Friday, February 20, 2009

Mysticism and Quantum Conflicts? -- Not really

Many of what I consider to be the leading thinkers from a cross-disciplinary perspective have shown we need to integrate the insights of mystical religion with the knowledge being derived from quantum insights. Perhaps they are different language for the same phenomena. However, the real issue, seems to me, is the question of consciousness in physical science and philosophy, since there is no explanation for it outside of the "mystical" explanations or "promissory science or materialism".
If we are to believe the research from physicists like Bernard Haisch (The God Theory) , Amit Goswami (multiples--but see God is not dead), or Mani Bhaumik (Code Name God) or science writers like Laszlo (Quantum shift in the Global Brain) or Braden (The Divine Matrix), or McTaggert (The Field), then we have to begin the discussion of what is the relationship of consciousness to materiality in all the various forms in which it is daily encountered (feelings, perceptional qualities, communication nuance, etc). Several researchers have had their work in non-locality, hierarchical entanglement, and discontinuity repeated multiple times with the same result. These three concepts appear linked to our material reality, but are effectively inexplicable in Newtonian physics. Hard data supports the existence of these "concepts" or "hypotheses". Thus they move beyond the realm of the incorporeal hypothesis and into the realm of working data with predictable testable results.
Astrophysicist Haisch, one of the co-developers of Newton's f=ma formula (which had previously been assumed to be true, but not provable), concluded the Zero Point Field (existing outside energy and matter) existed and provided a link to consciousness. Theoretical nuclear physicist Goswami concluded based on the three concepts and the research showing they are part of our physical world, that consciousness is the underlying structure similar to what physicist David Bohm had theorized decades earlier. Bhaumik, co-developer of the eximer laser concluded that without discontinuity effects, observed in semi-conductors, that there could be no contemporary technology.
The scientists I've mentioned are only a few of the huge number of scientists from a plethora of disciplines all concluding the same thing. Consider Measuring the Immeasurable, a compendium of various authors coming to the same conclusions from medical, physical, and social sciences. These are not hypotheses in the traditional sense of theory only. These conclusions are based upon replicated studies providing data that is anomalous with Newtonian physics and materialistically based biological concepts. (Hopefully I have not distorted your meaning or intention of hypotheses?)
All three of these above concepts have been the point and descriptions of mystical training and religious expression for millennia whether the system is a monotheist system (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), a philosophical system (various branches of Mahayana Buddhism and so Taoists), or religiously based self-exploration systems (various branches of Hinduism).
As a footnote story: It is said that two early Greek philosophers were arguing about how the earth, if it were independent of the heavens, was able to be suspended. The first philosopher asked the question and the second one answered: It is suspended on the shoulders of Atlas. The first then asked, if that's true how is Atlas suspended? The second philosopher paused and said, on the back of a turtle. He then paused for a moment and added to the first philosopher, you don't need to ask, it's turtles all the way down. There are a couple of points here. The first is that challenging the prevailing wisdom and dogma-that the earth was not separate from the heavens, carries with it a series of culture maintaining questions. The second point is that, some people, in support of the existing culture will ignore the problems with their own beliefs and expect someone else's theory to have all the answers, even if theirs does not. Thus the prevailing culture is reinforced even if the new theory works better (see Thomas Kuhn-- The Structure of Scientific Revolutions).
As a result, when I spoke of insights of quantum physics validating the mystical concepts, my argument was based upon the understanding presented by physical science experiments over the last 4 decades, from multiple disciplines, demonstrating things that the mystics have discussed, and depending on whom you believe performed, for thousands of years.

2 comments:

Tatarize said...
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dab said...
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