The Universal Mind

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by Adrian Wagner

"If quantum theory makes sense, you do not understand it."  - Richard Feynman

During the course of his brilliant career, Feynman made vast contributions to the field of quantum physics.  In his lecture hall and in his writings, he sustained a vibrant curiosity of the universes' inner workings.  Yet, Feynman, a premier forerunner of quantum theory, did not understand the nature of its existence.

Simply, quantum theory is beyond human logic.  That is to say that the rules that govern our universe do not fit into our common notions of causality, locality, and the directionality of time that we experience everyday.  The irony lies in the fact that, if true, quantum theory seeks to describe the most violently fundamental nature of all things.  We are of these things, and yet we have evolved in such a way that we can neither tap into nor comprehend this new quantum reality without the theoretical framework of physics.  As we will later see, quantum theory unveils the ability of an object to be in two places at once, for the future to effect the past, and for the collapse of what we consider an object altogether.  Quantum theory goes against the grain of our macroscopic world, and as such, it does not make sense.  Our relationship to it has thus become all but metaphysical, and the philosophical foundations of physics have all but crumbled in its wake.  Emerging is a new relationship, a new view of the world, formed out of the discovery of an inherent uncertainty within the absolute.  Physics has taken us to a new form of understanding, a viewpoint from which we can only behold the world with which we are intricately connected.

At the end of the nineteenth century, it was supposed that there were only two mysteries left unsolved about our physical world.  The first was the unexplained ability of light to travel across a universe that was otherwise void of any physical medium.  The second was the explanation of the signatures of electromagnetic radiation created by a perfect black body.  Though for the purpose of this paper, it is not necessary to understand the details of these once lingering theoretical challenges, it must be noted that, at the time, they represented the end of the quest.  In fact, "these problems seemed so small that some established physicists were encouraging their students to select other fields of study were there was better opportunity to make original contribution."[i] 

Little was it known that the answers to these two questions would lead to a revolution of our understanding of the physical world as well as the realization of the inherent limits of understanding in general.  In order to describe this shift in the role of physics within our world, we must first look at the scientific culture out of which this shift occurred.

Though many contrast science and religion, as well as site the examples of when the two first came into direct conflict with each other (i.e. Galileo), science first arose out of the mind-set that the universe was absolute - one of Gods divine creations.  Though made seemingly complex in its  layering and physical dance, basic and fundamental laws could be discovered which would describe our universe precisely.  Physical laws, wrote Kepler, "lie within the power of understanding of the human mind.   God wanted us to perceive them when he created us in His image in order that we may take part in His own thoughts… Our knowledge of numbers and quantities is the same as that of God's, at least insofar as we can understand something of it in this mortal life.[ii]"

As such, the universe is in effect a mental creation.  We, the product of gods' thoughts are given the ability to behold these thoughts.  Thus, the quest of physics was to rediscover the laws manifest in the material world… manifest out of a divine mind. 

During the time of Kepler, Newton, and Galileo, the universe was viewed as a machine that approached perfection.  At the center was the sun and around the sun, the planets orbited with glorious precision, just as the moon orbited the earth.  There were patterns and rules everywhere.  The orbital bodies followed the laws of gravitational attraction against the backdrop of a pallet of light.  It seemed, at the time, that the further we entered into the divine thoughts of god, the closer we came to uncovering them all.

Thus, physics took on the form of the discovery of the divine mind.  Just as the word of god is written in the bible, the laws of his universe are written across the heavens.  In our quest to uncover these laws, mathematics formed as the new language… an opaque medium through which the universe became tangible.  It is through mathematics that we verify our theories against reality - constantly bending and changing them until they seem to fit perfectly.  We view mathematics as the divine language.  One and one are two.  Two and two are four.  The nature of this language is that it is unquestionable; it simply must be applied to the world in the right way, yet the rules that define this application are seen as absolute, and more importantly, universal.  Math is beyond culture, it is beyond context, and it is beyond meaning.  Rather, it emerges from the world around us, as absolute as God himself. 

Three years ago, working as a carpenter in Indonesia, I directly felt the power of this language of Math.  As I worked with others with whom I could not otherwise communicate, the gestures of circles, triangles, squares, and solids became the foundations of all communication between myself and the other workers. The amazing thing was that while the words for wood, sandpaper, and lunch varied infinitely, the language of the mathematics was absolute.  It emerged as vividly as the beauty of a woman does to a young man. The math too was of raw beauty and essence.  It is in this way that math and the physics that is dependent on it is seen as divine.  It is interesting to compare religion and science against this light.

      Religious doctrine stems from the lineage of history.  It is in its age, in its complexity, and in its presentation, that religion gains its validity.  As such, multiple religions can exist in the world at one time, in theory, not conflicting with each other.  This of course brings up the need for a distinction between religious belief, and the politics of the church.  For beliefs are sacred, and politics is by its very nature in conflict. 

Nancy Baker once pointed out that to say 'I believe in something' is far different from saying 'I believe that this or that.'  To believe in something is unverifiable[iii].  A belief is delicately held by the perspective from which it is created.  It is in this way, in the sense of believing in something, that the power of religious doctrine arises.  One cannot refute another's beliefs; at best, one can challenge them.  The nature of religion is that it is built upon the faith of others.  Thus, it is not tested against reality, as is science. Rather, religion stands on its own.  It is believed in.  If anything is to be tested, it is the mind of the participant. 

In physics, theories are pitted against the actions of the world.  In religion, ones faith is often pitted against the doctrine of the absolute.  As such, religion forms a metaphysical and abstract basis out of which laws, moral codes, and political hierarchies are formed.  It is by being faith based, and further, by removing the process of verification from the external world and into the self, that religion allows for the formation of the absolute.  Human nature is to question the world around us.  By reversing this process, namely, to have the world around us question ourselves, we find that the world is the absolute, and that we are the relative.  God is the pinnacle, and we are the creatures, endowed with free will, who must return to face him in the end.  It is in this way, that religion verifies us.

While the nature of the verification of religion and physics may differ, our relationship to both is very much the same.  From an evolutionary perspective, neither function to the benefit of our immediate needs.  They provide neither food, nor shelter, nor warmth.  Yet, both have evolved within culture to become widespread and vividly influential.  While our survival is not dependent upon such intellectual wanderings, our need to explain and give meaning to all around us appears to be one of our most fundamental properties.  This need is beyond politics, beyond culture, and even beyond physicality.  It, from the most blatant perspective, seems almost useless.  To what end does the energy we exert answering the question "WHY?" take us?  As I write this essay, what do I gain from it?  To tell you the truth, I have no idea.  However, I indeed feel that an exploration such as this is my nature. 

The field of physics is intimately tied to the concept of furthering ourselves as a species.   Our curiosity has led to the advance of technologies that have pushed our ability to manipulate the world around us to the threshold.  Clearly, we have won as a species - what ever that means.  Yet it is interesting to note that while our technologies have led to advances that have enabled us to gain our edge, our inherent drive to discover and create has resulted in our dependence on them.  We live in a time where global food supply, already inadequate at feeding 1/6^th of the world's population[iv], is dependent on oil production, a technology - and more importantly, a non-renewable resource, that creates a dependency.  Thus, in our quest to further ourselves, we have ended up weakening our own independence as a species.  The concept of 'furthering ourselves,' I feel, is fundamentally human.  Further, it seems intimately tied to the idea of 'self.'   Without the personal unification of self, and thus the relative unification of culture and society, it would be difficult for a species to evolve via technology, as the effort is inherently collaborative.  Further, technology is propagated linearly through time.  Self, then, given meaning via religion, or meaning via this idea of 'furthering oneself', may be the medium through which this technology can progress.  It is by having a self that we are able to evaluate our actions against the background of an external reality.  Via memory, we can evaluate the progress of our own innovations.  Religion thus forms the moral backdrop out of which society can itself become linear.  Religion is the cultural cohesiveness that enables cultural evolution. 

It is interesting to note - "Every Empire Built has been destroyed.[v]"  It is as if civilizations themselves have life spans.  As such, they are able to evolve, and eventually get replaced with other civilizations.  Thus, the self  - the personal and physical evolution - parallels the cultural progression, a progression often tied intimately to technological innovation.

The cohesion of this progression is created by religion.  Religion can form a social order.  I once argued for a few hours with a friend about the nature of Good and Evil.  He had a good point:  "Why is it that in some cultures, killing another human being is considered murder, and in others it is considered sacrifice.[vi]"  Further, in our own culture, why is it that murder is, at times, considered justice ( i.e. executions)?  These variations are beyond political law.  They stem from the religious beliefs of culture.  The right to human life is based on what is believed in. 

Religion is the self of society.  It is the spirit that unifies a culture into one mind, one moral standing, and one collective purpose.  In its most pure form, religion is a body of people, standing in relation to one being.  This is the nature of self, to be relative to another.

When a child forms self, they discover the word 'no'.  My girlfriend once told me that her younger brother would stand for hours, pointing to all the objects in a room, shouting 'No!'.  'No' here means 'not me', 'not I', but 'you', 'that', 'them'.  Finally, after exhausting all the possibilities, all that remains is the self - the awareness from which point we see the world outside of us.  It is in this context that a culture experiences its religion - to stands in front of the supreme other - he who cannot be known, cannot be seen, and cannot be touched.  It is in this way that religion unifies.  By standing in front of the unknown, the experience is further unifying.  It is not about the interpretation of the unknown, but rather the experience of being in relation to it, itself.  Thus, there is not a context… a perspective that is individually interpretable...  there is only the unknown, the silence, the prayer, the collective believing in. 

Religious experience is rarely a personal experience.  We go to church as a body of people.  We go to ceremonies as a body of participants.  In other cultures, the homogony of rhythm is key in the establishment of such unification.  We dance together; we sing together; we sit in silence together… in the presence of a singular but intangible being.  That is the nature of religion. 

However, it must be pointed out that to have such a religious experience, one must maintain self, and more importantly, maintain the notion of other.  To stand in front of the absolute other, is to still place the other - God - outside of ourselves.  Indeed, how can one place god?  How can one talk to God as if he were a person?  How can one experience the ultimacies of the universe if one must either exclude oneself from the experience, or label god as an other?  The same question must also be asked of science… If the physicist discovers the laws of the universe, how can he exclude himself from the equations?  But I will come back to that later. 

The only way for the experience of God to not be an other, but to be God, is via the abandonment of the self.  As long as we hold on to our self, our perspectives, our categorizations, our need to understand and define, we have no way of experiencing the absolute.  Many philosophers even question the notion of an experience with God.  By experiencing, we are placing the moment into a singular event…  a chapter of our life…   a this experience as opposed to that experience.  Thus to become one with God, and this is not to say to become God, is to abandon the part of us that hold us back.  It is to abandon human nature, to abandon this very process of writing this essay, so that all that remains in consciousness.  To be in the presence of God, which is in my belief to be in the presence of all that is around us, is to abandon the question of why.  It is to abandon the clouds of judgment that come from the experience of constantly differentiating self from other.  It is only by doing so that we are able to clearly perceive all that surrounds us.

The mystics have discovered this experience of no self by many names.  To the Buddhists it is termed enlightenment, to the Christians it is union with God.  The nature of such an experience, is the movement beyond the illusion of the self.  It is this illusion that closely parallels the path of the scientist into the realm of the quanta. 

Quantum theory is best understood by looking at how it directly reveals itself to us, in its most tangible form.  It is more than a set of equations that describe our everyday world.  Rather, it is a collection of an entirely new logic that represents our world at its most fundamental and indivisible level.  To understand it fully, we must let go of our need to understand it at all, for at the most intimate level, the universe follows rules that have no logical basis.  In order to grasp how this logicless logic manifests, we turn to the behavior of an electron in a now famous experiment.

The electron has a mass, and as such, it can be weighed.  As we will see, it is a tangible thing, yet our very notion of tangibility must change in order to understand it.  The electron is a thing, in that is can exist in this world, yet it reveals its most mysterious nature by the realization that as a fundamental and thus quantum thing, it does not occupy a region of space, but rather has the probability of occupying a region of space.  This is to say that while an electron exists, its can not be said to be a point-like structure, occupying a finite position in some three dimensional coordinate system.  Rather, it is can best be viewed as a cloud - a distribution of the chance that the electron is at any particular position in a system.  One way to realize this 'pointless pointedness' is by treating the electron as both a particle and a wave.   As a particle, the electron can carry such properties as mass and charge.  A particle, however, also has the properties of being a singular and thus finite point in space, which as we will see, an electron is not.  Thus, it can also be represented as a wave.  No singular part of the wave is the electron, rather it is the whole distribution of energy across space that has the possibility of manifesting itself as an

electron. 

As we will see, this cloud of probability is more than our inability to perceive position with certainty, but rather a property of fundamental uncertainty inherent in all matter in the universe, as described by Heissenberg's Uncertainty principle.  It is best understood by thinking about the following.

  If an electron exists, and we wish to measure where it is and where it is going, we can shine light on it to try to see it.  However, it must be noted that by shining light on the electron, we will alter its momentum, as the light itself will exert a force on the particle. The light will then push the electron, disturbing its momentum.  We can thus 'see' where the electron is, but only at the cost of our inability to know its original momentum.  Similarly, if we are to determine the momentum of the electron, we cannot do so without altering its position, such that we no longer know where the electron is.  Thus, there is a trade in the certainty of an electrons position and its momentum.  If we know one with certainty, we cannot know the other.

This relationship in uncertainty can be described by a simple equation:

Uncertainty_position   x   Uncertainty_momentum = Planks Constant

            Thus, if you have reduced most uncertainty about position, you must be uncertain about momentum.  If fact, it is impossible to be completely certain about either, as the uncertainty would thus be 0, and 0 times anything can not be equal to planks constant.  Though the details of Hinesburg's theorem can be a bit confusion, its meaning is far more tangible.  At the most fundamental level of the universe that we have thus far uncovered, we have found that matter itself is physically indeterminate.  That is to say that we cannot know of the world around us, at any time, with absolute certainty.  The nature of the experiments described above is that it is the act of knowing itself that creates such an indeterminacy.  Without acting upon the electron, nothing is disturbed.  Yet, the moment that we try to draw any information from it, we alter its path, and therefore its entire future.  Hinesburg's uncertainty principle as formulated with Planks Constant reveals this relationship.

"The presence of Planck's constant means that we confront at the quantum level a situation in which the mathematical theory does not allow precise prediction of, or exist in exact correspondence with, the physical reality.   If nature did not insist on making changes or transitions in these precise chunks, or in multiples of Planck's quantum of action, there would be no crisis - the universe, in principle, would be completely deterministic, and we could continue to assume that an exact one to one correspondence existed between every element of the physical theory and physical reality.  Whether we view indeterminacy as a cancerous growth in the body of an otherwise perfect knowledge of the physical world, or the grounds for believing, in principle at least, in human freedom, one thing appears certain - it is an indelible feature of our understanding of nature.[vii]"

            In the above passage, Neils Bohr brings up one of the most profound and meaningful results of scientific exploration.  If the world is inherently deterministic, the notion of free will must be abandoned.  The nature of quantum physics is the exact opposite.  In a non-deterministic, quantum world, freedom, chance, and chaos are inherent properties.  What is uncertain is the notion of an absolute.

Before moving deeper into quantum theory, one more thing must be presented: the nature of the interference of waves.  When waves combine, the result is the sum of their amplitudes.  If two waves are in phase with each other, then the amplitudes are added together and the resulting wave is the sum of the two combined waves, as in figure 1.2.  If waves are out of phase, then for each peak of one wave, the other wave has a negative peak.  The two cancel each other out as in figure 1.3.

 

            If an electron is represented by a wave, and another electron is perfectly out of phase with the first, then if the two combine, as did the waves in Figure 1.3, according to quantum theory, the two electrons can cancel each other out.  The result of this cancellation is seen in the following experiment.

A stream of electrons is shot through two small slits in a surface.  As each leaves the electron gun, it passes though one of the two slits and lands upon a screen beyond.  Because the electrons exhibit wave like properties, some cancel each other out when they meet up out of phase after passing through different slits.  This interference can be seen as bands of lines on the screen where no electrons land.

            As would be expected, the electrons are interfering with each others as if they were waves.  It should be noted at this point that interference only occurs as a result of electrons coming simultaneously out of both slits at the same time, and thus interfering with each other right before reaching the screen.  In other words, if one slit is covered up, the interference pattern disappears. 

Researchers then altered the experiment slightly.  They set the electron gun to send out only one electron at a time, letting them gradually accumulate on the photographic plate.  As a result, there was no other electron to interfere with, and it was expected that the pattern would dissapear.  What they found was that the interference pattern remained!  It was as if a single electron passed through both slits simultaneously, and subsequently interfered with itself on the other side.  In figure 2, this sequence of events is described.

 

An electron, called E1 is shot from the electron gun.  The electron passes through both slits, as if it had a virtual companion, Ev.  It is not known which slit the electron actually passes through, yet it does not matter, as it behaved as if it has passed through both.

Thus, we begin to see the inherent mysteries of the quantum world.  As far as we know (and there is no evidence for believing otherwise), the electron is a fundamental particle, indivisible into any more parts.  Yet, the above experiment has revealed that it is able to exists in more than one point in space at a time.  This conclusion parallels the idea originally described, that an electron is as much a wave as it is a particle.  It clearly is not finite, and furthermore, it has some very strange properties that seem to defy logic.  If this is now very clear to you, in that it does not make sense, good, as the quantum world is stranger yet.

Physicists then tried to determine which slit the electron passed through, by placing detectors just past the slits.  As such, they would be able to determine if the electron either split apart, into a virtual and real pair, or if it indeed existed in two places at once.  To their astonishment, they found that when the electron was being watched, it was not able to pass through both slits at once.  The act of observation caused the interference pattern, and thus the mystery to disappear. 

 

The logic that allows this to remotely make sense is based again on Hinesburg's Uncertainty Principle.  As a side note, it is quite representative of the nature of quantum physics to use an uncertainty principle to justify one's arguments. 

When the detector is placed beyond one or both of the slits, it allows the physicist to know, with certainty, which one of the two slits the electron passed through.  Previously, no information was taken from the electron, and as such, its position was a quantum mystery.  Because no one knew, there was an equal probability of it passing through either slit.  Because no one ever found out, the electron existed as this probability, rather than as a particle, and as such it could indeed pass through both at the same time.  What must change in order to understand this experience, is our perception of a thing.  We are programmed to think of every thing as finite, and disconnected.  That is simply our macroscopic experience of the world.  The beauty of quantum physics is that it reveals another, more fundamental reality in which nothing is deterministic, and in which without theoroms and theories, nothing make sense.

The final quantum experiment that I will present in this paper, is my favorite, as it stretches the limits of what we perceive reality to be.  Again, this experiment is related to the uncertainty principle with a slight modification.  Another form of the uncertainty principle replaces 'momentum' and 'position', with 'energy' and a particles position in 'time'.  If this does not make sense yet, don’t worry.  Though slightly beyond normal rational thought, what this form of Heisenburgs famous equation is saying is that the more you know about a particles energy, the less you can know about when it is interacting…  it is as if the particle can jump around in time.  Rather than try to explain this further, or at all, it emerges quite beautifully, as some form of quantum poetry, with the following modification to the experiment.

In the above diagram, though it may look confusing, the primary changes are as follows.  First, the electron detectors (green) have been moved past the screen(photographic plates).  As such, they are still able to determine which slit the electron has passed trough, however, by being moved beyond the screen, they are only used if the electron is allowed to reach them.  This choice is enabled by cutting up the screen into what looks like venetian blinds.  As such, the physicist can either open the blinds, allowing the electrons to pass through, or close them, and exposing the electron onto the screen.  He can therefore choose, from electron to electron, whether of no he wants to know which slit the electron passed through, by opening or closing the blinds.

The outcome of this experiment is as follows.  If the blinds are closed, the interference pattern shows up on them, meaning that the electron went through both slits at once.  This makes sense, as when closed, the electron does not reach the detectors, and no one knew which slit they passed through.

If they are left open, the detectors can thus see which slit the electron went through, and we find that the interference pattern disappears.

So far, not much is different from the previous experiment.  However, if the switch can be fired rapidly enough such that the decision to randomly open or close the blinds is made moments after the electron has passed through the slits, the outcome is still the same.  In this case, the electron has already either gone through one or both slits before the decision is made whether or not to detect this.  Yet the decision to detect is what effects whether or not the electron goes through one or both slits.  As such, the decision in the present is affecting the behavior of the electron in the past.  If the position is determined, the electron behaved as if it had nonchalantly only gone through one slit.  If the position is not determined, the electron acts exactly as if it had gone through both slits at the same time. Quantum causality is not dependent upon only the past.  Quantum things are affected by the future.

In some ways, it seems that the consciousness of the physicist effected the result of the experiment.  It could be argued that because the scientists knew where the electron was, it behaved a certain way.  However, what must be noted is that it does not matter if someone is actually looking at the result of the experiments, only that the electron interacts with the detector, and the information is collected from it.  If human consciousness were so intimately tied to the universe, this would be a quantum mystery beyond all words.  Yet, there still remains the notion of universal consciousness.  Whether there is a being or a detector, whose act of witnessing is affecting the quantum world, there remains the notion that the simple act of interacting with something affects it in such incredible and seemingly strange ways.  Indeed, the notion of a quantum vs. non quantum world is a falsity.  Quantum physics describes the properties of all things; it is only when we step back and are only able to see the macroscopic world, that these quantum interactions become invisible. 

If an electron remains untouched, it is truly subject to the quantum strangeness that allows it to exists in many places at once, over a span of an unknown amount of time, and with an unknown amount of energy.  Thus, in this state, it is a singular, if not lonely entity in the universe.  It is as if the act of being alone and singular is a fundamental part of the universe.  Further, and even more exciting is the notion that the act of interacting -  from emerging from this state of being alone - has profound if not mind altering consequences.  It is as if the universe creates consciousness…  as if the universe is consciousness…  or at the very least, that consciousness, in a very fundamental and rudimentary form, is an intricate part of the world around us.  While looking into physicality of human consciousness, many questions have surfaced, seemingly pointing to our intricate connection to the quantum world. 

There are over 10,000,000 neurons in the human brain that somehow are able to share a collective experience that at the very least has the illusion of a coherent self.  Simple chemical reactions cannot account for this coherence, as the time for such reactions to take place across the myriad of connections would bring our brain to a stall.  It has also been discovered that the brain wave patterns mapped out EEG readings, are completely synchronized across the entire brain.  "In both whole-scalp EEGs and, more dramatically, in those done on two individual neurons involved with the same visual stimulus, the wave patterns representing excitation are synchronized, suggesting that a long-range coherence binds the firing pattern of individual neurons.[viii]"

There is a state of matter, known as a Frohlich Einstein-Bose condensate, in which molecules begin to vibrate in unison when under the influence of a magnetic field.  As energy is added to the system, the molecules begin to emit a subtle glow of photons.  If slightly more energy is added to the system, the molecules become a condensate.  A condensate is a particular state of matter in which the all molecules begin to share a single quantum state.  Individual molecules loose their identity and becoming a unified and indivisible system.  "The crucial distinguishing feature of Bose-Einstein condensates is that the many parts that got to make up an ordered system not only behave as a whole, they become whole; their identities merge or overlap in such a way that they lose their individuality entirely." 

Normally, such a state only occurs at temperatures reaching absolute zero, or -273° C.  As such, it was not until 1985, over 70 years since Einstein and Bose first predicted such a state, that one was successfully created in the laboratory.  Herbert Frohlich then went on to discover that biological systems possess a unique form of the condensate, at normal body temperatures!  Such a condensate could easily explain the nature of the brain to appear physically unified (EEGs), and for the cohesion of neurons to into a collective experience which manifests as consciousness.

In fact, the Frohlich state has been found in all living cells, and possibly even in DNA.[ix]  It is beginning to seem that not only does such a state explain consciousness in humans, but that any living matter possessing such a state, may too experience some form of consciousness.

Consciousness is often tied to the experience have having a self, an ego, and a unique perception of reality.  From the ideas presented above, it seems that we must redefined consciousness to rather mean a harmony, a perfect cohesion of matter.  The Einstein-Bose condensate thus forms the backdrop out of which subtle quantum wave fluctuations can take place.  The unification of such a state causes such variations to be experienced by the whole system involved.  In the human brain, it does not mean that individual neurons are not perceiving, processing, and storing information.  Rather, such a process is tied intimately to much more subtle quantum fluctuations.  These fluctuations do not in turn report to some sort of central self receptor.  Rather, they are consciousness itself. 

Thus the state of awareness - the experience of a whole and unified relation to the universe, is based upon the fundamental quantum properties of the universe itself.  Consciousness, in fact, may well be one of the properties of our universe.  Indeed it would seem as if it would have to be, otherwise is existence would never create awareness, and would be in vain.  If there is a universe, and no consciousness arises, does it exist?

There are two fundamental types of quantum wave functions in the universe.  There are Baryons, and there are Fermions.  The nature of Fermions, which make up all matter in the universe, is to repel each other.  Without any other influence, the universe would be a sea of fermions that never came into contact with one another.  Baryons, on the other hand, are the force wave functions, such as that of gravity.  The nature of baryons is to carry forces between the Fermions, so that they may interact with one another and come together to form tangible states of matter.  The interesting aspect of the universe we live in is that without one of these two types of quantum wave functions, it seems that for one, life could never form in our universe, and secondly, that perhaps the universe itself could not exist.  Without Baryons (forces), Fermions would never come into contact with one another, and there could be no consciousness.  Without Fermions (matter), the forces would have nothing to cause to interact, such that cause would have no effect.  Thus the two are tied together in reciprocity… a beautiful and mutual relation.

Martin Buber, in book "I and Thou", speaks of God as being made of pure relation.  That is to say that to be in the midst of a presence, namely a 'You', is to be in the presence of God.

"Extended, the lines of relationships intersect in the eternal You and through every single You the basic word addresses the eternal You... Whoever pronounces the word God and really means You, addresses, no matter what his delusion, the true You of his life that cannot be restricted by any other and to whom he stands in a relationship that includes all others[x]." 

If fermions and baryons both exist, there is an inherent relationship set up within the universe.  There is a duality out of which all things may form.  Fermions are the things, and baryons are the interactions.  The ultimate mergence of the two, in a Einstein Bose condensate, is the union of opposites into a quantum oneness.

Quantum physics represents a massive shift in the nature of scientific understanding.  The shift of science from the absolute to the quantum indiscernible has carried away with it the ideal that a scientific species, we will one day be able to unlock the absolute nature of the universe.  Such an ideal functioned in giving science a cause.  It gave meaning to our journey.  With the discovery of quantum theory, we are left with a void that by its very nature cannot be crossed.  We do not find ourselves approaching the divine, but rather uncovering a darkness so pure that we cannot find the candle to guide us.  A friend once told me a Zen proverb:

"When you are in darkness, you search for a flash light.  Yet the only reason you need the light is to find the flashlight." [xi]

It seems that quantum theory has taken us to a darkness that we can do no more than sit in.  There is a beauty in realizing an absolute mystery.  Yet, our relationship to it must be altered if we are to sit comfortably in its darkness.  We can venture further, but only by abandoning the notion of absolutism, and rather by embracing the unknown into our theories and our abstractions of the universe.  Science has thus become metaphysical in nature.  The pursuit of divine knowledge, has given way to the pursuit of divine mystery.  It seems that the closer we get to uncovering the truth, the further the truth recedes into the unknown.  Our tools into this mystery have become spiritual in proportion.  "[Particle Accelerators] have been described as the modern equivalent of cathedrals built in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and with good reason.  They are costly and magnificent artifacts of belief in the wonder and extent of the universe.[xii]"

It is in these accelerators, that we smash particles together to reveal their inner workings.  All the data produced must be interpreted through this quantum veil of non-absolutism.  It is now believed that as we approach higher and higher energies within these accelerators, simulating further back into the origin of our universe, we will see that all the forces such as gravity, electromagnetic, strong, and weak forces, merge into a singular unified force.  If it is true that there is such a simple and harmonious beauty, its existence need not even be questioned.  There is an unjustified but tangible movement in modern physics to find the most simple theorems to describe the universe.  While there is no direct evidence that nature is required to adhere to such simplicity, the quest assumes such a fluid mathematical poetry will emerge.  The quest must be spiritual in nature, and the questions taking us on our journey are infinite. 

Why then did this one force split apart to become many?  This question has a power in itself, open to both scientific and spiritual interpretation alike.  Another question that must be asked is why must one divide science and religion? 

Science, namely physics, has become increasingly metaphysical, where as mainstream religion has become increasingly absolute.  Yet the origins of these religions seem to point back towards a quantum uncertainty that was perhaps already known. These ancient spiritual practices go beyond society, reaching into the void until the void is either un-understood, or the need to understand ceases to exist.  Perhaps one of the biggest parallels between modern science and mystic religion is the uncovering of the illusion of self.  Where as the self/soul has traditionally been seen as absolute and finite, mystic religion and chaos theory replace such a view with the interconnectedness of all things.  Chaos theory describes the nature of things to interact in such a way that the universe can only be seen as a constant dance of matter, each atom having total influence over all others.  It is perhaps better described as the movement of the universe through the dimension of time.  As it moves, all things in it move, flow, collide, alter, grow, shrink, transform…  Ultimately, all is effected by all else, and thus to single any part out of the whole is an illusion.  We, for instance, are made up of all that we eat.  Our minds are the products of our genes and all that we have encountered during the course of our lives.  Yet, the culmination of all of these factors creates the illusion of self, such that our physicality and even mental collectiveness appear to be a whole and separate entity.

I will not say that I understand the nature of self, for I have not even begun to see beyond it.  For me, self is real.  It is only through intellectualization that I can begin to see beyond it.  A similar wonder is the nature of consciousness.  The mere fact that we are here, now, blows me away…  It seems beyond explanation.  If you were to take a string 160 miles long, representing the age of the universe, a piece of it only 1 millimeter long would represent the span of a human life.  What are the chances that it is that very segment of the string, over the entire span of the universe that is the present?  What is the chance that over the course of the last 15 billion years, the present is the same miniscule moment of history that we are here, now, conscious? 

Why is it that the ratio between the size of the sun and the moon is exactly proportional to the ratio of the distance between the two bodies, from the earth?  As a result, we can witness perfect solar eclipses, and both appear to be the same size in the sky.

            A group of scientists hooked up a group of Buddhist monks to an EEG, to record the activities in their brain as they meditated.  After a few hours, as the monks began to enter into a mental stillness, where self dissolved into nothingness, it was found that a particular region of the brain where the mind separates self from other shown as significant decrease in activity[xiii].  Why are such religion and spiritual practices so scientifically deterministic? 

            In another experiment, a scientist recorded the brain wave patterns of people having profound religious experiences.  He then devised a helmet that produced a complex sequence of magnetic field fluctuations that brought people into such a state.  People who use the helmet reported having visions of God, of deceased ancestors, or a inner peace that was purely spiritual in nature. 

            My first reaction, after reading this article, was a supreme disappointment in the rapping of spirituality into scientific determinism.  Yet, with further thought, I realized that there is nothing wrong or even undermining of such experiments.  As I have mentioned, the questions are infinite, such that while we may uncover a physicality that corresponds to spiritual existence, why would such a physicality not exist?  There is such a beauty in the fact that it has arisen with in our universe, and that it is so uniquely tied to such fundamental properties as magnetic fluctuations in the fabric of our world.  We are of this earth, and further, we are of this universe.  As such we are not only a part of it, but one with it…  indeed our universe is a spiritual place.

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