WHY WE NEED TO UNDERSTAND THE QUANTUM UNIVERSE
In this unity uni-verse what interests me is the intersection of the biological and the spiritual.
Everything about our culture separates the two out
But I always come back to the fact that we as human being can only experience the spiritual through the physical - whatever out of the body experiences we may have they are still experienced from a sentience that is located within matter and there would be no possibility of recollecting or relaying the experience to anyone else were we not still embodied.
This is a central theme on my book on Colin Wilson, excerpts from which you can find on this website.
But I do not believe that it is necessary thereby to designate oneself a materialist; indeed I believe the materialist position is a gross misunderstanding of the facts and is in fact totally unscientific.
Quantum physics has established 2 irrefutable facts about this universe we live
1 there is no such thing as objective reality – the observer is always interacting with and influencing the behaviour of the observed
2 everything is in motion – there is no such thing as matter divorced from spirit or consciousness– there are only varying degrees of motion & interaction of different levels of being
Science has thereby corroborated the essential findings of the Sufi mystics
In a remarkable book THE SHIVA SUTRAS - METAPHYSICAL SHIVA SUTRAS IN MY UNDERSTANDING Susan Ferguson describes the close alliance between the discoveries of Quantum Physic and the mysticism of the Shiva Sutras as follows:
‘The metaphysical concepts expressed long ago in Kashmir Shaivism have correlations in quantum physics. Nick Herbert’s 1985 bestseller, Quantum Reality clearly explains quantum theorems. For example Niels Bohr’s Copenhagen interpretation states, “There is no deep reality…The world we see around us is real enough…but floats on a world that is not as real.” In Kashmir Shaivism, the vivid world lies upon the subtle one.
Physicist David Bohm who is well known for his interest in consciousness and his theories of the Implicate Order says, “Reality is an undivided wholeness…a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the classical analyzability of the world into separately and independently existing parts…The inseparable quantum interconnectedness of the whole universe is the fundamental reality.” There is only the One.
The particle-wave concept also has metaphysical implications. When an electron is observed it looks like a particle - but in “between observations, the same electron spreads out like a wave over large regions of space. This alternation of identities is typical of all quantum entities…[N. Herbert].”
The frequency-level of our consciousness alters our perception of the external in every moment of time. Our consciousness changes the data transmitted through the five-senses as electrical impulses to our brain. The way we observe/see anything is filtered through our consciousness and therefore affects what we experience as our holographic reality. On a deeper level, we are what we believe. Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita XVII.3 says, “Man is made of faith (shraddhas). Whatever faith he has, thus he is.”
Another quantum reality is: Consciousness creates reality. This theorem was supported by the famous world-class mathematician John von Neumann, whose mathematical genius was behind “the concept of the stored-program computer; today’s computer scientists refer to all computers from pocket calculators to giant IBMs as von Neumann machines.”
The quantum reality that ‘consciousness creates reality’ is implied in the ancient teachings of the SAMKHYA: “The universe is made up of two fundamental elements, consciousness and energy…Matter is merely organized energy…The Samkhya envisages 84,000 degrees of the manifestation of consciousness in matter, starting with infinitesimal particles, then atoms…[A. Danielou].”
Kashmir Shaivism: Our hologram is entirely based on our consciousness, what we believe, think, including our subconscious and the words (sounds) we speak. "Consciousness shines in various external and internal forms. There is no existence of objects apart from consciousness. Therefore the world is simply a form of consciousness." [Kalikakrama, as quoted in the Shiva Sutras translated by Jaideva Singh]
Quantum physicist Weiner Heisenberg asserted, “there is no deep reality” and that (subtle) unmeasured world “forms a world of potentialities or possibilities…These tendencies are continually on the move, growing, merging, and dying according to exact laws of motion…But despite all this activity nothing ever actually happens there.”
In these quantum theorems, western science approaches the soul of the seers of Kashmir Shaivism and eternal metaphysics. The non-moving movements of the Shiva tattva as Spanda are continually expanding and contracting, coming into being and dissolving back into non-existence. While in truth, nothing was ever created.
The state of Shiva, the Oneness, is in fact never altered, diminished, or lessened. The totality of God consciousness remains eternal, imperishable, and immutable. “This whole universe…is no universe at all…it is the expansion of your own nature, nothing else. In reality nothing is created at all [SLJ].”’
See:
THE SHIVA SUTRAS - METAPHYSICAL SHIVA SUTRAS IN MY UNDERSTANDING V. SUSAN FERGUSON
You can download this wonderful book here:
Now given these irrefutable facts how is it possible not to collapse into total relativism i.e a condition in which it is not possible to say anything meaningful about anything...
Well from the perspective of Aristotelian logic it isn’t.
I came across a useful summary recently of precisely what Aristotelian logic amounts to in an article on Wilhelm Reich’s Orgonomy :
It would be useful here to summarize the scientific methodology which has been consolidated since the 16th and 17th centuries (and was first introduced by Aristotle in the 4th century B.C., with his “Logic”), and which is applied when a scientific theory attempts to explain a physical phenomenon that is the result of natural cause, with the latter being the target of the investigation. We have two ways of proving, one after the fact (a posteriori) and one before the fact (a priori). The first begins with the result, that is with the pragmatical evidence (a posteriori) and works its way backwards (analytically – by induction) by initially stating its possible causes and by excluding every theory but one suggests a new, logically constructed theory, which supports it, based on undisputed theories. The second way takes for granted (a priori) that there is a cause and, based on this, proceeds (synthetically – productively) and explains why the effects of this cause should happen by necessity. Schematically this can be rendered as follows:
The first way,(i.e a posterior) which is mainly followed by scientific research and tries from the observed particular, composite, partial to grasp the general, simply guarantees the logical existence of the general principle that is being proven, and not its necessity. Consequently, this methodological way of proving scientific theories is only partially reliable and in no way guarantees the timeless and universal validity of the theory.( See http://www.wilhelmreich.gr/en/orgonomy/orgonomy-as-a-science)
Now admittedly the author is seeking to expose the deficiency in the Aristotelian method in order to allow scientific respectability for Reich’s theories...though actually this will never be possible for, as the author acknowledges, Reich’s methodology is entirely rooted in a quantum view of the universe...
The findings of quantum physics undermine entirely the whole premise of Aristotelian logic & Newtonian physics...
What is needed is the willingness to adopt a different perspective
And it comes from Wholeness - where all differentiation is understood to be illusion
I can say this about this or that but what I say will only be true from the perspective from which I am looking at it – and will only be true for anybody else if they are also looking from the same perspective I am looking.
Any advances in science or philosophy come about as the result of a complicit agreement being met with by all parties that subscribe to a particular dictum
So this is not to deny the efficacy of the Newtonian paradigm (rooted in the Aristotelian paradigm). It has produced spectacular results – almost everything that has revolutionised our world since the Industrial Revolution.
But it is a paradigm that is only applicable to the material universe as manifest before our eyes and other senses
The paradigm does not account for the whole of the human experience – which extends way beyond the physical material universe
For this we have to turn to the quantum paradigm. Many books have been written on how closely the quantum paradigm aligns with the findings of mysticism down the ages – see Frank Capra’s The Tao of Physics etc
The quantum paradigm explains the human being to himself in his subjective experience of himself
The Newtonian paradigm explains the world of material manifestation to the human intellect
Thus these are two quite separate functions and two quite separate outcomes – equally relevant, equally necessary and we cannot dispense with either one
And it is a huge mistake to discount either one!
The reason that the world of business and commerce has studiously ignored the quantum paradigm is that it is not relevant or necessary to its functioning. The Quantum paradigm accounts for the WHOLE Picture while the Newtonian paradigm is applicable only to the observable mechanics of the material universe. When it comes to negotiating your way around the material universe the Newtonian paradigm is undoubtedly more useful than the Quantum paradigm...
If a builder is building a house it is of no use to him to know that every brick he places in the outside walls is made up of x number of quanta of energy consisting of billions of sub atomic particles any one of which may radically change its behaviour were he to happen to catch a glimpse of it....any more than it would be any use to a pianist playing a Mozart sonata in A major to know that Schoenberg had done away with the principles of tonality entirely and John Cage & associates had initiated a mode of composition based on aleatoric techniques which render the principle of tonality and sonata form entirely obsolete
The builder still has to build his house and the pianist still has to play the A major sonata – and he only needs to know the things he needs to know to do the things he has set himself to do
Quantum physics on the other hand has been of inestimable assistance in our understanding of how the universe works, in the developments in astro physics – and also, if only we’d look, at the way in which the human being and the human body functions
And you might think well this is all useless information - what does it help us to know re white dwarf stars, black holes etc. What does it help us to know that states of mystical consciousness can only be achieved by abandoning the Newtonian paradigm and allowing ourselves to freefall into the chaos of the quantum universe?
Who needs white dwarfs or for that matter who needs states of mystical consciousness...?
EXCEPT WE DO!
Our failure to see the Big Picture is almost wholly responsible for the chaos that pertains in the world today
Take one example – something close to my heart – the chronic incidence of cancer in the world today – the WHO estimates it won’t be long before 1 in 2 of every human beings will be afflicted by the disease
The Aristotelian paradigm which relies exclusively on ignoring the Big Picture & concentrating on small particulars has failed spectacularly to find any remedy for cancer.
And yet a huge industry has grown up around the disease – so huge, that were the industry to collapse, it would have a massive and deleterious effect on the world economy.
Consequently we are in the ludicrous position of investing in keeping people sick....
The medical industry – I use the term industry as opposed to profession judiciously– studiously ignores the findings of quantum physics which if applied to the science of medicine (as Wilhelm Reich attempted) could radically transform outcomes and render 90% of the industry obsolete.....
But of course it ignores the quantum universe! Why would it want to render itself obsolete? As I have illustrated above we only use the information that is useful to us....
In her book on the Shiva sutras Susan Ferguson talks about our holographic universe - How the universe operates very much like a hologram. As do we - as do human beings – as do all living creatures.
The main feature of a hologram is that a full 3D image can be realised from any small particle of the original 2D image – that is the whole is contained in every little bit of it.
So from the holographic perspective if we view each individual human being as an atom each one of us contains all that there is in the universe – each one of us IS the universe
And yet because we so obdurately focus our attention exclusively on the ends of our noses we lose touch with the Big Picture – we forget that we are so much more and so much less than we think we are....
Here is a passage from a book entitled Music: Physician for Times to Come’ ed by Don Campbell:
The Microcosm Contains the Macrocosm
By Swami Chetanananda
According to Shaivism, everything in the universe exists in each individual. We can illustrate this in its most gross form by noting that all the elements that form the matter of our bodies (e.g., carbon, helium) are either given off by our sun or produced in other areas of the universe hundreds of billions of light years away. Another dramatic illustration is found in the recent work with holographic images and the resulting discussion of the “holographic paradigm.”
Holography is a method of lenseless photography in which the wave field of light scattered by an object is recorded on a plate as an interference pattern. When the photographic record— the hologram— is placed in a coherent light beam like a laser, the original wave pattern is regenerated and a three-dimensional image appears. The interesting thing is that any piece of the hologram will reconstruct the entire image. This discovery has led to considerable discussion along the same lines that Shaivites held over a thousand years ago.
See: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9302044-music
See also: http://www.chetanananda.com/the-symphony-of-life