A world of ideas

Here's an excerpt from Science and the Paranormal: Altered States of Reality, by the late Arthur J. Ellison.

The book, published posthumously, is well worth reading, even though it was left slightly unfinished at the author's death and could have benefited from tighter editing. Ellison, a professor of engineering, spent many decades investigating the paranormal, and he came to some fascinating conclusions.

In this excerpt from Chapter 6, pages 81-86 (2002 Floris Books edition), he talks about the ultimate nature of reality and concludes that what we call physical phenomena are really only "mental events."

It is quite well-known that the quantum physicists tell us that the world we experience depends for its meaning and reality on our perception of it. Before we observe something it is a cloud of possibilities. When we observe it we (in their language) 'collapse the wave function,' which is a measure of probability, and there is then something definite 'out there' to observe. Numerous experiments have shown that. In effect the physical objects that 'normal scientists' consider they are describing have had their wave functions collapsed billions of times. The more a wave function is collapsed by all of us observers in a particular way to produce a particular object, the higher the likelihood that the same effect will be produced next time. So the normal physical world has permanence and stability. However, many experiences are not so consistent. The same result does not occur every time. These phenomena we call paranormal. A strong belief, an expectation amounting almost to certainty, raises the probability that the wave function will collapse in that way and lead to the experience believed in. So we have our apparently normal physical world, fairly consistently the same day by day.

It is clear that since the advent of quantum mechanics the physical world has today lost its old permanence, consistency and solidity, certainly in the minds of most physicists.... So far as I can see, normal realism is now hardly applicable. I would have thought that classical idealism -- or perhaps I really should say, mentalism -- would be rather nearer to a workable philosophical basis. That is the view that the world consists of ideas, thoughts -- and nothing else. Of course I would not dream of being dogmatic about any of this. Some physicists consider that neither realism nor idealism would quite fit, but maybe something in between. I think something semi-permanent and, as it were, given, like thought forms metaphorically set in concrete, would fill the bill.

We considered earlier that there is no way of proving that there is anything 'out there' at all. No philosopher would disagree with that. And one of those rather illusory objects which superficially appears to be 'out there,' is our own physical body with its five senses, with which we think we are observing everything....

All these data so briefly just reviewed [earlier in the book] ... plus my reading of Eastern philosophy... have shown me that an enormous number of people, many in the East, believe that the physical universe is not at all like it seems to be and that the only reality is thought -- consciousness. They call it a maya -- which roughly translates as an illusion. However, the objects of this physical world have had their wave functions collapsed so many times that they have a sort of permanence. One way of expressing it is that we have a set of stable thought forms, which almost amounts to realism as far as so far as most people are concerned. It is surely clear that all we each have for certain are our thoughts and that science is just the building of mental models patterning and ordering these mental experiences....

I often wonder whether the physical world we think we know so well is the result of thousands of years of belief and conditioning of humanity (and perhaps other influences -- it surely needed a start of some kind). In other words, by and large it has been created by us, and given consistency and solidity by our all believing in it most of the time. The clues that show some of us that it is not quite as we were told are all the facts of the so-called paranormal. A different belief -- really a different knowledge and expectation -- is needed to melt that thought form set in concrete and make it ideoplastic again....

Those firmly held beliefs are not just superficial -- they are held in the personal and collective unconscious and operate almost all the time. The times when they do not operate we call paranormal -- or a state of 'altered consciousness.' Every hypnotist knows that if the conscious rational critical mind can be temporarily removed from the picture by putting the subject into a trance, then the objects and laws of the physical world can be drastically altered by just telling the personal unconscious mind -- which is incredibly trustful, helpful and believing -- that things are different. In other words, the physical world can be altered for them by changing the belief -- or rather knowledge-structure. Objects, including other human bodies, can be added to or removed from the surroundings, or levitated in contradiction to the so-called law of gravity, and so on....

Remember that in lucid dreaming one is in full consciousness with a full memory and is well aware that the physical body is asleep in bed. Most importantly, one has the normal full critical faculty. In that state I had a good look at myself -- or should I rather say, I had a good look at the body or vehicle with which I seemed to be perceiving the world all around. It was exactly like the one I'm using right now. My breathing was normal, my heart rate was normal, everything else around seemed to be normal -- except that I felt particularly energetic, well and happy. The surroundings were just like the physical world -- perhaps because I wouldn't know how -- yet -- to make them anything different. They might be considered a reflection of my memory store -- of my experiences of the normal physical world. I did wonder whether the world of lucid dreaming is indeed the 'next world,' to which most ordinary people transfer at death. I think it probably is...

Another experiment I did was to see whether gravity was operative. It was not: if I wished I could levitate -- float in the air. I could therefore also jump off cliffs without coming to any harm.... In a lucid dream of one has escaped from the thraldom of the normal physical world and almost anything -- within limits, I feel sure -- is possible. Perhaps the physical world was once -- in the mists of antiquity -- rather like this in some respects.

Some other of the world's cultures do not have the same beliefs about the world that most of us do in the West. They are not all naïve realists as most of us are most of the time. Some of them have, for thousands of years, had some quite different beliefs about what is and is not factual. The aborigines of Australia and their 'dream-time' come to mind as just one example. So far as I know, for these vast periods of time they have believed certain things about the world that, to a realist Westerner, would be considered nonsense. They are true for them -- they 'know' that (very different from just 'believing' it) -- and the result is that more remarkable things are possible in part of their lives. They have knowledge, for example, of what is occurring hundreds of miles away in the absence of what we would call 'normal means of knowing.' Their world is, in some respects, different. One could multiply examples of this sort of thing from various other cultures.

In the East they have different views of the structure of a human being from ours -- taught for thousands of years so that everyone 'knows' and does not just 'believe.' The result is that things appear to be possible that in our Western paradigm are impossible. They have quite different methods of healing that sometimes really do work -- and they are quite different from Western medicine. One thinks of the system of subtle bodies that is taught in the East... One thinks of the chakras, prana and kundalini and other powerful 'forces' we know nothing about in the scientific West.... One thinks of acupuncture and the numerous and varied methods of hatha and raja yoga which traditionally lead to the psychic powers -- or the so-called siddhis -- leading to all sorts of interesting, valuable and intriguing possibilities.... All sorts of things become possible. Often we cannot 'explain' them in terms of Western science -- and why should we be able to do that? We seem to think that Western science is, after long centuries of darkness and ignorance, the real truth about us human beings in the world. One might seriously doubt such an arrogant idea!

Just a couple of notes. The distant viewing capabilities of non-Western people have been observed by many anthroplogists and are discussed in Rupert Sheldrake's The Sense of Being Stared At. Also, as Ellison observes in an endnote, the interpretation of quantum physics that he provides is not universally accepted. (In fact, there is no universally accepted interpretation.) It is, however, accepted by many of top physicists, though they would not necessarily endorse all the inferences Ellison draws from it.

If Ellison's view is correct, then it would seem to hold the solution to many thorny philosophical issues, such as the mind-body problem, the objective-subjective distinction, and the "problem of unversals."

Comments

[Tom]

Hi Michael,

Interesting reading. I'm sympathetic to this kind of idealism, but hm, I'm not sure whether it's true. There's seems to be some kind of problem when we cross the border between the quantum world and the world of classical physics, something to do with the Planck scale. At least that's what Michael Shermer says in the debate with Deepak Chopra. Anyway, I'm going to read Quantum Enigma by Rosenblum, recommended by Dean Radin, to see whether this quantum stuff really allows for an idealistic world view. It seems that very few people have really understood the implications of quantum mecanics.
Another interesting book along these lines is Consciousness and Berkeley's Metaphysics by Peter B Lloyd. A bit heavy and technical, but good. It has a sequel, dealing with parapsychology, which may be a good read if you can find it.
Lloyd's point seems to be that with Berkeley's metaphysics matter is entirely illusory. Don't ask me to explain it, but is has to do with simple semantics. In all, with this model it doesn't matter whether or not something exists at the quantum level.

[Alex]

Both idealism and realism are incoherent. I think a transcendental idealist interpretation makes the most sense.

[Alex]

By the way, an idealist Johns Hopkins physicist reviewed Quantum Enigma. Here is the link:

http://henry.pha.jhu.edu/quantum.enigma.html

He also wrote an idealist article in the science journal Nature. I have no idea how this made it past the materialists:

http://www.newdualism.org/papers/R.Henry/436029a.pdf

[Matthew C]

Alex,

superb stuff. Thanks!

I will be blogging on the links you posted soon!

[william]

Could it be that even consciousness is an illusion with the definition of illusion being: an error in our perception of reality. Maybe the only permanent reality is an infinite awareness and this infinite awareness expresses itself through a phenomenon we know as consciousness. I wonder if the debate between idealism and realism are not just two sides of the same illusionary coin.

From my point of view at this time consciousness is an effect of this infinite awareness and not as most believe that awareness is an attribute of consciousness. Does Kant’s transcendental idealism hint at this relationship between awareness and consciousness?

[Michael Prescott]

I don't know how one would distinguish between awareness and consciousness. They seem like the same thing to me.

[william]

As you can imagine it is very difficult to explain the difference between consciousness and awareness. The world teaches them as synonyms.

Consciousness is the ability to have a perception of other whereas awareness, especially pure awareness, is a realization rather than a perception of other. I discovered this difference during my years of research into the origin of ignorance.

Ask yourself how can infinite perfection with an awareness of self as “that that is” (oneness) express itself without the creation and manifestation of entities that have a perception of self as separate from others. That perception of other is illusionary, but substantial. I have found one website (listed below) that I think does a pretty good job of explaining this subtle but profound difference between consciousness and awareness.

I think one can do a much better job of explaining consciousness then awareness because I am not sure we can ever fully explain or define pure awareness. As soon as we try to define it we limit it. To define pure awareness would be the same as defining that that is, which I suspect, is impossible to do. The mystics during their mystical experiences give us hints and clues at this difference.

It is my belief at this time that consciousness evolves until it reaches a point of pure awareness. Without consciousness there is no journey towards pure awareness.

http://kjmaclean.com/Consciousness.html

[Matthew C]

I wrote an entry about the limitations of thought in understanding awareness on my blog.

[Markus Hesse]

This is an excellent series of debates between scientists from both ends of the spectrum:

What is Consciousness?
www.closertotruth.com/topics/mindbrain/107/107transcript.html

Do Brains Make Minds?
www.closertotruth.com/topics/mindbrain/204/204transcript.html

Strange Physics of The Mind?
www.closertotruth.com/topics/mindbrain/112/112transcript.html

Can Science Seek The Soul?
www.closertotruth.com/topics/mindbrain/113/113transcript.html

What is Parapsychology?
www.closertotruth.com/topics/mindbrain/212/212transcript.html

Can ESP Affect Our Lives?
www.closertotruth.com/topics/mindbrain/109/109transcript.html

[william]

Perfect pure infinite awareness is that that is (isness) whereas consciousness is the creative manifestation of that isness. If consciousness were a perfect manifestation of this infinite isness there would be no expression of it’s being which is perfect awareness. Stated another way: all life forms we know of cease to exist.

Most call this “isness” God but consciousness on its journey back to perfect awareness has made this isness in its image, which is natural and predictable. Any being with less than perfect intelligence (awareness) will error in its perception of reality and in its egotism make God in its image. Again without some degree of egoism there is no expression of this perfect-infinite awareness.

As conscious beings I suspect we evolve in our quality and quantity of consciousness with quality being our level or degree of our perception of reality, which is intelligence (awareness) and we evolve in our level of intellectual capability (mental capacity), which is the quantity of our consciousness.

[Art]

Here's an excerpt from Science and the Paranormal: Altered States of Reality, by the late J. Ellison.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I've noticed that a lot of students of the paranormal are named "Arthur". Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Ford, Arthur Koestler, Arthur Ellison, Arthur Findlay, and Arthur Balfour. Growing up I didn't find it to be all that common of a name, but now that I've developed an interest in the paranormal and life after death I see and read it all over. I've actually grown to appreciate it a whole lot more in my old age. It's a great name with a lot of history. - Arthur