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Showing posts with label quantum physics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quantum physics. Show all posts
"Buddhism has all the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogma and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
Albert Einstein: "Science without religion is
lame. . . . Religion without science is blind."
In the book "The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama," editor Arthur Zajonc makes the following comments on the ways in which the so-called "New Physics" has turned classical understandings of the cosmos and reality on their ears:
"During the three centuries that established classical physics and cosmology," Zajonc observes, "the mechanistic and materialistic character of physical theory came to dominate Western thinking even outside these areas. Increasingly, philosophy came under the powerful sway of science through such thinkers as Descartes, Kant and Locke. The life sciences, longing for comparable precision, sought out a similar path to development to that of physics. Genetics, evolution, and cellular biology displaced natural history and whole-organism biology. The mind itself, traditionally understood as the expression of the spirit, gradually became part of the mechanistic universe as well. By the dawn of the twentieth century, the physics of the seventeenth century had successfully conquered the adjacent areas of science and was already encroaching on that of the mind. A single mechanistic paradigm and its associated materialistic metaphysics came to dominate Western thinking."
However, he notes:
"With the opening of the twentieth century, the theories of quantum mechanics and relativity would make incomparable demands on our conception of the universe. We are still struggling to grasp their full implications. They challenge the simple mechanistic accounts of matter and the cosmos we inherited from earlier centuries, replacing them with accounts that shun such pictures. In addition, both quantum theory and relativity grant a new prominence to the observer. It is hard to overestimate the significance of these developments. The ramifications of twentieth-century discoveries for physics and cosmology have been enormous, changing our very notions of space and time, the ultimate nature of matter, and the evolution of the universe. They have also begun to affect philosophical discussions in significant ways."
For his part, the Dalai Lama notes that, "In Buddhism in general, and particularly in Mahayana Buddhism, the basic attitude is that you should remain skeptical at the beginning. This skeptical attitude automatically brings up questions. Questions bring clearer answers, or investigation. Therefore, Mahayana Buddhist thinking relies more on investigation rather than on faith. . . (An) attitude that is very, very helpful in communicating with scientists."
"There are two kinds of wrong views," the Dalai Lama notes. "One exaggerates what is actually there, superimposing onto a thing a property of existence or status that is not there. The other denies what is actually there. So both absolutism and nihilism are seen as wrong views. Thus, even in ethical discourse, a correct understanding of reality is very much emphasized. Therefore, scientific findings are very helpful to Buddhist thinking."
The three-part video discussion, below, (like the dialogue between scientists and the Dalai Lama in 'The New Physics and Cosmology') examines the areas where "the new physics" described by Zajonc seemingly converge with traditional Buddhist teachings about emptiness, Oneness and the nature of 'reality.'
"All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind. This Mind is the matrix of all matter.
-- Max Planck --
"Buddhism has the characteristics of what would be expected in a cosmic religion for the future: it transcends a personal God, avoids dogma and theology; it covers both the natural and spiritual, and it is based on a religious sense aspiring from the experience of all things, natural and spiritual, as a meaningful unity."
-- Albert Einstein --
The Dalai Lama and the late cosmologist, Carl Sagan
"When I speak with open-minded scientists and philosophers of science," the Dalai Lama observes in his book "The Universe in a Single Atom," "it is clear that they have a deeply nuanced understanding of science and a recognition of the limits of scientific knowledge. At the same time, there are many people, both scientists and non-scientists, who appear to believe that all aspects of reality must and will fall within the scope of science. The assumption is made that, as society progresses, science will continually reveal the falsehoods of our beliefs - particularly religious beliefs - so that an enlightened secular society can eventually emerge."
"In this view," he continues, "science is perceived as having disproved many of the claims of religion such as the existence of God, grace, and the eternal soul. And within this conceptual framework, anything that is not proven or affirmed by science is somehow either false or insignificant. Such views are effectively philosophical assumptions that reflect their holders' metaphysical prejudices. Just as we must avoid dogmatism in science, we must ensure that spirituality is free from the same limitations."
"Clearly," he concludes, "this (scientific) paradigm does not and cannot exhaust all aspects of reality, in particular the nature of human existence. In addition to the objective world of matter, which science is masterful at exploring, there exists the subjective world of feelings, emotions, thoughts, and the values and spiritual aspirations based on them."
"If we treat this realm as though it had no constitutive role in our understanding of reality," he cautions, "we lose the richness of our own existence and our understanding cannot be comprehensive. Reality," he points out, "including our own existence, is so much more complex than objective scientific materialism allows."
Indeed, as many scholars working at the leading edge of science - particularly those scientists investigating the phenomenon of consciousness itself - have pointed out, there seems to be a convergence of physics with the metaphysics of the world's great non-dualistic wisdom traditions (particulary with Buddhism and the Advaita Vedanta). The following videos serve as a wonderful introduction to this seemingly strange intersection of the worlds of cutting-edge science with traditional Buddhist philosophy and metaphysics.
Knowing scientifically, that the space within the atom is 99.999999999999% empty, that what "matter" does exist therein is more probabilistic than "real," and that even such probabilistic particles are fundamentally entangled with every other particle in the universe is bound to redefine our collective worldviews going forward.
The intriguing aspect of the "truths' discovered by modern Western scientific inquiry and technology, is that all of these principles were largely anticipated by millennia old Eastern wisdom insights. The question then becomes, one supposes, whether ancient traditions, like Buddhism, can (as Einstein observed) serve as the basis for building a truly "cosmic religion for the future." For, in these days, the future seems more imperiled than ever by outdated religious traditions and understandings - traditions and understandings that seem to conflict evermore directly with mankind's burgeoining scientific understanding.
Rene Descarte's famous dictum, "cognito ergo sum" ('I think, therefore, I am'), while logical and apparently self-evident on its face, may be wholly wrong. Voices as varied as spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle, and Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Werner Hesienberg (who first developed the eponymous 'Uncertainty Principle' that forms an integral component of the quantum theory), have critiqued Descartes on precisely this conclusion. "I am, therefore, I think," would perhaps be a more accurate summary for Tolle, who has identified "thinking without awareness" as the main problem of humanity.
For his part, Heisenberg in "Physics and Philosophy:The Revolution in Modern Science," observes that Descartes' distinction between internal reality (res cogitans) and outer reality (res extensa) skewed science so that it looked almost wholly to the external, a viewpoint that cannot be sustained given the role of the observer in quantum mechanics.
"(T)he basis of the philosophy of Descartes is radically different from that of the ancient Greek philosophers," Heisenberg notes. "Here the starting point is not a fundamental principle or substance, but the attempt of a fundamental knowledge. And Descartes realizes that what we know about our mind is more certain than what we know about the outer world. But already his starting point with the "triangle" God-World-I simplifies in a dangerous way for further reasoning."
"The division between matter and mind or between soul and body, which had started in Plato's philosophy, is now complete. God is separated both from the I and from the world. God in fact is raised so high above the world and men that He finally appears in the philosophy of Descartes only as a common point of reference that establishes the relation between the I and the world."
"If one uses the the fundamental concepts of Descartes at all," Heisenberg continues, "it is essential that God is in the world and in the I and it is also essential that the I cannot be really separated from the world. Of course Descartes knew the indisputable necessity of the connection, but philosophy and natural science in the following period developed on on the basis of the polarity between the "res cogitans" and "res extensa." The influence of the Cartesian division on human thought in the following centuries can hardly be overestimated, but it is just in this division which we have to criticize later from the development of physics in our time."
[Heisenberg, "Physics and Philosophy," pp. 52-53]
"If one follows the great difficulty which even eminent scientists like Einstein had in understanding the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory," Heisenberg remarks, "one can trace the roots of this difficulty to the Cartesian partition. This partition has penetrated deeply into the human mind during the three centuries following Descartes and it will take a long time for it to be replaced by a really different attitude toward the problem of reality."
Perhaps, a better summary, and one that both Tolle and Heisenberg might accept is "observare ergo sum" - "I observe, therefore, I am" - for it is the observer that finally determines the outcome in quantum mechanics, coalescing one reality out of an infinite number of possibilities, and for Tolle it is the witnessing Presence of the observer that stymies the ego and makes his or her world whole.
. . . . . . . . . . . . .
For a detailed introduction to the work of Heisenberg and the development of the quantum theory, particularly as it relates to consciousness, the cosmos and our Being, see the related post ("God, Quantum Physics and Cosmology: A Video Compilation"), which is available, below.
An interesting and informative video introduction to quantum physics, cosmolgy, the "new physics" and their relationship to "God" has been put together by UNFFwildcard on YouTube ( "God and Cosmology I").
Very detailed, the video series (embedded below) is nonetheless a concise explanation of the "new physics" and the problems and possibilities that quantum theory presents for our understanding of the cosmos, consciousness and, perhaps, an omnipresent God that pervades and supports the universe.
Video for God and Cosmology - Part 4 is available for viewing on YouTube by following this link.
From his writings and talks it is clear that the Dalai Lama is one of the world religious leaders, perhaps the world religious leader, most influenced and accommodative to learning from, and perfecting his religious knowledge with, the teachings of modern science.
In his introduction to the XIV Mind and Life Conference convened in 2007 in Dharamsala, the Tibetan leader-in-exile's residence, and based around his 2005 book, "The Universe in a Single Atom," the Dalai Lama observed that there were two challenges facing Buddhism in Asia: the first a political challenge, which he declares "not serious," and the second challenge coming from modern science itself.
"From the Buddhist point of view, and particularly from the Nalanda (or) Sanskrit based tradition," he observed, "one can see this reality as a challenge (and) opportunity for further exploration and discussion. These challenges can be seen as an opportunity for gaining new, fresh insights. We have brought this point up right from the beginning of our Mind and Life dialogues, that from the particular view of this particular brand or lineage of the Nalanda tradition, since the fundamental epistemological standpoint of this tradition is to really appreciate the need for evidence and reasoned-based understanding."
"So that, if there are certain facts, which as a result of experiment and based upon evidence, if we see clear evidence of their presence, then these are something Buddhists will have to accept as part of their reality. And if there are certain facts which even may have been part of the Buddha's heritage for a long time, and mentioned in the sutras and so on, if as a result of constant investigation and experiment no evidence is found, and furthermore if contrary evidence is found from the scientific side, then even if these have been part of the Buddhist tradition and explicitly mentioned in the texts, then we will have to reinterpret them."
"As far as external matters are concerned," he notes, "I think modern science (is) a more elaborate authority. I feel like that. Now, as far as internal matters, emotions or mind, (in) that field Buddhist, like ancient Indian thought, I think long experience and a long history (has) maybe some potential to contribute understanding about emotion or mind, and also how to teach sophisticated emotions."
"The Universe in a Single Atom' is a personal, and very successful attempt to chart the interface of Buddhist teachings and the new physics, particularly the remarkably similar (although differently termed) teachings of the Bhuddist Abhidarma teachings and quantum theory.
Explaining the importance of the Abidharma teachings on 'emptiness' - a concept expounded by the great Mahayana scholar Nagarjuna - the Dalai Lama writes that "at its heart," the concept of 'emptiness' "is (a) deep recognition that there is a fundamental disparity between the way we perceive the world, including our own existence in it, and the way things actually are. In our day-to-day experience we tend to relate to the world and to ourselves as if these entities possess self-enclosed definable, discrete, and enduring reality."
"According to the theory of emptiness," he writes, "any belief in an objective reality grounded in the assumption of intrinsic, independent existence is untenable. All things and events, whether material, mental or even abstract concepts like time, are devoid of objective, independent existence. To possess such independent, intrinsic existence would imply that things and events are somehow complete unto themselves and are therefore entirely self contained."
"A human being is part of the whole called by us the universe, a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest. A kind of optical delusion of consciousness."
"This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from the prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."
The videos below, follow the lengthy proceedings of the XIV Mind and Life Conference, session by session. Readers may want to select from amongst the different talks by subject to see just how closely these leading minds from Buddhism and various scientific fields come to a convergence where spirituality and insights from meditative contemplation meet leading-edge science.
DAY ONE A.M. - Introductory remarks by the Dalai Lama. The Buddhism-Science Collaboration and the Limits of Scientific Knowledge: Exposing the Fracture Points. Dialogue Leader: Evan Thompson.
DAY ONE P.M. - Atomism, Emptiness, Interdependence and the Role of the Observer in Quantum Physics and Buddhism. Dialogue Leaders: Anton Zeilinger and Arthur Zajonc.
DAY TWO A.M. - Mental process underlying attention, visual perception, and cognitive control.
DAY TWO P.M. - Paying attention to awareness - "attention", "mindfulness" and "clear comprehension".
DAY THREE A.M. - Mental processes for attention and cognitive control in children and adolescents.
Day Three P.M. - The utility of improving attention and working memory with mindfulness-based training.
DAY FOUR A.M. - The attention-emotion interface.
DAY FOUR P.M. - Consciousness. Dialogue Leaders: Wolf Singer, Richard Davidson and Evan Thompson
DAY FIVE A.M. - Embodiment and intersubjectivity - empirical and phenomenological approaches.
\
DAY FIVE P.M. - Education, application, Buddhism and technology.
The following talk on quantum physics and consciousness by Dr. Amit Goswami (of "What The Bleep Do We Know?" fame) gives the viewer an insightful look into the behind-the-scenes operation of quantum phenomena in forming the world we see, a world formation that is driven by our consciousness in Dr. Goswami's view. It is in quantum mechanics, says Dr . Goswami, that science first encounters the free will of the individual, an intriguing proposition that brings science full circle to its metaphysical roots in natural philosophy.
"Consciousness is the Ground of Being," says Goswami, and our present is conditioned by all the past effects - our "memories of 'who I am'' - which are all reflected in what he calls the "mirror of our memories." In realizing that "the observer is the observed," he notes, we gain true "wisdom."
"But there really is no free lunch," Goswami warns, "we have to meditate and reach these non-ordinary states of consciousness before we become the creator of our own reality." Yet, this is not necessarily such a great leap, he observes. "As this is (becoming) clear," he notes, "we are getting a new wave, a new generation of enthusiastic investigators who are ready to take this leap."
After we take such a leap, "instead of playing in a small pond," says Goswami, "we play in the bigger arena of the world itself. We become a citizen of the universe."
Among scientists, as polymath lecturer, Alan Wallace points out, it is still generally considered "impolite" to bring up the question of what 'consciousness' is. Consciousness, it seems, is still very much the 800-pound gorilla in the science lab or classroom.
Yet, as Wallace observes, William James (one of the fathers of modern psychology), in speaking on the subject of consciousness more than a century ago, remarked: "That which we ignore recedes from our experienced sense of reality." This is, of course, a danger that Wallace made clear in the first half of his extensive lecture (embedded below) highlighting the problem that consciousness still presents for the mainstream of Western science.
At the beginning of the 21st century, Wallace observes, we have more information about the 'Big Bang' and the nano-seconds thereafter than we do of the origins of human consciousness. "There are no scientific means," Wallace notes, "of detecting the presence or absence of consciousness in anything, including you or me right now."
It is odd, Wallace points out, that we have virtually no knowledge of something which is so intimate to each of us. "Right now," he observes, "if one were were to ask cutting-edge people, that is people working in the cognitive neurosciences . . . what are the necessary and sufficient causes for the origination of consciousness in a human being . . . the answer would be: 'We don't know.'"
Further, Wallace asks, what is the nature of matter? This, of course, is perhaps the great question - with 'some' solutions (matter is essentially the same as energy, Einstein demonstrated) - of the new physics that emerged at the beginning of the twentieth century with the framing of both relativity and quantum theory. "There was something called twentieth-century physics," Wallace notes, "that makes the chunks of 'stuff' get very, very ethereal."
Wallace points out that "by the time you have the 'measurement problem' in quantum mechanics that makes at least suspect the very existence of quantum phenomenon before they are measured - in which the role of measurement remains a mystery in understanding the significance (and) the nature of the quantum realm - by the time you are speaking about probability waves that are being measured and that somehow collapse into actual particles . . . then matter has somehow become more ethereal than was assumed in the nineteenth century."
"You can," he notes, "(even) raise the question: 'Is there any energy in the nature of empty space itself?'" And the answer is, he points out, likely 'yes.' There is, he points out, a growing scientific consensus that the universe emerged from a quantum fluctuation and is imbued with 'dark energy' and 'information' about the original fluctuation that we cannot even directly observe, although the mathematics indicates that it is there.
"As soon of you speak of the universe of space, time, mass, (and) energy as an emergent property arising out of a hidden (and) underlying dimension of information, the question of consciousness at least can be raised," Wallace observes. Information being, at least on its surface, a matter of the mind, the whole question of consciousness should therefore, according to Wallace, be once again kicked back into the scientific debate of just what the universe is. And yet, as he points out again, any scientific agreement that consciousness itself is a valid subject for scientific inquiry is still somehow lacking.
"Instead of simply assuming that the mind emerges from matter, Wallace concludes, it is possible now . . . and scientifically credible to consider the possibility that space-time and mass-energy all emerge from an underlying dimension of reality that may transcend the very duality of mind and matter."
And, it goes without saying, of course, that this very notion of a non-dual implicate order Wallace speaks of is the essential teaching of all the great Eastern (as well as some Western) wisdom traditions, a point that has not been lost on some of the leading-edge voices - scientific as well as spiritual - who, like Wallace, have probed the rarified and ethereal area where science and Eastern wisdom traditions seem to converge.
In an insightful and encompassing lecture on the competing visions of our origins - metaphysical and physical, spiritual and scientific, Eastern and Western - Alan Wallace, a polymath Buddhist practitioner and trained physicist, traces how the origin of the scientific method has evolved to generally exclude anything that smacks of 'subjectivity' - and, most specifically, the phenomenon of consciousness.
The scientific stricture on limiting its studies to the strictly 'objective' became a very limiting bottleneck in the study of 'reality' with the rise of relativity and quantum theory at the beginning of the twentieth century. In particular, its historical preclusion of anything that that might be construed as 'subjectivity' became more and more untenable as one delved further into the role that the 'observer' (or consciousness) plays in the microcosmic world of atomic sub-particles
The brilliant Werner Heisenberg, one of the fathers of quantum mechanics, in his book, "Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science," highlights (and questions) the extent to which 'subjectivity' was precluded from 'classical physics,' a prejudice that was carried over, with mixed results, into the so-called 'Copenhagen Interpretation' of quantum theory.
In "Physics and Philosophy," at page 29, Heisenberg writes:
"In classical physics science started from the belief - or should one say from the illusion? - that we could describe the world or at least parts of the world without any reference to ourselves. This is actually possible to a large extent. We know that the city of London exists whether we see it or not. It may be said that classical physics is just that idealization in which we speak about parts of the world without any reference to ourselves. Its success has led to the general idea of an objective description of the world. Objectivity has become the first criterion for the value of any scientific result. Does the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory still comply with this ideal? One may perhaps say that quantum theory corresponds to this ideal as far as possible."
"This division," between 'subjectivity' and 'objectivity,' Heisenberg observes, "is arbitrary and historically a direct consequence of our scientific method; the use of the classical concepts is finally a consequence of the general way of human thinking."
But is this really a consequence of "the general way of human thinking," as Heisenberg posits? In the first part of a compelling, if lengthy, lecture, Wallace traces how the strictures against 'subjectivity' arose because the scientific method, ironically, arose out of traditional Christian theological and metaphysical assumptions and worldviews.
"From the time of Copernicus, right on through Kepler, Galileo, Newton and so forth," Wallace observes, "science as we have come to know it has been overwhelmingly extrospective in its orientation (and) its perspective. To understand the nature of reality scientists have looked outwards."
"There are very good reasons (that scientists look outwards), and a lot of them are based in Christian theology," Wallace observes. "It's very important to bear in mind that a great majority of the founders of the scientific revolution were themselves devout Christians. A number of them were theologians, such as Newton himself. And so there were very deep metaphysical underpinnings to the scientific revolution. It was not by any means a revolt against religion," Wallace declares, "but rather an expression of it for many of its participants."
"The scientific aspiration from the time certainly of Galileo on through Newton and for quite some time after that," says Wallace, "was to know the objective world from a God's eye perspective, free of the limitations of human subjectivity."
"Prior to the scientific revolution, prior to the Protestant Reformation," he notes, "there was Christian theology and there was together with that a fairly strong . . . contemplative ideal (and) discipline founded by people like Augustine and the earlier Desert Fathers - and later right on through the Medieval period - that was largely introspective in nature. . . . But with the Protestant Reformation there was this movement outwards, and so one finds no strong inward contemplative tradition, so to speak . . . in the new Protestant Reformation."
Wallace notes that "the Protestant Reformation . . . did have a contemplative mode to it, an active mode of inquiry into 'reality,' but (one) which stood instead of contemplative practice - sitting quietly, introspecting (and) going within one's own soul - (and) looked outwards."
"I think you can virtually regard scientific research, or scientific . . . methodology, as being like the contemplative counterpart for Christian Protestant theology," Wallace observes.
The methodology of third-person 'objectivity' (a cornerstone of the modern scientific method), Wallace notes, was thus developed as a method to check that personal subjective biases were not clouding the way in which a 'God's-eye view' would actually look upon the 'reality' of the physical world.
This has been "extremely successful for opening up that facet of reality that lends itself to third person investigation, namely the physical world" Wallace observes. "The disadvantage of that is that it ignores - simply because it refuses to attend to scientifically - those facts of reality that do not lend themselves to that type of third person public scrutiny. What leaps to mind," he notes, "is the whole range of subjective phenomena."
"What happens," Wallace asks, "if your authorities for knowledge very intelligently and for a sustained period and in multiple ways attend to one aspect of reality, and in a very concerted way, scientifically speaking, ignores another aspect . . . (or) domain of reality?"
Wallace cites the pioneering American psychologist and philosopher William James, who, in his classic work, "The Principles of Psychology," observes that:
"The subjects adhered to become real subjects, attributes adhered to real attributes, the existence adhered to real existence; whilst the subjects disregarded become imaginary subjects, the attributes disregarded erroneous attributes, and the existence disregarded an existence in no man’s land, in the limbo “where footless fancies dwell.” . . . Habitually and practically we do not count these disregarded things as existents at all . . . they are not even treated as appearances; they are treated as if they were mere waste, equivalent to nothing at all."
And so, this quirk of the Eurocentric evolution of the scientific method excludes the radical 'subjectivity' of millennia of Eastern philosophical and psychological insights, thereby erecting a largely artificial interpretive barrier to understanding consciousness and the subtler aspects of 'matter' that are increasingly less amenable to Western interpretations as quantum theory and our understanding of it develops. A point that is well made by Wallace in the first part of his lecture.
"God is in the macrocosm and in the microcosm." said Sri Ramakrishna, the great self-realized sage of late 19th-century India. In this all encompassing and prescient observation, Ramakrishna foreshadowed the struggle which scientists, philosophers and spiritual seekers alike are having in trying to understand and put into words the relationship between traditional notions of spirituality and consciousness with the findings of 'the new physics,' and the particular difficulty they have in describing the startling nature of the quantum theory, which says an act of conscious observation is necessary to 'determine' what happens at the smallest levels of 'matter.' (Indeed, it is difficult even to think or talk about 'matter' at such small levels, where the quantum physicist describes 'matter' as a probability wave, and the determination of 'matter' as the collapse of the probability wave function triggered by an act of conscious observation.)
In the video, embedded below, a host of 'new age' spiritual teachers and scientists explain why consciousness is a fundamental component - and, perhaps, the fundamental component - of the 'stuff' our universe is made out of.
Perhaps the most important of Einstein's many crucial contributions to 'the new physics' was to show that 'matter' and 'energy' are the same thing (the logical result of relativity theory and his famous e=mc2 equation). Now the great challenge, or holy grail of science, is to show how energy and consciousness itself act together in determining our physical 'reality,' a 'reality' which may not be as 'real' as we most commonly assume.
"There is no 'matter' as such," observes spiritual teacher, Wayne Dyer, quoting Max Planck, the forefather of quantum physics. "All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
"Matter seems like a good place to begin," notes medical doctor turned best-selling author and spiritual teacher, Deepak Chopra. "The solidity of the world seems totally indisputable. As a fixed thing that you can see and touch, your body is also reassuringly solid. But beginning with Einstein, modern physics has assured us that this solidity is a mirage."
"There is no 'matter' as such. All matter originates and
exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle
of an atom to vibration and holds this minute solar system
of the atom together. We must assume behind this force
the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This
mind is the matrix of all matter."
"It is the act of consciousness," says one commentator, "that actually creates the building blocks the universe is made of. I can't imagine a universe that exists without us, because it is the act of us observing the world around us that is creating, (that is) allowing us to create as we go, a 'participatory universe.'"
"We may never find the edge of our universe as we are looking to define what this universe looks like," he notes. "We many never find the smallest particle in the quantum world to see what this 'stuff 'is that we are made out of. And the reason is, because everywhere we look - everywhere that consciousness explores with the expectation that something will be there - that exploration, that act of looking (or) observation, is the act that creates something for us to see. We are actually building this universe as we go," he notes.
In re-introducing his theory of the "Implicate Order" in his later work, "Unfolding Meaning," theoretical physicist and spiritual iconoclast, David Bohm highlighed the differences between the two leading strains of what may be called the 'New Physics' - relativity theory and quantum mechanics - two physical theories that still challenge scientists to synthesize their findings in a true "theory of everything."
"Relativity requires strict continuity, strict determinism and strict locality. In quantum mechanics you have to say the opposite - discontinuity, non-determinism and non-locality. The physical concepts of these two theories have not been brought together, although people are working out equations and methods of doing it mathematically. But the physical meaning has never been made clear."
[David Bohm, "Unfolding Meaning: A Weekend of Dialogue," p. 8.]
Of course, written in 1985, this description of the state of theoretical physics continues to hold true today. Although there have been a host of contender theories, like 'string theory' and the 'multiverse theory,' none has been accepted as closing the theoretical gap between relativity and quantum theory.
There has not yet emerged a consolidated, unified theory that accounts for both the macrocosmic effects of relativity theory and the microcosmic effects of quantum mechanics. Moreover, and one cannot but speculate that this is a result of not being able to reconcile relativity and quantum theory, science has not yet been able to formulate a unified theory that explains how the force of gravity is related to the electro-magnetic, weak nuclear and strong nuclear forces in a true "Unifiied Theory, or 'theory of everything."
David Bohm (right) in dialogue with spiritual teacher, Jiddu
Krishnamurti, with whom Bohm collaborated for many years.
Bohm suggests the problem is that we are looking at the phenomena of an "explicate order" only, and that beneath this explicate order" there exists an "Implicate Order" that truly forms the fabric of our 'reality.' "If you want to look at relativity and quantum theory as being together coherently," he observes, "we may ask a new kind of question. Instead of asking how the theories differ, let's ask what they have in common."
"What is common to both is [the] unbroken wholeness of the universe. Each has this wholeness in a different way," Bohm notes, "yet if wholeness is their common factor, that's perhaps the best place to start."
And, indeed it is from this "unbroken wholeness" of the universe, that many subsequent researchers and theoriststs have started. But with the continuing failure of such de riguere and exotic attempts as "string theory" and "multiverse theories" to reconcile these two great branches of modern physics - and, even more so, to give us a plausible "picture" of what the substratum of our glimpsed "reality" is - Bohm's notion of an as-yet unobservable "Implicate Order" remains convincing.
Indeed, it is echoed in the words of Bernard d'Espagnat, the French physicist and winner of the prestigious 2009 Templeton Prize (for research at the intersection of science, philosophy, and religion), who "developed the idea that the reality revealed by science offers only a 'veiled' view of an underlying reality that science cannot access, and that the scientific view must take its place alongside the reality revealed by art, spirituality, and other forms of human inquiry."
"Quantum mechanics allows what d'Espagnat calls 'weak objectivity,'" writes David Lindley in ScienceNow, "in that it predicts probabilities of observable phenomena in an indisputable way. But the inherent uncertainty of quantum measurements means that it is impossible to infer an unambiguous description of 'reality as it really is.'" D'Espagnat "has proposed that behind measured phenomena exists what he calls a 'veiled reality, that genuinely exists, independently of us, even though we lack the ability to fully describe it."
"D'Espagnat's writings on quantum mechanics lay out with great clarity the genuine puzzles that quantum mechanics presents," says Jeffrey Bub, of the University of Maryland. "But," Lindley notes, there is a certain skepticism "about finding common ground among notions of reality from art, science, and spirituality." As Bub remarked to Lindley, just because there's something strange about the physical world that quantum mechanics isn't telling you, "it doesn't follow that those gaps can be filled with poetry."
And yet, in close resemblance to Occam's famous 'razor,' a certain "elegance" of theory is one factor that science seems to favour in selecting one scientific paradigm for another. And in that "elegance" there appears what may almost be thought of as "the art of science." In suggesting his notion of what constitutes an "Implicate Order" out of which our 'reality' is unfolded (or what d'Espagnat would qualify as falling behind the "veil") Bohm's technical language and vision have an artistic feeling and dynamism of their own:
" . . . (T)he movement of enfolding and unfolding is ultimately the primary reality, and . . . the objects, entities, forms, and so on, which appear in this movement are secondary.
. . . (Q)unatum theory shows that the so-called particles constituting matter are also waves similar to those of light. One can, in principle, make holographs using beams of electrons, protons, and so on, as well as sound waves -which has been done. The point is that all mathematical laws of the quantum theory that apply to these waves, and therfore all matter, can be seen to describe just such a movement in which there is a continual enfoldment of the whole into each region, along with the unfoldment of each region into the whole again. Although this may take many particular forms - some known and others not yet known - this movement is universal as far as we know. I'll call this univeral movement of enfoldment and unfoldment 'the holomovement.'"
"The proposal is that the holomovement is the basic reality, at least as far as we are able to go, and that all entities, objects[and] forms, as ordinarily seem, are relatively stable, independent and autonomous features of the holomovement, much as the vortex is such a feature of the flowing movement of a fluid. The basic order of this movement is therefore enfoldment and unfoldment. So we're looking at the universe in terms of a new order, which I'll call the enfolded order, or the implicate order."
"The word 'implicate' means to enfold - in Latin, to fold inward. In the implicate order, everything is folded into everything."
To Bohm, it is in this intricate and artistic dance of the enfolding and unfolding that our 'reality' takes form, seemingly separate yet entangled with, and an integral part of, the unseen and underlying "implicate order." It is in this dance, perhaps, that one finds expression of the largely unnoticed artistic side of physical reality. And it is the "unknown" or perhaps the "unknowability" of our most basic realities that draws us to try and interpret this dance for ourselves.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Basil Hiley, Emeritus Professor of Physics in Birbeck College, Univerity of London;
a colleague of David Bohm, on Bohm's Implicate Order and Quantum Physics.
For the atheist, the seeming absurdity of the phenomena of 'quantum entanglement' likely raises for-now unanswerable questions; for the agnostic it must give wavering pause and cause him or her to suspect (once again) that something larger is going on in or beneath the universe; for the 'spiritual but not religious' it is likely to be a confirmation that there is a Wholeness or Unity to our 'reality' that is radically different from 'traditional' Western portrayals of what "God" is and how "He" operates. For the latter, an understanding of the basics of quantum entanglement will confirm that the representation of the 'Old Testament' God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is just that - an artistic 'representation' that was, more or less, coerced from Michaelangelo. It suggests, in fact, that we live in a physically, spiritually and psychologically "Entangled Universe."
Quantum entanglement is just one of many aspects of quantum theory that cannot be understood or 'pictured' very well, perhaps most so by those who are capable of 'best' understanding it. Fundamentally, it means that 'things' (experimentally, 'particles') that were once part of a single entity or system somehow remain connected thereafter; and if one makes an 'observation' that determines the properties of one 'part' of the former entity or system, the other part will instantaneously exhibit the opposite but equal property.
"Quantum entanglement is a property of the quantum mechanical state of a system containing two or more objects, where the objects that make up the system are linked in such a way that the quantum state of any of them cannot be adequately described without full mention of the others, even if the individual objects are spatially separated."
(Source: Wikipedia, "quantum entanglement.")
In simpler (and more illustrative) terms, when two particles come together and form a 'system,' thereafter "they behave like one object, but remain two separate objects. It is as if they now sit on the same teeter-totter seesaw. No matter how long the seesaw is, even if it is one million miles long, if one end is down the other end must be up, and this happens instantly." (Source: Simple English Wikipedia, "quantum entanglement.")
The "EPR paradox" (Einstein/Podulsky/Rosen) unsuccessfully
challenged the notion of quantum entanglement. (Wikipedia)
This 'radical' interconectivity at a distance (or 'non-locality,' as it is called in physics) gave Einstein fits. Although it did not cause the great scientist to pull out his iconic hair, he spent much of his latter career trying to disprove the phenomena. Along with his colleagues (Podulsky and Rosenstein) he proposed the "EPR Paradox" thought experiment in order to challenge the notion of entanglement, as according to relativity theory nothing travels faster than light; the speed of light (the c in Einstein's famous E=mc2 formula) being the notional "speed limit" of the universe.
Einstein was unsuccessful, however, and Scottish physicist John Bell showed in 'Bell's Theorem' that such 'super-liminal' (or "faster than light") connectivity must exist. This was proved, experimentally, in 1972; and thereafter the notion that one particle or 'thing' over 'here' is an integral part of a system with some 'thing' over 'there' - even when over 'there' is a distance of thousands or millions of light years - fell away, and it began to seem that Western physics and cosmology was looking more and more like the cosmology and 'physics' of Eastern wisdom traditions.
(See article on Einstein's spiritual or 'religious' beliefs.)
The ideas of Buddhist 'dependent origination' (that everything that 'is' arises from interrelated and prior causes or phenomena) and "Indra's Many-Jewelled Net" from Hinduism (in which every bit of the universe is connected to and holographically "reflects" every other bit of matter) are beginning to look more and more like how Western physics was beginning to model the universe.
Perhaps this is just speculative and coincidental, but many informed scientists suspect that it is not. In any event, it has given great impetus to people who would classify themselves as 'spiritual but not religious' to question further the traditional notions of outwardly religious beliefs and dogma. More and more, it appears that the scientific and inner religious or spiritual traditions, as well as Western psychology are beginning to meld and overlap. Perhaps, they are destined to merge, as the following video on "Where Science and Buddhism Meet" suggests.
Or, as Gary Zukav observed in his now classic book, "The Dancing Wu Li Masters,," (at page 31), "(P)hysics is (becoming) the study of the structure of consciousness."
“. . . If there is knowledge, it will be done away with. For what we know is incomplete and what we prophesy is incomplete. But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will be done away with.. . . Now we see only an indistinct image in a mirror, but then we will be face to face. Now what I know is incomplete, but then I will know fully . . ."
David Bohm, the renowned physical theorist - who was at once the contemporary, colleague and friend of both Einstein and the renowned spiritual teacher, Jiddu Krishnamurti - proposed that there is a for-now imperceivable "Implicate Order" within which our perceivable universe (the "Explicate Order") unfolds. "I would say," he wrote in his treatise, "Wholeness and the Implicate Order," "that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete but which is an unending process of movement and unfoldment. . . ."
Over and over, Bohm observes that the basic problem we have in understanding ourselves, each other, and the basic nature of our 'reality' - particularly in the West, which is still in the grips of a more-or-less 'classical' Newtonian worldview - is that we tend to break up or "fragment" the universe, the world, mankind, and even our thoughts, in order to 'understand' them, rather than trying to obtain a holistic vision of what we perceive.
"Being guided by this view," he observes, "man then acts in such a way as to try and break himself and the world up so that all seems to correspond to this way of thinking. He therefore obtains an apparent proof of his fragmentary self-world-view." (This echoes Einstein's comments about the commonly held world-view that he described as a sort of cosmic "optical delusion of [man's] consciousness.") It is a world-view that has grave implications, according to Bohm:
"Fragmentation is . . . an attitude of mind which disposes the mind to regard divisions between things as absolute and final, rather than as ways of thinking that have only a relative and limited range of usefulness and validity. It leads therefore to a general tendency to break up things in an irrelevant and inappropriate way according to how we think. And so it is evidently and inherently destructive. . . .
When man thinks of himself in this fragmentary way, he will inevitably tend to see himself first - his own person, his own group - he can't seriously think of himself as internally related to the whole of mankind and therefore to all other people. Even if he does try to put mankind first, he will perhaps think of nature as something different to be exploited to satisfy whatever desires he may have at the moment. Similarly he will think body and mind are independent actualities. . . . Physically this is not conducive to over-all health which means wholeness, and mentally, not to sanity which also has a similar meaning."
In a five-part 1989 interview (hosted on SeekerAfterTruth.com) that was filmed at the Neils Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, Bohm lucidly - given his vast knowledge, wide yet cohesive interests, and keen intellect - holds forth on a wide range of interrelated topics. These include the relationship of the quantum and relativity theories to a holistic spiritual or metaphysical view of our 'reality,' the interconnectedness of all 'things' (including humankind) in a 'Wholeness,' the conflict between Western and Eastern worldviews, and the underlying 'deep roots' of the world's looming environmental problems - problems which stem from our treating world resources as separate "fragments" instead of the interrelated parts of a larger whole.
The "must-see" Bohm interviews capture one of the great minds, as well as great spiritual seekers, of the past 100 years at the height of his understanding of the "inter-relatedness" of all 'things' in the universe and our tendency to perceptively and conceptually break 'everything,' including (perhaps most importantly) our human interactions into 'fragmentary,' unrelated pieces.
"Science without religion is lame,
religions without science is blind." Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
It has never been satisfactory for me to subscribe to a belief system that contradicts science (not a belief system restricted to the narrow limits of science, but not a system contradictory to science within those limits). As the Dalai Lama noted in his book, "The Universe In a Single Atom," if one's religious doctrines conflict with science, it is the doctrines that must be re-examined in light of scientific progress. Or, as Einstein observed, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Because of my own background (my father and mother were a nuclear scientist and Christian Scientist, respectively), and my own education (psychology/sociology, followed by a law degree), I also needed a spiritual or religious perspective that squared with the findings of both the so-called “soft” social sciences and was harmonious with the humanities.
Physics, psychology and metaphysics/theology are the leading disciplines in the sciences, social sciences and humanities, respectively. Fortunately, all three seem to point to the perhaps unacknowledged, but nonetheless undivided, ‘Wholeness’ of which our respective ‘realities’ are intricate and integral parts. I find this most reassuring, while I endeavour through practice to penetrate this Wholeness at greater depths and for longer duration until, … well, who knows until, really?
I was fortunate in growing up without a forced understanding of some anthropomorphic and punishing God-man "out there" somewhere, like the roof of the Sistine Chapel come to spiritual life. Yet growing up in a Western culture, this was the common-place "idea" (or so I understood it) of a superman-like God which I rapidly rejected.
On the wall of my bedroom, growing up, was a plaque setting out what is known as the "Scientific Statement of Being," by Christian Science founder, Mary Baker Eddy. It read:
"There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual."
Obviously, this view had a large impact on my thinking. Yet I could not ascribe to the "matter is mortal error" dogma. I understood matter to be very 'real' indeed. Nor could I get behind the whole "spiritual healing" shtick. It seemed, and seems, to be a fixation with physical health and death - and, worse yet, a denial of science - which seemed rather besides the point, particularly with the rapid medical advances in the last 150 years.
Science, of course, does not have all the answers. Yet, as Richard Dawkins notes in one of his rote speeches (quoting J.B.S. Haldane), "The universe is not only queerer than we suupose; it is queerer than we can suppose." Yet science is plodding away, as it should (and as metaphysics should). The findings in quantum dynamics theory - that there is no 'reality' (per se) but only a quantum 'flux' or potential until there is an "observation" that crystallizes our 'reality' - seem both astounding and awe-inspiring. It appears, indeed, that perhaps "All is infinite mind."
In his book, "The Commanding Self," the late Sufi author, Idries Shah, wrote:
“People follow one creed or system after another, each one believed to provide the answer, the thing that will solve all problems. In the West, for instance, people followed religion and threw it up for ‘reason’; then they put all their money on industry and finally on technology. Until they run out of panaceas they are unlikely to cure this habit."
Of course, there are no panaceas that provide lasting satisfaction. What humanity needs is a synthesis of understanding between the three great branches of knowledge: science, social sciences and metaphysics. Fortunately, it seems like the leading edges of the principal disciplines of these branches are beginning to converge and point to a "Unity" in which we are all participants. Out of this convergence we will undoubtedly come to know more of this Unity or Wholeness.
This Unity was captured succinctly in the teahcings of one of the great Chassidic Rebbes ('Chassids,' or 'Hasssidics,' despite all appearances, are members of perhaps the most 'progressive' and certainly the most 'mystic' branch of the ancient Judaic religion):
"Einstein received acclaim for demonstrating that energy and matter arre the same thing. The scientist who demonstrates how all forces are one in a unified theory will receive greater acclaim. So, since we all agree that someone will eventualy establish this, why not accept it right now, and we'll call it G_d?"
In a Google TechTalk (see here for video and analysis), Alan Wallace calls the predominant scientific paradigm, a "consciousness-formed-inside-the-brain" perspective, "the retinal blind-spot in the Western scientific viewpoint." Now, his video is of a talk he gave to Google in 2007, and I understand that a lot of work is now being done with respect to seasoned meditators and brain MRIs etc. - a lot of this work being inspired by Wallace himself - yet, I wonder how much of this research is even investigating the opposite viewpoint (the traditional Eastern philosophical and psychological view) that consciousness is separate from, formative, and greater than the brain.
Neural Ridge (bottom and left)
Heart/Circulatory System (top)
On a related note. . . . Sometime ago I saw a video on the development of a human embryo. Shortly after the fertilized egg cell begins to divide - when there is a very minimal number of cells - a dark "neural ridge" appears. It will later "evolve" into the central nervous system and brain. Shortly thereafter, a 'group' of cells begins to pulse, cells that will develop into the heart, lungs and circulatory system, as the ebryo grows through its amphibian, reptilian and mammalian stages to form a complete and viable human being.
(I know that this "recapitulation theory," or the "theory of embryological parallelism," is controversial; yet it seems indisputable that the developing embryo goes through various stages that mimic the evolution of humans from single cells to fully formed human individuals. Certainly, neuroscientists distinguish between the "reptilian" brain, the "mamallian" cortex, and the "primate's" neo-cortex.)
My question is: How is there some form of 'consciousness' built into the DNA that causes these developments to take place?
At the genetic level that DNA proteins form (from adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosene, as I remember from High School biology), we are very close in degrees of magnitude to the atomic and sub-particulate levels where quantum effects begin to be the determinative factors. As quantum "events," sub-particles continually flash into and out of 'existence' seemingly instantaneously.
Yet we "know" that a quantum event need an "observer" and "observation" in order to collapse the probability wave that is all - apparently - that is "real" in any sense before an initial act of "observation" takes place.
How is there an "observation" that collapses the "probability waves" of the particles and sub-particles from which DNA is constructed at an atomic level?
Of course, the biggest challenge for modern physics is probably how to square the quantum dynamics that can be observed at the microscopic and cosmic level with relativity theory that operates at the macrocosmic level. (I like to think, as Sri Ramakrishna observed, that "God is in the microcosmos and the macrocosmos," a conclusion Einstein would undoubtedly support.)
I can only conclude that there is a pervading "consciousness" throughout our universe that is, in a quantum theoretical sense, the "observer." The renowned physicist (spiritual seeker and colleague of both Einstein and Krishnamurti), David Bohm, as explained in "The Dancing Wu Li Masters," said that it makes absolutely no sense to talk about a quantum system that is smaller than the universe itself. It is all part of an explicate "Whole" beneath which an "Implicate Order" operates. This is, of course, the conclusion that Eastern yogis and sages came to many thousands of years ago. It is certainly the view of the Buddhist Abidharma which, while old, is not as old as the Upanishads that express this holistic and cosmic perspective quite clearly.
Or, as Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita (Chap. X:42):
". . . Know that with one single fraction of my Being, I pervade and support the Universe, and know that I AM."
