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From David W, February 9, 2008. Time 0:38

Hi guys. I just read an article about how when x-rays were first discovered, spiritualists got all excited about them being a "passage" to the Other World. That died. These days, QM seems to be the rage, and gets translated into New Age slogans like "everything is connected" and "nothing is real". Oddly, physics journals don't seem to pick up on this discourse at all.

Do you know what a path integral is? Can you write the wave fundtion? Do you know what renormalisation is? And if not, do you really understand QM? I don't.

Best

David

From Merin Nielsen, February 9, 2008. Time 3:21

Hi, Philip,

You wrote:

>> ... there seems to be no logical explanation for the dead/live cat paradox other than awareness precipitates the collapse. And cellular awareness (which of course isn't on the cooperative level of the billions of cells in the brain that produce "self"-awareness, located in the left temporal and prefrontal cortex, but awareness, nonetheless) is the only logical conclusion from the self-evolutionary and self-regulating functioning of cells.

Well, there are literally millions of journal pages concerning the QM wave collapse with no obvious consensus of opinion on the matter. I'm not into biology at all, but if there were some 'only logical conclusion' about the phenomena you've mentioned, then surely it would imply a worldwide Machiavellian conspiracy of scientists keeping it under wraps -- which could be another story.

>>... awareness seems to be the only unchanging, "real" aspect of existence.

You seem to be assuming the possibility of awareness without contents (or Merrell-Wolff's "consciousness without an object"). This idea is intriguing, but I'd be happier to say simply that what exists is what exists, and we're aware of some bits of it.

Hi, David,

It isn't really odd that physics journals tend to ignore most of the discourse connecting QM with New Age concepts:

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/Quantum/qmeta.html

Over the past couple of years I've done three 3rd year university courses in QM, and a course in the philosophy of modern physics. Over the next 18 months I plan to do three 4th year physics courses. (You're being generous with Dorothy Dixer's!)

Regards,

Merin

From David W, February 9, 2008. Time 3:37

Hi Merin: I had no idea! (Seriously: I didn't.) Best, Dorothy.

From Andrew Hall, February 10, 2008. Time 2:48

Hi Merin,

I'm fascinated by the idea of quantum entanglement. I mean, what could be more New Age-y than quantum entanglement! But I know pretty well zip about physics or anything about quantum mechanics. I came across this guy - Milo Wolff - who has this idea that electrons are a spherical standing wave which extends to infinity. Does this idea makes sense to you?

http://www.quantummatter.com/space_resonance.html

The one thing that I can comprehend is that matter is almost entirely empty space, but I'm not sure what to do with this. I doubt my nervous system can sense the space within the atom but my at least imagination can have fun with the idea.

When we talk about the idea of awareness, I feel more grounded in talking about this. You said earlier to Mike that self awareness is a concept that you don't understand (I think). If we describe self-awareness as the capacity of "awareness of being aware" and the capacity to use intention to create an awareness (for example, using a smile to create positive feelings and choosing to direct this energy to a specific place in the body), does this describe self-awareness in a way that you feel is useful? What I am trying to do is distinguish human awareness from the awareness of animals.

Cheers,

Andrew

From Merin Nielsen, February 10, 2008. Time 5:22

Hi, Andrew,

When it comes to studying QM, there are some gurus and there are the grunts. I'm just a grunt, and can't help much with the tricky stuff, and don't really want to try. (Have you read the article by Stenger, that I linked to above?) I've browsed the article by Milo Wolff, and it seems interesting enough (reminding me of Cramer's Transactional Interpretation of QM). Before taking it any further, though, I would look to see if it has had any positive feedback from within the physics community. Has it been cited anywhere? If it is original, good material, then it almost certainly would be reviewed prominently. One reason for the scientific journal system, of course, is to filter out worthwhile research from the plentiful wild and woolly conjectures that are out there. This system can occasionally be restrictive or blinkered, but it's the best we've got, and so it's necessary for ideas to get processed within the scope of the currently established discourse. I'm curious about the content of that website, so will check to see if Mr.Wolff's work is recognised anywhere.

You wrote:

>> If we describe self-awareness as the capacity of "awareness of being aware" and the capacity to use intention to create an awareness... does this describe self-awareness in a way that you feel is useful? What I am trying to do is distinguish human awareness from the awareness of animals.

Is this kind of self-awareness useful? Potentially, for sure, and I'd say that it is one kind of ability that distinguishes us from (almost all) animals, since I think it involves the 'symbol processing system' mentioned in recent feedback to the article, "Do We Really Need a New Explanation of the Latihan?" But the concept and feeling of 'self' (as in I-myself) seems like a rather different matter subject to another discussion.

Regards,

Merin

From Philip Quackenbush, February 11, 2008. Time 6:14

Hi, Merin,

I din't realize I was talking to a pro (semi-pro?) physics ist. Thass nize. I was kept from taking even elementary my dear Watson physics in high school, cuz I couldn't take it and chemistry at the same hour, the only time available, so everthang I've larn't 'bout it is by the scruff of my neck (being carried into the box for Schrödinger to think about my fate). Anyway, I looked at that link Andrew gave and it occurred to me that the major problem with understanding quantum physics is its mathematical complexity if he's right. There are googols and googols of electrons around, and, if they're all being or emitting standing waves, that's a whole bunch of complexity right there that's beyond the capacity of even modern pewters to deal with. Then, factor in the other particles, the hadrons consisting of rotsan rotsa quarks, and you have virtually "insoluble" complexity, if the usual model of even a single atom is anywhere near correct.

When Lorenz came up with what was probably the first strange attractor trying to figure out weather patterns, that was complex enough, and weather is still largely unpredictable beyond a few days, or even a few hours in some cases, so I don't wonder at the results of the double slit experiments too much, but my intuition tells me there aren't any such things as particles, the universe is all waves waving back and forth at us. I think it was Einstein that talked about wavicles, or wave packets. The big problem, then, seems to be that waves are virtually never linear, and nonlinear equations that describe the chaotic aspects of wave motion, again, are usually too complex for even current computers to solve, or even aid in solving.

Getting back to the idea of awareness being the fundamental quality of the universe, though, it would seem that, if that's so, that awareness might increase as a result of the complexity of certain systems, and animals such as dolphins and humans are the most complex systems known on the planet. I read a book called The Big Bang Never Happened a few years ago in which the author, a Swedish cosmologist, as I recall, or supporting arguments from such to the author, pointed out that biological systems are antientropic, that most animals have more complexity in them (and therefore, perhaps, more awareness) than entire galaxies. When I see current research in microbiology and animal studies seeming to affirm this, I have to wonder whether there isn't more to be learned from studying ourselves than the world we supposedly inhabit (could be it's only a projection of our minds [now it's time to define mind, children], or the "universal mind").

A quote of Einstein's I ran across today seems appropriate here. "Imagination is more important than knowledge." Couple that with Muhammad's hadith "Knowledge is more important than religion" (which, IMO, is mostly imagination, if not entirely so), and what do you have? I'd say that the religious fundamentalists may have been taking the wrong fork in the road for too many centuries, and it's time to imagine something more "real", which is what physicists and biologists seem to be doing, or at least trying to do. The Hindus could be right in placing consciousness as the foundation of the universe, but it could be just as likely that its an epiphenomenon of "matter", or wave activity. Certainly, the sensing of sound is definitely a result of waves impinging on the eardrum and transmitted through the inner ear to the auditory cortical area. Without that mechanism, most of us would hear nothing (although some animals "hear" with the vibrations on their skin or tongues). And we don't become aware of hearing something until later in the neural transmission of impulses, recognition of what we're hearing even later in the process. So, there's a lot of aspects to be considered in the "question" of consciousness, which is why science is only starting to get some answers about the subject.

Peace, Philip

From Merin Nielsen, February 11, 2008. Time 14:21

Hi, Andrew,

As far as I can tell, Milo Wolff is connected with just a single journal article from 1956. Not a good sign. He might be a genius, but there's just too much risk of time wasting when following up the work of somebody who's officially so obscure -- blinkered as this attitude might be.

Best wishes,

Merin

From Mike Higgins, February 13, 2008. Time 6:17

The quantum consciousness metaphor is this: The physical objects we apprehend are collapsed quantum probability waves. It is Consciousness (with a capital C, i.e., the mind of God) that causes them to collapse into the particular forms with which we are familiar. If we could identify with Consciousness, even if only partially, our usual subject/object dichotomy would disappear, to a greater or lesser degree, depending upon our degree of identification with it (Consciousness). This is the state of awareness reported by mystics. That is to say, when one has intimate knowledge of Consciousness (God), one realizes that only Consciousness is real/eternal and subjects/objects are the fictitious product of separative (ego based) awareness.

I have a talk (2 MP3's) by quantum physicist A. Goswami in which he explains this concept in detail and in fact refutes the arguments against it. If anyone here would like copies of these MP3's, I will upload them to yousendit.com, so that you may download them from there. You will need to e-mail me though so that I can add your e-mail addresses to the download link list. Would it be alright with the moderators if I posted my e-mail address here? Or is there another way that you can give my e-mail address to those who are interested? Thanks - Mike

From Mike Higgins, February 13, 2008. Time 6:32

Andrew said "If we describe self-awareness as the capacity of "awareness of being aware" and the capacity to use intention to create an awareness."

Yes, the other important corollary to the "quantum consciousness" idea I described is that, as co-creators with God (our consciousness being a reflection of his greater conciousness), our intent affects reality, i.e., exactly how the quantum probability waves will collapse. Michael Murphy, of Esalen fame, has done and is doing some fascinating studies on how people's intent "creates" (or co-creates) their reality.

Also, I wanted to say that Dr. Goswami, the physicist I mentioned, performed a fascinating peer-reviewed double blind experiment which demonstrates that our consciousness is (or can be) "nonlocal" just like quantum wavicles.

From David W, February 13, 2008. Time 8:33

Mike: Re double-blind, etc: citation please? Best, David

From Mike Higgins, February 13, 2008. Time 9:46

I think I got carried away with adjectives there, David, couldn't find the study, it probably was not double-blind. He has written a few books, but they are considered controversial (except for his quantum mechanics textbook):

http://zebu.uoregon.edu/~dmason/grad/fac/goswami.html

From Philip Quackenbush, February 13, 2008. Time 16:48

Hi, Mike and David, et al

Goswami's book The Self-Aware Universe is sitting rot here on the desk next to my keyboard (on the MIDI musical keyboard, in fact), now that you mention it. He came up to give a talk at the lo-cal lintpicking bookstore that I missed. I was in the process of starting to read it again when something mysteriously moved it where it is now (my disembodied etheric hand?). Anyway, he presents a fairly good argument for his Hindu/physics-inspired thesis, and I'm tempted to buy into it, though my skeptic bells will continue to go off until I either understand it as being valid or not. The idea of consciousness, or awareness, being the root cause of the universe is the only one that I've run across that makes some sort of sense to me, although the chicken/egg dichotomy still rears its messy head to leave me in the darkness of outer space, so to speak (is it or is it not turtles all the way down that are supporting the Earth, and what about the Causeless Cause, anyway -- Kant there be a solution?). At least I no longer am seeking the answers with any worry about survival after death, having accepted my life as it is without any, or virtually no, qualms.

Peace, Philip

From Mike Higgins, February 14, 2008. Time 2:38

o.k., rather than respond here in this thread to the primary points raised in this discussion, I've decided to start a new thread. Hope to see you all there on the next page...

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