people were all working together to build the tower.  These days, that just doesn’t happen.  We work against each other.  We try to steal and destroy each other’s work.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?

Lk 11:17 Jesus knew their thoughts and said to them: “Any kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and a house divided against itself will fall. 18 If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand?

While the knowledge to do good things with quantum technology must come from God, it’s also true the Satan will be right there to corrupt it.  Whatever good might come from it, there will also be things that aren’t good at all.  But in the quantum computing scenario, with various groups working against each other – does God even need to get involved?  Will we destroy each other with it, obviating the need for God to even step in?

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel? — Conclusion

From what we’ve seen, quantum computing is the next iteration of the Tower of Babel.  And it’s not.  It’s about power.  To some extent arrogance.  And whether we realize it or not, it’s also at least partially about changing the dynamic of time that God has placed us in.  But it’s equally true that parts of the Tower of Babel scenario don’t fit what’s happening today.

Here’s what’s missing in all of this:

Mt 22:37 Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

There was a time when most of the higher education around the world was in religious institutions.  Lots of discoveries and inventions.  But as time moves on, even the universities and colleges that started out as Christian are more and more becoming anti-Christian.  There was also a time when things were done “for God and country”.  A fair amount of that had a really twisted idea of God, so I’m not saying it was all good.  What I am saying is that it shows the decay of our relationship with God.

But now – it’s about power and money.  There’s little, if anything at all, about God.

We really should be wondering – when will He finally get tired of it?  I mean tired of it as in:

The Throne in Heaven

Rev 4:1 After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”

This is when God finally steps in.  When He has had enough.  Part of what happens after that is this:

Rev 21:5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

Rev 21:6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. 7 He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.”

Is quantum computing the new Tower of Babel?  Is this is the point at which God says “enough”.  We just don’t know.  We can honestly answer both yes and no.  But how does God answer that question?  We really should be asking ourselves if we’re going a step too far towards creating the new Tower of Babel.  And we really should be asking if we’re going too far beyond the tasks given to us by God for our life on this earth.

But we won’t ask.  And that’s the real concern here.  We won’t ask, because the too many of the people doing all of this don’t even know they should be asking.  They don’t know God.  So they can’t know there were guidelines for us here on this earth.  And therefore, they also cannot know anything about whether or not the limits are being pushed.

The time will come.  We just don’t know when.  As you read the passage below, keep in mind that when it says “soon” – it’s better translated as “quickly” – as in all of a sudden – without notice.

Jesus Is Coming

Rev 22:7 “Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book.”

Rev 22:8 I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9 But he said to me, “Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!”

Rev 22:10 Then he told me, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. 11 Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy.”

Rev 22:12 “Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

Rev 22:14 “Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15 Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

Rev 22:16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

Rev 22:17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

Rev 22:18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Rev 22:20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

Rev 22:21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Amen.