Dear Abby,
Lately I have been obsessed with quantum physics. I've been reading books and Web articles on the subject, trying to understand paradoxes like the two-slit experiment and the delayed choice experiment, in the hope that I can find some theory of the universe that will tie it all together. But it's not working! Nothing makes sense.
The key question is how the quantum wave function collapses - how a quantum object like a photon can make the transition from a wave to a particle. As a wave, it exists as a set of possibilities. As a particle, it exists as a distinct entity. When it makes the transition from wave to article, it becomes "real." If everything existed only as quantum waves, there would be no reality, only infinite possibilities. Reality enters the picture only when the wave collapses. But how does it collapse? How does reality become real?
Most physicists seem to think that the observer is the key ingredient in the puzzle. When no one is watching the photon, it is a wave function. When someone does watch, it is a particle. The observer somehow brings reality into existence. The simple act of observation converts possibility into actuality. But by what means?
At first I thought some form of interactionist dualism would work. Mind works directly on matter - say, by affecting the flow of electrochemical impulses in the brain. This idea is popular in some circles right now. But while this might explain the collapse of the wave function with regard to thoughts - with various possible thoughts collapsing into one actual thought - it doesn't explain the collapse of the wave function with regard to outside events. It doesn't get us very far.
Unless we assume that there are no outside events. Maybe everything that happens is purely mental. Make the universe subjective; say it's all an idea in the mind of God or a consensus in the collective consciousness of humanity. That's called monistic idealism, and it's popular, too.
But (sigh) there are problems. If the transcendent mind (God or Cosmic Consciousness or what have you) collapses the wave function, then the wave function should collapse instantly at every moment, because there's never a moment when God isn't looking. So we have to say that only the mind mediated by the physical brain can cause the collapse. But the brain is a material object. If no material objects can exist until the brain actualizes them, and if the brain itself is a material object, then how did the whole process get started? It's possible to talk about "tangled hierarchies," but this doesn't seem very clear.
Also there's the problem of cosmogenesis. If a physical brain is necessary to create the material world, and if for the first 15 billion years of the history of the universe there were no creatures with brains, then how did all of that history happen? We have to say that the universe didn't actually exist until the possibility of a brain became immanent, and then the whole 15 billion year past just snapped into existence. This stretches credibility, don't you think?
And what about near death experiences? Some people may not take them seriously, but I do. If someone can still perceive physical reality while having an NDE, then reality can be perceived without the mediation of the brain. But in this case the brain isn't necessary to collapse the wave function, right?
So then I heard about decoherence theory, which says that the observer isn't really necessary to collapse the wave function, after all. The photon simply becomes "entangled" with its environment, and as a result of this entanglement, the wave function collapses automatically. No one has to be watching. This interested me because it seemed to be a way out of my difficulties. I was so excited that I got up in the middle if the night and started Googling "quantum decoherence." I was reading about this stuff on my computer at 4:30 in the morning!
But the more I read, the more depressed I became. Because it turns out that quantum decoherence theory doesn't really explain how the wave function collapses. It can't explain how a set of possibilities (the wave function) becomes an actuality (the particle). It doesn't explain reality at all!
It sure seems as if the mind of an observer is necessary to create reality as we know it. But how? Is reality subjective, or is it independent of the mind but influenced by it? Or is there some other explanation? I'm at the end of my string, Abby. Please help!
Desperately,
Freaked Out By Physics
* * *
Dear Freaked,
The effort you've made to understand ultimate reality is honorable, but it is doomed to fail. Essentially you are trying to reduce reality to an explanation that can be grasped and communicated in words. This means reducing it to terms that the left hemisphere of your brain can handle. But reality is too big and complex and mysterious to be reducible to the dimensions of the limited mind-brain.
Even quantum physicists don't understand reality - they only know how to do the math and carry out the experiments. They leave the philosophizing to others, or they come up with the philosophical approaches you mentioned, all of which are deficient in some respect.
The only people who can make some claim to understand reality are very advanced mystics who have transcended the mind-brain and grasped the nature of existence directly. But even they can't reduce their discoveries to words in any satisfactory way.
What, then, is the solution? Forget theory, and experience reality directly. Shut off the stream of words in your mind and just be.
And practice patience. All will be clear eventually, but it may take many lifetimes and many stages of personal evolution. Everything is on schedule and cannot be rushed.
Now get some sleep.
Love,
Abby
that sounds like something Dalai Lama would say instead of Abby.
this is just your own internal dialogues with yourself, right?
i had the pleasure of seeing Dalai Lama over the weekend as he gave a lecture on Dependent Origination. The concept is very hard to grasp , but Dalai Lama made it as easy to understand as possible. he was very down-to-earth, and homely. he really was just 'a simple monk' but with great wisdom.
he said that there are three types of realities- the reality as we know it, the subtle reality which can be observed but not proved (like reincarnation, ghost, ESP, PSI phenomenon), and the most hidden subtle reality, where Gods and Goddess, the hungry ghosts, and other spiritual realms dwell.
However, he also stated that given the understanding of science as we know it, we can't prove that there are 3 types of realities- but if someday we actually discover otherwise, then we all must change and not cling onto dogma. he warned us again and again that we must respect science and sees it as a tool to gain a better understanding of true reality, and yet we should also note the limitation of science so we don't shut our eyes from the ultimate reality.
he also defended the idea that the consciousness is not a product of the brain-that given the current state of neuroscience, we do not have answers to all the hard question. one example he used was that the brain can't distinguish the feeling of suffering from one's body vs. the feeling of suffering from one's compassion to all sentient beings. at biological level, both feelings generate the same neurological mechanisms, but we all know that both feelings are very different from one another. he also mentioned about tears- why we have tears when we're sad or happy. he said 'brain is stupid' for its failure to see the difference.
finally, he also added that if neuroscience can ever provet that consciousness is a product of the brain, then Buddhism must change as well.
it's no wonder that even Carl Sagan respected Dalai Lama for his wisdom and open-mindedness.
Posted by: Tom | April 30, 2007 at 01:00 PM
Michael,
As a physicist my best advice to you is please take into consideration that Quantum Mechanics and all physical theories are just mathematical MODELS of what we call physical reality. They are not the REALITY itself. No one should claim they are.
Please keep up the enthusiasm and keep on seeking for your truth. We honor you for that and we appreciate your effort since by you are doing that, we are leaning and improving as human beings.
Blessings,
Ulysses
Posted by: Ulysses | April 30, 2007 at 01:33 PM
Hi Michael -- this is on Ted Serios and related issues: Check it out -- I dug this rare info up and you need to read it!
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/07/link_dump.php
It supports Serios.
Posted by: drew hempel | April 30, 2007 at 02:37 PM
Hi Michael -- this is on Ted Serios and related issues: Check it out -- I dug this rare info up and you need to read it!
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2006/07/link_dump.php
It supports Serios.
Posted by: drew hempel | April 30, 2007 at 02:37 PM
But (sigh) there are problems. If the transcendent mind (God or Cosmic Consciousness or what have you) collapses the wave function, then the wave function should collapse instantly at every moment, because there's never a moment when God isn't looking.
In software development, we have a concept called "lazy initialization".
What it means is that information is retrieved only when it is needed.
For example, I might display a tree model of my hard drive (think of Windows Explorer, or the Finder if you are a Mac guy).
One way to generate the tree would be to catalog the complete contents of the hard drive, and then populate all the folders and subfolders with folder and file icons.
However, for most software tasks, that is not done. It consumes too many resources to generate a complete model of all the folders, subfolders, etc. and keep it updated at all times. Instead, the contents of each folder are retrieved when it is opened. So to discover a file located deep within the heirarchy, a series of queries are performed against the file system index as each folder is opened.
I suspect that the universe is the same. As each observation is made, then and only then is a particular part of the universe made actual. I suspect the "users" of the universe are the ones who bring these parts of the universe into reality.
The question becomes, who counts as a user? And what kinds of observation get made? All of that is an open mystery.
Posted by: Matthew C | April 30, 2007 at 03:21 PM
Drew, I don't see the stuff that supports Serios. All I see is you going hand-to-hand with the usual motley crew of skeptics who've already made up their mind, don't know the literature, would rather call you names, and as always, pull out the "Well, why hasn't anybody won the JREF Challenge?" crap, which even skeptical scientists don't take seriously.
Bravo on the effort, but why bother. I'm in agreement with behaviorists who say that just as some people are wired biologically to be deeply religious believers, others are wired to be completely skeptical. The only way either group changes their minds is through deep trauma.
Posted by: Tim | April 30, 2007 at 03:33 PM
Ulysses, good reminder on the nature of QM. People are hitching their paranormal and New Age wagons to QM at a ridiculous pace right now, and it's worth remembering that the amount we know is VASTLY smallers than what we don't know.
I suppose for me, if a conscious observer is truly required to collapse the wavefunction, then my question about cosmogenesis becomes, is consciousness inherent to reality? If consciousness is a substrate to reality, then the entire cosmos would have been observing itself since its creation. What happened before that? Oh, that's another one for Abby.
Posted by: Tim | April 30, 2007 at 03:38 PM
In a parallel universe scenario, Ann Landers would have said exactly the same thing. You finally may be on something, Michael. Let's just hope it isn't insanity. :-)
BTW, I have been completely obsessed with understanding Quantum Physics for the last couple of weeks as well. I remember George Hansen talking about the trickster character appearing to numerous people across the globe at a time of transition. I wonder who else has been consumed by this topic in th elast few weeks. Anyway, watch out for the trickster, my freinds.
Posted by: Marcel Cairo | April 30, 2007 at 03:49 PM
People are hitching their paranormal and New Age wagons to QM at a ridiculous pace right now, and it's worth remembering that the amount we know is VASTLY smallers than what we don't know.
But what we do know is that the conventional worldview of fundamentally "real" matter is completely wrong.
Posted by: Matthew C | April 30, 2007 at 03:50 PM
No argument, Matthew. I'm just making the point that we should take care citing everything unexplainable as the product of QM, because not even the physicists who study it as their sole occupation understand it.
BTW, after reviewing Drew's pitched battle on that forum, I can say I agree with Dean Radin: there are few greater wastes of time than engaging in a back-and-forth with skeptics on a forum. With no screening of posts, you end up with personal attacks and a lot of self-congratulatory pontificating, almost all from the same under-40 male demographic.
Posted by: Tim | April 30, 2007 at 04:08 PM
"finally, he also added that if neuroscience can ever provet that consciousness is a product of the brain, then Buddhism must change as well"
Even if they could prove that all of our mental functions are reducible to the brain, that wouldn't disprove the existence of "paranormal" phenomena. Something like David Bohm's theory could be true in which mental and physical phenomena are two sides of a single coin; both are manifestations of a deeper and more subtle order. Bohm's theory is "materialist" but not in the same sense as 19th century mechanistic materialism.
Posted by: | April 30, 2007 at 04:11 PM
Tom did the Dali Lama explain how reincarnation occurs without a soul. Did he tell you about the flow of desires and etc being capable of a rebirth or a bundle of desires being like a cue ball hitting another cue ball?
This does not explain how souls that some call spirits on the other side are able to come through a medium in such ways as automatic writing, direct voice, even physical manifestations or move objects in a room while someone is crossing over which my wife and her sister got to experience first hand.
These souls appear to be more than a flow of thoughts but unique personalities living in another world or worlds. The Dali claims to be open minded about science but is he opened minded about the possibility that Buddhists may need to update their teachings about the "no soul" existing after death.
During my research into the origin of ignorance I spent a lot of time with many Buddhists one being a Lama, one had a PhD in Buddhism, and every one of them told me the same thing "the origin of ignorance is impossible to know". Maybe it is only impossible to know if our religious paradigm does not include the possibility of souls being a creation and manifestation of this “isness” that permeates the universe that most call God.
My point is that dogma dies a very slow death and the Buddhists are no exception.
Also Tom could you give me some more input here or with an email on what the Dali stated about dependent origination. One skeptic I had some dialog with tried to misuse that term to support their materialist beliefs. During my research into dependent origination many Buddhist monks told me that dependent origination does not explain the origin of life.
Posted by: william | April 30, 2007 at 04:18 PM
I am studying A level physics right now and our teacher said something which made sense about quantum physics, which is, ' you will understand quantum physics properly when you cna't understand it'
I don't think we can ever udnerstand it properly if we keep looking at it like we do, it seems work in a way which is 'alien' to us, maybe we need to look at quantum physcis in a different way.
I think quantum physics may hold the key to conciousness, if anyone ahs heard of michael roll he was saying that mind and soul could be amde up of sub atomic particles or something along those lines.
I've kind of lost track of what i was saying, good blog though.
Posted by: Robbie | April 30, 2007 at 04:47 PM
"This does not explain how souls that some call spirits on the other side are able to come through a medium in such ways as automatic writing, direct voice, even physical manifestations or move objects in a room while someone is crossing over which my wife and her sister got to experience first hand."
You're assuming that memories, emotions, etc. have some concrete existence. If you actually think about it, they are just transitory phenomena. Think about a person's life: when a person is 50, is he/she the same person when he/she was 20? The person isn't completely different, but he/she isn't exactly the same. We're not "entities," we're processes. Our sense of identity is constantly changing.
Anyway, if you actually read the sutras, the Buddha never gives a categorical answer on soul/self questions. He limited his teachings to phenomenal experience. In an earlier post, I quoted a passage from Schopenhauer. I'm not endorsing Schopenhauer's metaphysics of the "will," but he does provide a good framework to understand the Buddhist teachings. The Buddha basically refused to define the "thing" that lies beyond representations (memories, emotions, thought constructs, etc.)
"Schopenhauer’s Kantian and Platonic metaphysics is tempered by its uniquely Buddhistic and Hinduistic, rather than Jewish, Christian or Islamic, concept of the soul’s salvation. The immortality of the soul is understood by Schopenhauer as the indestructibility of Will as thing-in-itself, the pure willing that transcends or underlies the empirical individual willing that Schopenhauer refers to as the will to life. As thinking subjects we are immortal only in the attenuated sense that Will willing purely within us can never be destroyed. When the world as representation in its entirety, including the representing subject’s body, ceases to exist with the passing of the representing subject’s last moment of conciousness, Will as thing-in-itself at the core of each thinking subject alone remains (WWR 2: 215). There is therefore something in each of us that is immortal. The part of us that survives death is not, according to Schopenhauer, as some sects of Judaism, Christianity and Islam have taught, the personality or self or soul of the thinking subject. It is rather the impersonal Will within, the indestructible thing-in-itself, transcending space, .time and causality, that is in no way part of the world as representation or subject to any sort of change."
Posted by: Alex | April 30, 2007 at 04:49 PM
I am studying A level physics right now and our teacher said something which made sense about quantum physics, which is, ' you will understand quantum physics properly when you cna't understand it'
I think the only way to begin to understand it is to realize that it is the *measurements* that are real. There is nothing real being measured.
In other words, nothing exists except subjectivity.
We keep wanting to go ask what is the "underlying stuff". There isn't any. There is only our observations, our Consciousness.
Posted by: Matthew C | April 30, 2007 at 04:54 PM
I'm not a Buddhist, but I think the essence of the reincarnation belief in that belief system is something like the ideas behind the holographic/holistic universe theory: everything is all one, and our brains just create the illusion of separateness because that is how we have evolved. So we don't "go" anywhere when we die, but become fully part of that holistic whole, and that's where my theorizing turns to mush. I suspect that when one is 100% aware of the wholeness of existence, one may be able to choose to reinhabit a physical form and be separate in order to continue evolving. Or not.
Suffice it to say when you look at quantum entanglement and Bohm's theory, you start to see that holism may be the ultimate "trans-materialist" concept: everything is material, but the meaning of material is light-years beyond what people believed in the 19th century.
In essence, material is spiritual is energy. Those are the implications, I think.
And by the way, I LOVE that physics is moving in this direction! Very exciting.
Posted by: Tim | April 30, 2007 at 04:58 PM
i think some of the stuff the Buddhism teaches about the nature of reality is similar to QM's view of reality. it's interesting how buddhism as a religion and QM as a science come together like this.
it seems that we have to unlearn what we know about reality in order to find out what reality really is.
to quote Yoda:
"You must unlearn what you have learned...."
Posted by: Tom | April 30, 2007 at 05:25 PM
"I'm not a Buddhist, but I think the essence of the reincarnation belief in that belief system is something like the ideas behind the holographic/holistic universe theory: everything is all one"
Not true.
SN 12.48: Lokayatika Sutta — The Cosmologist {S ii 77; CDB i 584} [Thanissaro]. The Oneness of all being is sometimes taught as a basic Buddhist principle, but this discourse shows that the Buddha himself rejected the idea. It is simply one of the extremes that he avoided by teaching dependent co-arising.
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.048.than.html
Posted by: | April 30, 2007 at 06:53 PM
>As each observation is made, then and only then is a particular part of the universe made actual. I suspect the "users" of the universe are the ones who bring these parts of the universe into reality.
The Windows Explorer analogy is very interesting. But we would still be faced with the question of what the universe was doing before any consciousness was present. If conscious beings evolved only after 15 billion years, then for those first 15 billion years there was no actual universe, only a set of possibilities. Alternatively, we could say that consciousness was always present, inasmuch as consciousness is the ground of being - but if consciousness permeates everything, then we seem to be back to the question of why wave functions collapse only when certain kinds of observers focus on them.
In other words, either the wave function collapses only when human beings are looking at it, in which case the first 15 billion years of cosmic history are a blank; or the wave function collapses whenever Cosmic Consciousness is aware of it, in which case the wave functions should be collapsing instantly at all times.
I guess one way around this is to say that Cosmic Consciousness chooses to be aware only of certain events, while ignoring others, but this seems inconsistent with the idea of a universal Mind.
Or am I missing something?
Posted by: Michael Prescott | April 30, 2007 at 09:05 PM
Told you I wasn't a Buddhist. Or a nudist.
Hmm, Nude Buddhism. Could be interesting, except for lotus position.
Posted by: Tim | April 30, 2007 at 09:09 PM
In my view the Buddha taught what he knew and his followers decided to elaborate on his teachings. This is a common phenomenon of many followers of a prophet’s teachings.
As far as dependent co arising it does not explain the origin of ignorance but starts with ignorance and explains the origin of suffering.
It has been told to me by many monks that dependent co arising does not reveal the origin of life. The following quote does a better job of explaining this than I can.
“Paticca means because of, or dependent upon: Samuppada "arising or origination." Paticca Samuppada, therefore, literally means -- "Dependent Arising" or "Dependent Origination." It must be borne in mind that Paticca Samuppada is only a discourse on the process of birth and death and not a theory of the ultimate origin of life. It deals with the cause of rebirth and suffering, but it does not in the least attempt to show the evolution of the world from primordial matter. Ignorance (Avijja) is the first link or cause of the wheel of life. It clouds all right understanding.”
http://wheelofdharma.tripod.com/dharmapage/id8.html
And this about ignorance as a dependent co arising phenomena.
“Ignorance is a dependently co-arisen phenomenon”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.020.than.html
Surely someday one will take the time and trouble to ask: what is the origin of that ignorance? This may be the key to connecting the dots between spirit and suffering and answer that age old question “if this “isness” (god) is love why so much human suffering?”
Posted by: william | April 30, 2007 at 09:32 PM
"We keep wanting to go ask what is the "underlying stuff". There isn't any. There is only our observations, our Consciousness."
I wouldn't go that far. In Bohm's interpretation, you can get rid of the "observer created reality" idea.
Posted by: Mischa | April 30, 2007 at 10:22 PM
It's possible that interacting with a dead physicist might provide some additional illumination of these questions.
(I once asked a friend, an amateur 'autotyper,' whether Richard Feynman was available. He was, but requested chalk and a blackboard; we had neither, so that was that, and we never got back to him. George Patton certainly was no physicist, but at least he didn't require a blackboard; we weren't able to acquire lengthy explanations from him, however; asked what might result from an invasion of Iraq, he answered: "Hell to pay!")
So it goes. I'm wondering what Vonnegut might have to say, after he's had a chance to become more familiar with his changed circumstances. I expect this could be very interesting, but doubt it would help any of us at all in understanding QM.
Regards
Posted by: Bill Ingle | April 30, 2007 at 11:09 PM
>I'm wondering what Vonnegut might have to say
Probably: "So it goes."
Posted by: Michael Prescott | April 30, 2007 at 11:20 PM
The Windows Explorer analogy is very interesting. But we would still be faced with the question of what the universe was doing before any consciousness was present. If conscious beings evolved only after 15 billion years, then for those first 15 billion years there was no actual universe, only a set of possibilities. Alternatively, we could say that consciousness was always present, inasmuch as consciousness is the ground of being
You are equating consciousness with "beings".
I would suggest that consciousness has always been present, and that human beings are among the phenomena which have appeared within consciousness. So there was consciousness even back when the only contents of the universe were atoms at the moment of the big bang.
. . .if consciousness permeates everything, then we seem to be back to the question of why wave functions collapse only when certain kinds of observers focus on them.
I don't think there is a "wave function" at all. The "wave function" is just a description of the probability of making a different particular observations when watching the simplest physical systems.
I would claim that consciousness (of any kind) does not "collapse" the wave function, but rather that making observations brings reality into being.
Does that clarify, or not?
Posted by: Matthew C | April 30, 2007 at 11:57 PM
The science journal Nature, as conservative a bastion as science can maintain, surprised many in the issue of 7 July 2005 (Vol. 436) when they printed a short essay written by Dr. Richard Conn Henry of the Dept. of Physics & Astronomy, The Johns Hopkins University, the gist of which confronts the dilemma which Michael (and the rest of us) are confronting when we attempt to find what our language projects as "understanding". Dr. Henry wrote " One benefit of switching humanity to a correct perception of the world is the resulting joy of discovering the mental nature of the Universe. We have no idea what this mental nature implies, but- the great thing is-it is true. Beyond the acquisition of this perception, physics can no longer help.You may descend into solipsism, expand to deism, or something else if you can justify it-just don't ask physics for help." He continues:" There is another benefit of seeing the world as quantum mechanical: someone who has learned to accept that nothing exists but observations is far ahead of peers who stumble through physics hoping to find out 'what things are'." And he ends with: "The Universe is immaterial-mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy."
And there is more than observation to account for: I myself am a painter and a pianist (self-taught in both, ANOTHER thing I do but don't understand) and I find the notion of creative thought to be another fascinating mystery. Painting ideas come to me essentially complete, as if presented to me after some process of creation has ALREADY occured into which I have no conscious input (www.kevinlouiswright.com, if interested, the home page image an excellent example, as I used NO photo references). People ask me how I thought these images up, and I tell them I don't know. When the image comes to me vaguely, I seek out areas near my home which are somewhat similar and adapt photos to correspond to my initial inspiration, but I can say NOTHING about the source itself. The same goes for composing music or improvising on a given theme. Michael, as a writer, I'm sure you've encountered the same phenomenon. I can add that, in the case of painting and piano playing, I NEVER think in terms of written/spoken language when doing these other activities. When painting, I think in color or brushstrokes, light representation and form, layout and design; when at the piano, I'm thinking in melody, harmony, rhythm, in structures and forms, or (more mysteriously), when it is all in some ineffable synchronism, it truly is just "flow", as Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi describes. But, to tie this in, we can't speak or even conceptualize about existence without taking into account the various ways in which "mind" exists, individually or collectively. Why doesn't everyone experience all the many manifestations of creative thought? Like precognition, "where" do these thoughts originate? If in Jung's "collective unconscious" what governs who gets access to what? We seem doomed (as it were) to the frustration of our unfulfilled desire to "understand" all, as Buddhism so rightly points out, but it is a frustration TOO fascinating to relinquish.
Posted by: Kevin | May 01, 2007 at 01:56 AM
Kevin, Interesting point about creative ideas coming to as if complete.
I have lost count of the number of times I have heard well known creative people such as musicians songwriters and artists say the same thing. I once saw a interview on tv with a female mathematician( whose name escapes me),who solved a very difficult mathematical problem but claimed it came from outside herself.
Posted by: Pearl | May 01, 2007 at 07:58 AM
The brain is not the centre for our consciousness ,its purpose is to interface between mind and body, because consciousenes stems from the quantum level , in reality to be consciouse really means to be asleep in the material universe.
Posted by: den | May 01, 2007 at 08:24 AM
Nikola Tesla actually had visions that clued him in on how to design and conduct experiments, which would ultimately lead to his major discoveries or inventions:
>>Tesla was twelve when he could override his visions by act of will and change them to other visions. However, as he noted, he couldn’t override light flashes.
Usually these flashes appeared in certain dangerous situations or when he was greatly excited. He wrote:
"In some certain moments I noticed that all the air around me was full of tongues of real flame. The intensity of these tongues grew after a number of years instead of falling and reached its maximum at the age of twenty-five. Once I had a feeling that my brain was enveloped in flames and a little Sun shines in my head."
And when Tesla was 65 years old, he wrote:
"These light phenomena sometimes still appear, especially when some new idea shows me unprecedented possibilities, but their intensity is relatively weak."
Tesla was satisfied to notice that he could clearly visualize his discoveries; he didn’t even need experiments, models and drawings. In this way he developed his own method to give material form to creative ideas. Tesla sharply distinguished ideas which were coming into his mind as visions, and those which appeared due to analytical mind activity.
Tesla explained:
"The moment when somebody designs an imaginary device, there is a problem of putting the raw idea into practice. That’s why any discovery made this way has lack of details, and usually it is inferior… My method is a different one."
He did not rush into empirical work. When an idea appeared, he immediately began to elaborate it in his imagination. He would change its design, improving it and would "switch on" the device to observe its operation in his head.
It did not matter for him whether he tested his invention in the laboratory or in his mind. He even had time to notice if something prevented his invention from working properly… This way he could develop a perfect idea without physical touch. Only after that he would give concrete form to this final product of his mind.
All his inventions were developed by this method, with no exceptions, during twenty years… There is hardly any scientific discovery that can be foreseen only mathematically, without visualization… Introduction of unfinished, crude ideas into the process is always a waste of energy and time.<<
He even acknowledged a "supernatural" experience:
>>"Only once in my present existence I experienced something that looked like supernatural. It happened during my mother’s death. I was ill and exhausted with fever, and was lying in bed. Suddenly I thought that if my mother dies far from me, she possibly would give some sign.
Two or three months later I was in London with my friend, the English scientist sir William Crookes, where there was a discussion about spiritism. I was impressed by his argumentations and remembered his work on “radiant matter”, which I read when I was just a student. Due to this work, I realized my vocation to be an electric engineer. I thought that prerequisites for looking 'beyond' were favorable since my mother was a woman with extraordinary intuition.
All night every fiber of my brain was strained in expectation, but nothing happened until morning, and only when I fell asleep or maybe began to nod off, I saw a cloud, which carried angel figures of divine beauty. One of them looked to my side with love, and little by little I recognized in it my mother.
The ghost was flying along the room slowly, and finally disappeared. I abruptly woke up with the sound of indescribably pleasant voices. In this moment a certainty, which cannot be described by any words, came over me: I knew that my mother had died. And it was true."<<
http://blog.hasslberger.com/2007/04/teslas_creative_genius_intuiti.html
Posted by: Markus Hesse | May 01, 2007 at 11:04 AM
>I don't think there is a "wave function" at all. The "wave function" is just a description of the probability of making a different particular observations when watching the simplest physical systems.
Well, it's a probability wave. We know it's a wave because it produces interference patterns. It's even possible to determine the wavelength by measuring the interference patterns. But it's not a physical wave.
>I would suggest that consciousness has always been present, and that human beings are among the phenomena which have appeared within consciousness. So there was consciousness even back when the only contents of the universe were atoms at the moment of the big bang.
I understand this position, but then we still get back to the question of why a set of probabilities becomes localized in a particular point when an observation is made. If consciousness is everywhere, then there should never be a time when anything is not being observed.
I suppose one way around it is to say that an infinite consciousness can hold the entire set of possibilities in mind, while a finite consciousness can only hold one finite, particular outcome in mind. Then th "mind of God" would not collapse the probability-set into an actuality, but the limited human mind would.
Another way of looking at it might be to distinguish between consciousness and awareness (as one of the commenters on another thread suggested some time ago). We might say that Cosmic Consciousness lacks awareness in the sense of focused attention, while human consciousness is capable of awareness. Then we could say that awareness, not consciousness per se, is necessary to resolve the probability-set into a localized observation.
Of course I'm just noodling around here, since I really have no idea what the answer may be ...
Posted by: Michael Prescott | May 01, 2007 at 11:36 AM
We know it's a wave because it produces interference patterns. It's even possible to determine the wavelength by measuring the interference patterns. But it's not a physical wave.
The observations form interference patterns. But that just means that the likelyhood of making an observation in the simplest quantum systems corresponds to the combined wave equations, which produce the interference patterns.
If we conduct many measurements, the combined measurements will form an interference pattern. But the individual measurements are discrete.
As you said, " it's not a physical wave."
I'm not sure we are in disagreement here. I'm simply claiming that physical reality consists of a series of measurements (or observations), and that the underlying reality is not physical in any meaningful sense of the world.
Unlike reductionists, I believe that the underlying organizational principles go beyond just the Schrödinger equation, and encompass higher-level holistic organizational principles (something along the lines of Rupert Sheldrake's Morphic Fields).
Posted by: Matthew C | May 01, 2007 at 12:17 PM
OK I actually solved this problem recently -- Einstein got his photoelectric "photon" from a variant of Boyle's Law. Einstein didn't use Planck's constant but instead relied on the ratio of volume and pressure -- plus snell's refraction. This is detailed in a book called "Anomalies" -- an academic philosophy of science book.
Anyway what is pressure? The "baryonic acoustic oscillations" are the current contender for anti-gravity.
But for us third-eye yogas we know that pressure, through the full-lotus, creates ultrasound ionization that turns into sonoluminescence spacetime travel.
Of course the full-lotus dynamic is based on spontaneous symmetry breaking using asymmetrical time reversal.
Pythagoras taught that C to G is 2:3 (YANG) while G to C is 3:4 (YIN) thereby violating the commutative principle G X C = C X G.
Posted by: drew hempel | May 01, 2007 at 03:48 PM
What perplexes me is why south american shaman seem to have a complete inherent understanding of the quantum states and the interaction between spirit and physical realms of reality, through their eating of the teacher plants.
Why does the insertion of tryptamines, mescaline-like molecules and lysergic acid amides into the human nervous system(As well as of course yogic and deep meditation/mantra/tantra -taught to us by shiva and soma) appear to open or activate seeminly also inherent states of mind whereby the observation or awareness of the "ultimate universe" as well as quantum or spirit and physical universe becomes plainly obvious.
How and why, when they ingest these plants or combination of plants( to open biological pathways to allow access to our nervous system to the tryptamines) does their perception of space-time become dynamic to the point where they can freely communicate in the substrate of spirit, free of its limitations, with plants and more...within their timeframes.
When traditional physics starts to explain the inherent wierdness humans experience as a part of their everyday lives, the ride will start to get really fun.
Heres to hoping someone random gives the influential minds of today the right mushrooms of excellent quality and blessings ;) and they could first-hand experience and swim through the fractal, living, loving, boundaryless, multi-dimensional true nature of all around us, and us..
What I think we still have to grasp is that every quantum waveform is not a wave on its own, but connected to every single other wave in existance somehow, somewhere, even the waveforms we do not percieve. It all one connected waveform, the universe is a "uni-verse".
Posted by: Ug | May 02, 2007 at 06:10 AM
My "universe" makes complete sense to me... so relative, so irrelavant :)
Posted by: ug | May 02, 2007 at 06:14 AM
great post michael - I love it :) and man can I understand... so I'm of to just be, until I start thinking again - which happens way too much for my liking. I want to be 5 years old again!
Posted by: Eric | May 02, 2007 at 09:34 AM
I experimented with Salvia while practicing full-lotus 3rd Eye qigong.
Salvia is ELECTROCHEMICAL while qigong develops ELECTROMAGNETIC powers.
In otherwords plant power is limited.
For example I smoked 10x while in full-lotus. The Salvia tried to pull my spirit out of my body -- the same experience that has completely freaked out many, including a friend of mine who did Salvia after doing every other type of drug. He never did Salvia again.
But for those whose spirits are pulled out of their body the spirit gets stuck in the floor or wall -- it doesn't travel far.
Once out of the body the experience of being in the wall or floor is blended with the subjective dream consciousness -- the stream of associations.
But in qigong or yoga the electrochemicals -- the hormones -- are transducted into electromagnetic fields which then power the spirit travel.
This is traditionally called "the astral tube" vs. "astral travel."
So the "astral tube" can connect with any "photon" of information since all photons were previously correlated after the big bang. Or as Master Nan, Huai-chin states, any "level of consciousness" can be accessed temporarily.
Once the 3rd Eye is fully open though then not only can distant contact be made but distant healing can occur since the body channels are fully open and quickly tranform the electrochemicals into electromagnetic fields.
My 3rd Eye is not fully open because as Master Nan, Huai-chin writes, most practitioners "fall back into wordliness." I can assure you that STRONG ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS shooting out of your body to a distance of ten feet tend to freak people out before the 3rd Eye gets fully open.
If a person can sit in full-lotus, with feet past the thighs, for 2 hours straight, every day, for 3 months straight, then the 3rd Eye should fully open.
But you can't fake the full-lotus and the body channels must open first -- i.e. must create strong electromagnetic fields.
In shamanic plant use this is possible but only in isolated training (by gender) and with extended drug use.
90% of shamanic history is WITHOUT DRUGS -- the Koi-San culture only used drugs rarely and only then for the females which were only 10% of the healers.
Posted by: drew hempel | May 02, 2007 at 09:35 AM
The 'khoi-san' use many plants.. I've sat with a 106 year old female healer/elder who ate pcilocybin mushrooms with me and remarked that although what she was seeing and experiencing was indescribeably beautiful, she now and normally only has to play her instrument for a short while to enter the same trance and see all as it is because of what she has learnt through her meditation..
The khoi-san have a long and documented use of many teacher plants, all sorts of interesting alkaloid containing cacti and succulents, tryptamine containing acacia (as do aboriginies) and MAOI brews, cannabis, alcohol (honey beer etc) and many many more as used spiritually and medicinally... They have a long history of use of mind-altering brews, smokes and snuffs and believe me its not just the females and they know they know how to use and prepare them properly :)
Use of these plants by indigenous cultures is kept secret unless you are trusted by a healer as the teacher plants are to them sacred.
Posted by: | May 02, 2007 at 11:11 AM
Wow fascinating! I've read the main anthropology books on the Koi-San: Richard Katz, professor Megan Beisle's "Women Like Meat," "The Harmless People," Bushman Shaman by Dr. Bradford Keeney, and the one on the female healer -- the name slips me oh and the recent one..."The Healing Land."
None of these books mention drugs being used for the weekly trance dance healings. The only drug use I saw mentioned was pot and alcohol use by more westernized recent practices (with Besa being the only real solid healer) and then the one female healer using a special psychotropic to help her achieve a trance state.
What I've read is that 90% of the men were healers and only 10% of the women because women can stand the pain of child birth but not the intensity of healing. The men dance for 10 hours straight and that's what creates the N/UM or boiling energy.
The Koi-san is a linguistic term that covers many different but closely related cultures. So the Baka in, I think the Congo, also do a trance healing dance around a fire -- even though they live in the forest.
Wade Davis even remarks how less drugs are used for shamanism in Africa than in the New World. Certainly tryptamine is found in many foods, but that doesn't mean the foods are "drugs," just as New World shamans may eat a lot of bananas and fish because of the high serotonin content or black sesame seeds are recommended for qigong because of the high tryptophan content.
But the common link for all paranormal practice is the use of music to guide the healing. All the books I've read on the Koi-San state that it's the music and the dancing that creates the healing energy, just as in yoga and qigong.
Posted by: drew hempel | May 02, 2007 at 02:38 PM
LOVE THIS SITE OR BLOG OR FORUM WHATEVER IT IS!!!
My belief is that consciousness does collapse the wave function and a particle is indeed created at the moment of observation. Just like my eyes see waves of the red light and my mind interprets it as the color red. There is no color red out there! There is only a light wave with special frequencies. The color RED appears only in the mind of a conscious being. The universe out there has no colors...Thus "reality" as we see it is a construct of the mind.
Magdolna
Posted by: Magdolna | May 04, 2007 at 05:56 PM
Michael,
I've been reading a lot more from this guy:
Ulrich Mohrhoff/a>
He is the author of the Pondicherry interpretation of Quantum Mechanics.
It's tough (like all quantum mechanics) but I think his ideas are definitely in the correct direction. . .
Posted by: Matthew C | May 04, 2007 at 07:49 PM
GAK!
Preview is my friend, preview is my friend!
Posted by: Matthew C | May 04, 2007 at 07:50 PM
Hello everyone,
Well if there is still room for another take on the whole subject I'm here to stick my head way above the parapet!
If other contributers here give any creedence to the possibility of understanding or enlightenment appearing spontaneously for such seemingly unfathonable issues then I have something to offer.
I did undergo such an 'Event' over two decades ago. The result and complete explanation encompassing quantum and beyond is to be found in a free book called 'Down To Earth' (the way it is,)from our homesite,URL shown here,(if Michael will graciously, & with thanks, allow it to be displayed.) Visitors may take it or leave it, but it just 'may' open a pathway hitherto forgotten.
URL: www.hometospirit.com
Blessings
Richard
Posted by: Richard Gabriel | May 05, 2007 at 09:43 AM