Download QUANTUM REALITY

WHAT DOES
QUANTUM PHYSICS
HAVE TO DO WITH IT?
Jonathan Robison PhD, MS
17th CENTURY WORLDVIEW
 Mechanistic: universe as machine
 Reductionist: whole = sum of its parts
REDUCTIONISM
Whole = Sum of Its Parts
 classical Newtonian Physics
 matter as discrete particles
 atomic / subatomic building blocks
 standard for scientific investigation
 foundation for all human systems
th
17
CENTURY LEGACY
 Only those things that can be
measured and quantified are real
 Anything else is considered to be
unworthy of scientific investigation
 The purpose of science is to
dominate & control the natural world
th
17
CENTURY LEGACY
“ What is being studied exists external
to and is independent of the scientist,
who discovers and characterizes its
properties and behavior.”
Dr. George Engel, Psychother Psycosom, 1992
“CARTESIAN” CERTAINTY
“All science is certain, evident
knowledge. We reject all knowledge
which is merely probable and judge that
only those things should be believed
which are perfectly known and about
which there are no doubts.”
Rene Descartes
20th CENTURY WORLDVIEW
 Organic: living, spiritual in nature
 Holistic: whole > sum of its parts
 Ecological: connected “web of life”
 Partnership: feminine & masculine
values honored
20th CENTURY CHALLENGE
 Anthropology / Archaeology
 Psychoneuroimmunology
 Quantum Physics
 Chaos Theory
QUANTUM REALITY
“No one understands quantum mechanics.
Do not keep saying to yourself... ‘But how
can it be like that?’ Because you will go
‘down the drain’ into a blind alley from
which nobody has yet escaped. Nobody
knows how it can be like that.”
Richard Feynman
QUANTUM REALITY
“All my attempts to adapt the theoretical
foundation of physics to this knowledge
failed completely. It was as if the ground
had been pulled out from under one, with
no firm foundation to be seen anywhere.”
Albert Einstein
QUANTUM REALITY
Principle of Complementarity
Subatomic entities exist
simultaneously as both
waves & particles
QUANTUM REALITY
Uncertainty Principle
Wave & particle nature
cannot be accurately measured
at the same time
Quantum Uncertainty
“ The exact properties of the duality
must always elude any measurement
we might hope to make. The most we
can hope to know about any given
wave packet is a fuzzy reading of its
position and an equally fuzzy reading
of its momentum.”
Zohar, The Quantum Self
Quantum Uncertainty
“ This essential fuzziness…replaces the
old Newtonian Determinism, where
everything about physical reality was
fixed, determined and measurable with
a vast “porridge” of being where...
everything remains indeterminate,
somewhat ghostly and just beyond our
grasp.”
QUANTUM REALITY
The Double-Slit Experiment
“All of quantum physics can be
gleaned from carefully thinking
through the implications of this
single experiment”
QUANTUM REALITY
Participatory Universe
“What is being studied is inseparable
from the scientist, who devises
mental constructs of his/her
experiences with it as a means of
characterizing his/her understanding
of its properties and behavior”
Einstein, Heisenberg
QUANTUM REALITY
Participatory Universe
“The act of observing alters the
properties of what is being observed.
Whether an electron acts as a particle
or a wave actually depends on how
we look at (measure) them.”
QUANTUM REALITY
Connectedness
“ Isolated material particles are
abstractions, their properties being
definable and observable only
through their interaction with other
systems”
Niels Bohr
QUANTUM REALITY
Connectedness
Sub-atomic entities are actually best
described not as “things” but as
interconnections or relationships
between “things”
Niels Bohr
QUANTUM REALITY
Connectedness
“Ultimately, the entire universe (with all its
‘particles,’ including those constituting
human beings) has to be understood as a
single undivided whole, in which analysis
into separately and independently existent
parts has no fundamental status.”
David Bohm
QUANTUM REALITY
Nonlocality
Subatomic particles that once
have been in contact retain an
instantaneous connection no
matter how far apart they are
IMPLICATIONS
Complementarity
both / and vs. either / or
Particle
Body
Masculine
Health
Science
Wave
Spirit / Mind
Feminine
Disease
Spirituality
SCIENCE & RELIGION
“Science without religion
is lame,
Religion without science
is blind.”
Albert Einstein
IMPLICATIONS
“Cartesian” Uncertainty
Certainty
“Quantum”
“Twentieth-century physics has shown
us very forcefully that there is no
absolute truth in science, that all our
concepts and theories are limited and
approximate.”
Fritjof Capra
IMPLICATIONS
Scientific Objectivity
“There is no such thing as objectivity.
We all interpret our perceptions in the
light of our beliefs and expectations.”
Daniel Benor, Spiritual Healing
IMPLICATIONS
Scientific Objectivity
 According to quantum physics there
is no such thing as objectivity
 Facts and scientific data are created
in the act of observation
Zukav, The Dancing Wu Li Masters
The Effect of Age
on the
Association Between
Body-Mass Index and Mortality
Stevens et al., NEJM 1998;338:1-7
“OBJECTIVE” EVALUATION?
 “An extremely important health
problem…reinforces the hazards of
body weight”
 Mortality risk of obesity “is slight
…and nonexistent for the elderly”
Stevens et al.,, NEJM 1998;338:1-7
OBJECTIVE
“ Uninfluenced by emotion,
surmise, or personal prejudice.”
IMPLICATIONS
“Measurement Mania”
“ Not everything that can be counted
counts and not everything that
counts can be counted.”
Einstein
IMPLICATIONS
“Rather than ignore things we can’t
measure we begin to see them as the
true foundations of our being and
our health.”
Michael D, World Future Society Bulletin, 17(1), 1-6.
IMPLICATIONS
“Outcome Obsession”
Descartes -
Gain knowledge by
eliminating uncertainty
Bacon -
Eliminate uncertainty by
controlling nature
“OUTCOME OBSESSION”
“When we’re in complete control, everything
will be fine. We’ll have fusion power. No
Pollution. We’ll turn the rain on and
off…We’ll turn the oceans into farms. We’ll
control the weather. No more hurricanes, no
more tornados, no more droughts…All the
life processes of this planet will be where
they belong - where the gods meant them to
Daniel Quinn, Ishmael
be - in our hands.”
LINEAR CAUSALITY

Disassemble natural processes
 Apply appropriate universal laws
 Predict and control future changes
CHAOS: The Science of Change
 “Complex” Systems
 Nonlinear Causality
 Everything Affects Everything
IMPLICATIONS
Outcome Obsession
“Chaos theory tells us that our
interventions are limited and that their
outcome is always, to a certain crucial
degree, unpredictable.”
Briggs & Peat, Seven Lessons of Chaos, 1999
CHAOS & CHANGE
“The simple laws of cause and effect do not
sufficiently explain the life changes one
experiences. We do not totally understand the
complex feedback mechanisms at work in men
and women. Nevertheless we can learn to rely
more on our intuitive, creative capacities in the
face of disorder and uncertainty, even though we
may not “know” the mechanisms of cause and
effect.”
Gelatt, Chaos and Compassion,Counseling & Values 1995
CHAOS & CHANGE
“We can never be sure how important our
own individual contribution will be. Our
action may be lost in the chaos that
surrounds us, or it may join with one of
those many loops that sustain an open,
creative community. On rare occasions it
may even be taken up and amplified until it
transforms the entire community.”
Briggs & Peat, Seven Lessons of Chaos, 1999
CHAOS & CHANGE
“We may never know if or how or when
our influence will have an effect. The
best we can do is act with truth, sincerity,
and sensitivity, remembering that it is
never one person who brings about
change but the feedback of change
within the entire system.”
Briggs & Peat, Seven Lessons of Chaos, 1999
IMPLICATIONS
Nonlocality
 Distant Healing
 Intercessory Prayer
 Precognitive & Shared Dreams
 Intuitive Diagnosis
 Telesomatic Events
“HOLISTIC” SCIENCE
“Scientists will not need to be reluctant
to adopt a holistic framework, as they
often are today, for fear of being
unscientific. Modern physics can show
them that such a framework is not only
scientific but is in agreement with the
most advanced scientific theories of
physical reality.”
Fritjof Capra
HUMAN SPIRITUALITY
“A feeling of belonging, of
connectedness to each other,
to nature, and to the cosmos
as a whole”
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“The main reason science is useful is that it
attempts to solve our human problems.
The main reason spirituality is useful is
that it helps to solve our human problems.
It’s time that we recognize that the
solutions science and spirituality offer are
one and the same”
The Spiritual Universe, Fred Alan Wolf, PhD
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“The world thus appears as a
complicated tissue of events, in
which connections of different
kinds alternate or overlap or
combine and thereby determine
the texture of the whole.”
Heisenberg
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“The material object becomes…
something different from what we
now see, not a separate object on the
background or in the environment of
the rest of nature but an indivisible
part and even in a subtle way an
expression of the unity of all that we
see.”
Yoga Master
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“ An elementary particle is not an
independently existing unanalyzable
entity. It is, in essence, a set of
relationships that reach outward to
other things.”
Physics
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“ Things derive their being and
nature by mutual dependence and
are nothing in themselves”
Buddhism in Capra – Tao of Physics, 138
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“A Chinese tale tells of some men
sent to harm a young girl who, upon
seeing her beauty, became her
protectors rather than her violators.
That’s how I felt seeing the Earth for
the first time. I could not help but
love and cherish her.”
Robert Keck, Sacred Eyes
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“The most beautiful and profound
emotion that we can experience is the
sensation of the mystical. It is the sower
of all true science. He to whom this
emotion is a stranger, who can no longer
wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good
as dead.”
Einstein
SCIENCE & SPIRITUALITY
“There are two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a
miracle.”
Einstein