Again, I will need some time to digest this episode six titled “Scary Monsters and Super Creeps.” Simon is no Charlie from LOST. Simon openly addresses the cause of the flashforward with a pretty lady he is seducing on a bullet train. He explains himself as a famous quantum physicist and that he knows what caused the flashforward. Simon puts it in terms of quantum physics and a kitten citing “quantum superpositions” and “Schrödinger’s cat.”

Until I can post my review over the next few days, I thought I would leave you with the thought experiment called Schrödinger’s cat.

Schrödinger’s cat

Schrödinger’s cat is a thought experiment, often described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935. It illustrates what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The thought experiment presents a cat that might be alive or dead, depending on an earlier random event. In the course of developing this experiment, he coined the term Verschränkung — literally, entanglement.

Origin and motivation

Schrödinger’s thought experiment was intended as a discussion of the EPR article, named after its authors — Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen — in 1935. The EPR article had highlighted the strange nature of quantum superpositions. Broadly stated, a quantum superposition is the combination of all the possible states of a system (for example, the possible positions of a subatomic particle). The Copenhagen interpretation implies that the superposition undergoes collapse into a definite state only at the exact moment of quantum measurement.

Schrödinger and Einstein had exchanged letters about Einstein’s EPR article, in the course of which Einstein had pointed out that the quantum superposition of an unstable keg of gunpowder will, after a while, contain both exploded and unexploded components.

To further illustrate the putative incompleteness of quantum mechanics, Schrödinger applied quantum mechanics to a living entity that may or may not be conscious. In Schrödinger’s original thought experiment, he describes how one could, in principle, transform a superposition inside an atom to a large-scale superposition of a live and dead cat by coupling cat and atom with the help of a “diabolical mechanism”. He proposed a scenario with a cat in a sealed box, wherein the cat’s life or death was dependent on the state of a subatomic particle. According to Schrödinger, the Copenhagen interpretation implies that the cat remains both alive and dead (to the universe outside the box) until the box is opened.

Schrödinger did not wish to promote the idea of dead-and-alive cats as a serious possibility; quite the reverse. The thought experiment serves to illustrate the bizarreness of quantum mechanics and the mathematics necessary to describe quantum states. Intended as a critique of just the Copenhagen interpretation (the prevailing orthodoxy in 1935), the Schrödinger cat thought experiment remains a topical touchstone for all interpretations of quantum mechanics. How each interpretation deals with Schrödinger’s cat is often used as a way of illustrating and comparing each interpretation’s particular features, strengths, and weaknesses.

The thought experiment

Schrödinger wrote:

One can even set up quite ridiculous cases. A cat is penned up in a steel chamber, along with the following device (which must be secured against direct interference by the cat): in a Geiger counter, there is a tiny bit of radioactive substance, so small that perhaps in the course of the hour, one of the atoms decays, but also, with equal probability, perhaps none; if it happens, the counter tube discharges, and through a relay releases a hammer that shatters a small flask of hydrocyanic acid. If one has left this entire system to itself for an hour, one would say that the cat still lives if meanwhile no atom has decayed. The psi-function of the entire system would express this by having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) mixed or smeared out in equal parts.

It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a “blurred model” for representing reality. In itself, it would not embody anything unclear or contradictory. There is a difference between a shaky or out-of-focus photograph and a snapshot of clouds and fog banks.

The above text is a translation of two paragraphs from a much larger original article that appeared in the German magazine Naturwissenschaften (“Natural Sciences”) in 1935.

Schrödinger’s famous thought experiment poses the question, when does a quantum system stop existing as a mixture of states and become one or the other? (More technically, when does the actual quantum state stop being a linear combination of states, each of which resembles different classical states, and instead begins to have a unique classical description?) If the cat survives, it remembers only being alive. But explanations of the EPR experiments that are consistent with standard microscopic quantum mechanics require that macroscopic objects, such as cats and notebooks, do not always have unique classical descriptions. The purpose of the thought experiment is to illustrate this apparent paradox. Our intuition says that no observer can be in a mixture of states; yet the cat, it seems from the thought experiment, can be such a mixture. Is the cat required to be an observer, or does its existence in a single well-defined classical state require another external observer? Each alternative seemed absurd to Albert Einstein, who was impressed by the ability of the thought experiment to highlight these issues. In a letter to Schrödinger dated 1950, he wrote:

You are the only contemporary physicist, besides Laue, who sees that one cannot get around the assumption of reality, if only one is honest. Most of them simply do not see what sort of risky game they are playing with reality—reality as something independent of what is experimentally established. Their interpretation is, however, refuted most elegantly by your system of radioactive atom + amplifier + charge of gunpowder + cat in a box, in which the psi-function of the system contains both the cat alive and blown to bits. Nobody really doubts that the presence or absence of the cat is something independent of the act of observation.

Note that no charge of gunpowder is mentioned in Schrödinger’s setup, which uses a Geiger counter as an amplifier and hydrocyanic poison instead of gunpowder. The gunpowder had been mentioned in Einstein’s original suggestion to Schrödinger 15 years before, and apparently Einstein had carried it forward to the present discussion.

Copenhagen interpretation

In the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, a system stops being a superposition of states and becomes either one or the other when an observation takes place. This experiment makes apparent the fact that the nature of measurement, or observation, is not well-defined in this interpretation. Some interpret the experiment to mean that while the box is closed, the system simultaneously exists in a superposition of the states “decayed nucleus/dead cat” and “undecayed nucleus/living cat”, and that only when the box is opened and an observation performed does the wave function collapse into one of the two states. More intuitively, some feel that the “observation” is taken when a particle from the nucleus hits the detector. This line of thinking can be developed into objective collapse theories. In contrast, the many worlds approach denies that collapse ever occurs.

Steven Weinberg said:

All this familiar story is true, but it leaves out an irony. Bohr’s version of quantum mechanics was deeply flawed, but not for the reason Einstein thought. The Copenhagen interpretation describes what happens when an observer makes a measurement, but the observer and the act of measurement are themselves treated classically. This is surely wrong; physicists and their apparatus must be governed by the same quantum mechanical rules that govern everything else in the universe. But these rules are expressed in terms of a wave function (or, more precisely, a state vector) that evolves in a perfectly deterministic way. So where do the probabilistic rules of the Copenhagen interpretation come from?

Considerable progress has been made in recent years toward the resolution of the problem, which I cannot go into here. It is enough to say that neither Bohr nor Einstein had focused on the real problem with quantum mechanics. The Copenhagen rules clearly work, so they have to be accepted. But this leaves the task of explaining them by applying the deterministic equation for the evolution of the wave function, the Schrödinger equation, to observers and their apparatus.

Everett’s many-worlds interpretation & consistent histories

In 1957, Hugh Everett formulated the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, which does not single out observation as a special process. In the many-worlds interpretation, both alive and dead states of the cat persist, but are decoherent from each other. In other words, when the box is opened, that part of the universe containing the observer and cat is split into two separate universes: one containing an observer looking at a box with a dead cat, and one containing an observer looking at a box with a live cat.

Since the dead and alive states are decoherent, there is no effective communication or interaction between them. When an observer opens the box, he becomes entangled with the cat, so “observer states” corresponding to the cat’s being alive and dead are formed, and each can have no interaction with the other. The same mechanism of quantum decoherence is also important for the interpretation in terms of consistent histories. Only the “dead cat” or “alive cat” can be a part of a consistent history in this interpretation.

Roger Penrose criticises this:

“I wish to make it clear that, as it stands, this is far from a resolution of the cat paradox. For there is nothing in the formalism of quantum mechanics that demands that a state of consciousness cannot involve the simultaneous perception of a live and a dead cat”,

although the mainstream view (without necessarily endorsing many-worlds) is that decoherence is the mechanism that forbids such simultaneous perception.

A variant of the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment, known as the quantum suicide machine, has been proposed by cosmologist Max Tegmark. It examines the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment from the point of view of the cat, and argues that by using this approach, one may be able to distinguish between the Copenhagen interpretation and many-worlds.

Ensemble interpretation

The ensemble interpretation states that superpositions are nothing but subensembles of a larger statistical ensemble. That being the case, the state vector would not apply to individual cat experiments, but only to the statistics of many similarly prepared cat experiments. Proponents of this interpretation state that this makes the Schrödinger’s Cat paradox a trivial nonissue.

This interpretation serves to discard the idea that a single physical system in quantum mechanics has a mathematical description that corresponds to it in any way; the problem should be renamed Schrödinger’s cats.

Objective collapse theories

According to objective collapse theories, superpositions are destroyed spontaneously (irrespective of external observation) when some objective physical threshold (of time, mass, temperature, irreversibility, etc.) is reached. Thus, the cat would be expected to have settled into a definite state long before the box is opened. This could loosely be phrased as “the cat observes itself”, or “the environment observes the cat”.

Objective collapse theories require a modification of standard quantum mechanics to allow superpositions to be destroyed by the process of time evolution.

Practical applications

The experiment is a purely theoretical one, and the machine proposed is not known to have been constructed. Analogous effects, however, have some practical use in quantum computing and quantum cryptography. It is possible to send light that is in a superposition of states down a fiber optic cable. Placing a wiretap in the middle of the cable that intercepts and retransmits the transmission will collapse the wave function (in the Copenhagen interpretation, “perform an observation”) and cause the light to fall into one state or another. By performing statistical tests on the light received at the other end of the cable, one can tell whether it remains in the superposition of states or has already been observed and retransmitted. In principle, this allows the development of communication systems that cannot be tapped without the tap being noticed at the other end. This experiment can be argued to illustrate that “observation” in the Copenhagen interpretation has nothing to do with consciousness (unless some version of panpsychism is true), in that a perfectly unconscious wiretap will cause the statistics at the end of the wire to be different. Such a test would only work if the collapse occurs after (as opposed to before) observation; otherwise, it would appear collapsed whether it had been wiretapped or not.

In quantum computing, the phrase “cat state” often refers to the special entanglement of qubits wherein the qubits are in an equal superposition of all being 0 and all being 1;

i.e., + .

Extensions

Although discussion of this thought experiment talks about two possible states (cat alive and cat dead), in reality, there would be a huge number of possible states, since the temperature and degree and state of decomposition of the cat would depend on exactly when and how (as well as if) the mechanism was triggered, as well as the state of the cat prior to death.

In another extension, prominent physicists have gone so far as to suggest that astronomers observing dark matter in the universe in 1998 may have “reduced its life expectancy” through a pseudo-Schrödinger’s Cat scenario, although this is a controversial viewpoint.

Another variant on the experiment is Wigner’s friend, in which there are two external observers, the first of whom opens and inspects the box and then communicates his observations to a second observer. The issue here is, does the wave function collapse when the first observer opens the box, or only when the second observer is informed of the first observer’s observations? Another extension is a scenario wherein the inside of the box is videotaped and played to an audience at a later time, or played back to the cat while in the box. If dead, there would be no observer to cause disentanglement; if alive, disentanglement would occur.

Source: Wikipedia

• Navarro Faus, Jesús: Una ecuación y un gato : Schrödinger. Tres Cantos (Madrid) : Nivola, cop. 2009

Para Erwin Schrödinger, la ciencia ha de contribuir a una síntesis global que permita reflexionar sobre las preguntas trascendentes realmente importantes como ¿qué hacemos aquí? y ¿quiénes somos? Por eso su obra es compleja, al igual que lo fue su personalidad.

La ecuación que lleva su nombre representa su contribución a la creación de la mecánica cuántica, y no es exagerado decir que, en este preciso momento, hay decenas de miles de personas que están resolviendo la ecuación de Schrödinger para algún caso concreto. Su importancia deriva de que es el punto de partida para estudiar los sistemas cuánticos no relativistas y juega en ellos el mismo papel que la ecuación de Newton en la física clásica.

- Obras de Erwin Schrödinger en la biblioteca

- Obras de Jesús Navarro Faus en la biblioteca

El título de este artículo corresponde al muy interesante texto de Erwin Schrödinger—uno de los precursores de la mecánica cuántica, y autor del famoso experimento mental conocido como el gato de Schrödinger—que tuve el placer de leer hace unos días. El texto es breve (menos de 12 páginas), fue escrito en 1935, y se centra en llamar la atención de un presupuesto que tiene la ciencia experimental, que está a la base de toda ella, y sin embargo, no es científico, y tampoco podrá ser comprobado jamás empíricamente.

Erwin Schrödinger.

Veamos cómo el mismo Schrödinger introduce la problemática:

Las ciencias de la naturaleza no reposan únicamente en la experiencia, sino también en cierta hipótesis fundamental, hipótesis muy, muy, muy evidente, y que acepta cualquiera de nosotros, todo hombre dotado de sentido. Sin embargo, no puede ser verificada por el método científico exacto. Si esta hipótesis nos parece evidente, es por razones distintas de las científicas, por razones cuya fuente se encuentra más allá de la ciencia exacta[1].

Schrödinger no nos dice todavía nada de la hipótesis fundamental a la que se refiere, salvo que es bastante obvia, y no puede ser verificada jamás por la ciencia empírica. Se acerca a su posición, sin embargo, señalando el siguiente hecho:

[...] aunque el admirable edificio del pensamiento científico reposa enteramente sobre experiencias que en principio cualquiera es capaz de reproducir, el objeto del admirable encadenamiento no ha existido nunca ni existirá jamás en la forma de dato experimental real en la mente de un solo hombre: este objeto representa más bien una especie de mosaico cuyas teselas están diseminadas en las mentes de miles y miles de investigadores, cada uno de los cuales debe fiarse para la mayor parte del «mosaico» de lo que los otros le dicen o le escriben o han escrito hace años.

Luego, Schrödinger añade que  sería imposible refutar científicamente el solipsismo (en tanto teoría), pues no se puede comprobar empíricamente de primera mano lo que otros perciben (también empíricamente), por motivos que resultan obvios. Por suerte, nadie  sostiene realmente dicha teoría, lo que no nos impide notar que por más inaceptable que nos parezca sostenerla, no puede ser refutada por la ciencia experimental.

Así, llama P a la hipótesis que se opone al solipsismo, y que es propiamente una hipótesis en el sentido de la ciencia moderna, hallándose a la base de toda ella, pero que sin embargo, no puede ser jamás demostrada mediante sus propios métodos.

Pero si como ya se dijo desde el comienzo, nunca se duda de su validez, ¿por qué siquiera notarla? Veamos lo último que dice al respecto:

Si estoy seguro absolutamente seguro de que una hipótesis es correcta, puedo edificar tranquilamente en este terreno, sin preocuparme de las razones de mi certidumbre, se me dirá. Perfectamente, convengo. Tampoco pienso que la ciencia tenga que lamentar el hecho de que uno de sus principales pilares repose en un terreno no científico. Porque así la ciencia se apega más estrechamente a otros pensamientos y fines del hombre, que si solo existiera para y por ella misma. No por ello me parece menos importante insistir en el hecho de que esta proposición P sobrepasa netamente los límites de la ciencia.

Por tal motivo, Schrödinger le dedica las páginas restantes a mostrar con el muy ingenioso ejemplo de nuestra percepción de los colores la validez de formular la hipótesis P, por lo que les recomiendo que consigan el texto y lo lean.

Sin embargo, me quiero quedar en resaltar el sentido de lo que—creo yo—dijo en la última cita.

Al no poder la ciencia reposar en una sola persona, ésta depende de la comunidad científica, que va cambiando con el tiempo. Este hecho innegable hace que la ciencia se dé en hombres y para los hombres. Pero en un sentido más amplio, la ciencia se da para la humanidad, esto es, para la capacidad de los hombres de decidir cómo llevar sus propias vidas, y cuyos frutos parciales pasan de generación en generación, y por lo tanto, se ve sometida a las mismas normal morales que los individuos.

Ya Immanuel Kant señaló la independencia que existe entre el terreno de la ciencia y de la ética, pero hacer ésta conexión sirve para ilustrar cómo, a pesar de esta supuesta independencia, la ciencia—en tanto se da en seres dotados de capacidad moral—está inevitablemente sometida por ella, y en consecuencia está dotada también de un carácter cosmopolita.

[1] Erwin Schrödinger, La nueva mecánica ondulatoria y otros escritos (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2001). Traducción de Juan Arana. Las citas corresponden a las páginas 57, 59 y 62, respectivamente.

While the quantum mechanical framework was being developed after Plank’s discovery in 1901, physicists were wrestling with the dual character of light (wave or particle?). Thomas Young’s double slit experiment in 1803, where interference patterns were observed, seemed to show without doubt that light was a wave phenomenon. However, Planck’s interpretation of black body radiation as light quanta, followed by Einstein’s explanation of the photoelectronic effect, both contradicted the light-as-wave theory. Additionally, a shocking discovery was made by Compton in 1925. Compton found that when he let X-rays (a form of light with extremely short wavelengths) collide head-on with a bundle of electrons, the X-rays were scattered as if they were particles. This phenomenon became known as the “Compton scattering experiment.”

At about that time, French physicist Louis de Broglie combined two simple formulas: Plank’s light quanta expression (E = hν, with ν as the frequency) and Einstein’s famous energy‑mass equation (E = mc²). This led to another simple equation: λ = h/mc, with λ as wavelength. This equation really tells us that all matter has wave properties. However, since the mass, m, of most everyday visible objects is so large, their wavelengths are too small for us to notice any wave effect. But when we consider the small masses of atomic particles such as electrons and protons, their wavelengths become relevant and start to play a role in the phenomena we observe.

All this brought Erwin Schrödinger to the conclusion that electrons should be considered waves, and he developed a famous wave equation that very successfully described the behavior of electrons in a hydrogen atom. Schrödinger’s equation used a wave function to describe the probability of finding a rapidly moving electron at a certain time and place. In fact, the equation confirmed many ideas that Bohr used to build his empirical atom model. For instance, the equation correctly predicted that the lowest energy level of an atom could allow only two electrons, while the next level was limited to eight electrons, and so on. In the year 1933 Schrödinger was awarded the Nobel Prize for his wave equation.

Schrödinger had, as did Planck and Einstein, an extensive background in thermodynamics. From 1906 to 1910, he studied at the University of Vienna under Boltzmann’s successor, Fritz Hasenöhrl. Hasenöhrl was a great admirer of Boltzmann and in 1909 he republished 139 of the latter’s scientific articles in three volumes [Hasenöhrl, 1909]. It was through Hasenöhrl that Schödinger became very interested in Boltzmann’s statistical mechanics. He was even led to write of Boltzmann, “His line of thoughts may be called my first love in science. No other has ever thus enraptured me or will ever do so again [Schrödinger 1929].” Later he published books, (Statistical Thermodynamics and What’s Life), and several papers on specific heats of solids and other thermodynamic issues. [1]

 © 2009 Copyright John Schmitz

[1] Taken from “The Second Law of Life”:http://www.elsevierdirect.com/product.jsp?isbn=9780815515371

Erwin Schrödinger, “Mein Leben, meine Weltsicht”. – Credo

“Was ist`s, das dich so plötzlich aus dem Nichts hervorgerufen, um dieses Schauspiel, das deiner nicht achtet, ein Weilchen zu genießen? Alle Bedingungen für dein Sein sind fast so alt wie der Fels. Jahrtausendelang haben Männer gestrebt, gelitten und gezeugt, haben Weiber unter Schmerzen geboren. Vor hundert Jahren vielleicht saß ein anderer an dieser Stelle, blickte gleich dir, Andacht und Wehmut im Herzen, auf zu den verglühenden Firnen. Er war vom Mann gezeugt, vom Weib geboren gleich dir. Er fühlte Schmerz und kurze Freude wie du. War es ein anderer? Warst du es nicht selbst? Was ist dies dein Selbst?”

„Unmöglich kann die Einheit, dieses Erkennen, Fühlen und Wollen, das du das deine nennst, vor nicht allzu langer Zeit in einem angebbaren Augenblick aus dem Nichts entsprungen sein; vielmehr ist dieses Erkennen, Fühlen und Wollen wesentlich ewig und unveränderlich und ist numerisch nur eines in allen Menschen, ja in allen fühlenden Wesen … So unbegreiflich es der gemeinen Vernunft erscheint: Du — und ebenso jedes andere bewusste Wesen für sich genommen — bist alles in allem. Darum ist dieses dein Leben, das du lebst, auch nicht ein Stück nur des Weltgeschehens, sondern in einem ganz bestimmten Sinn das Ganze. Nur ist dieses Ganze nicht so beschaffen, dass es sich mit einem Blick überschauen läßt… – Das ist es bekanntlich, was die Brahmanen ausdrücken mit der heiligen, mystischen und doch eigentlich so einfachen und klaren Formel tat twam asi (das bist du)… Oder auch mit Worten wie: Ich bin im Osten und im Westen, bin unten und bin oben, ich bin diese ganze Welt… So magst du dich hinwerfen auf die Erde, flach angedrückt an ihren Mutterboden in der gewissen Überzeugung: Du bist eins mit ihr und sie mit dir. Du bist so festgegründet und unverletzlich wie sie, ja tausendmal fester und unverletzlicher. So sicher sie dich morgen verschlingen wird, so sicher wird sie dich neu gebären zu neuem Streben und Leiden. Und nicht bloß dereinst; jetzt, heute, täglich gebiert sie dich, nicht einmal, sondern tausend- und abertausendmal, wie sie dich täglich tausendmal verschlingt. Denn es ist ewig und immer nur jetzt, dieses eine und selbe  Jetzt, die Gegenwart ist das einzige, das nie ein Ende nimmt“.

Quantum physics, which originated in work conducted by Max Planck and Albert Einstein at start of 20th Century, is a hugely successful theory: the predictions it makes about the behavior of subatomic particles are extraordinarily accurate. And yet, it raises profound puzzles about reality that remain as yet to be understood. Niels Bohr once said if quantum mechanics hasn’t profoundly shocked you, you haven’t understood it yet.

In quantum mechanics any situation is a blend of every possible option of what might happen and this blend is called a wave function. This seems to work for light. Sometimes light can act as a particle and sometimes as a wave. Atoms, it has been found, seem to follow the same rules. As the world is made of atoms, the world must follow the rules of quantum mechanics. Obviously in the real world life doesn’t spend its time sitting on the fence, things just happen. But in quantum mechanics things happen only when this wave function collapses and only one possibility is left.

At some point a situation has to stop having every possible outcome. When an event is observed then all the other possibilities suddenly disappear. It’s like saying that the universe is based on chance. One enormous casino. What happens next is based on chance not on an absolute certainty. Imagine the universe as a horse race with lots of evenly matched horses. Until the race is over you can’t tell which horse is going to win. With quantum mechanics the idea is that the race isn’t over until someone decides to check on the result. This is where the science fiction idea of ‘parallel universes’ comes from. If every possible outcome is waiting to happen perhaps it really does happen in another quantum universe. Every horse wins in some reality.

Erwin Schrödinger was the man who first discovered the equations that quantum mechanics relies on. Even he couldn’t believe the idea that nothing happens until someone looks to check it. He invented the most famous cat in science – Schrödinger’s cat. If nothing happens until it is observed then imagine the following. A cat is put in a box with a small gadget that will release poison. This poison will be released by something that is controlled by the laws of quantum mechanics, for example radioactive decay. Radioactive atoms are ones that are unstable and spontaneously break down into smaller atoms. So there is a lump of radioactive material and a device to detect if an atom has broken down. This atomic break-up has a 50:50 chance of happening in one hour. According to quantum mechanics, until the box is opened an hour later both outcomes should co-exist. The cat should be both dead and alive at the same time until someone observes the result.

Despite what some people think, this story was meant to show how Niels Bohr’s interpretation of quantum mechanics was wrong. It was just an interpretation. There is an easier way of thinking about this. Quantum mechanics does seem to explain a lot of things about atoms and light. This craziness of a cat that is both dead and alive only applies if you stick to the idea that everything happens until it is measured by a person. There is no paradox if you just change to the idea that a quantum event happens when the result interacts with anything. When the radioactive atom in the box decays, the cat will only die when the radioactivity detector in the box detects it. When a particle that follows quantum mechanics interacts with anything it has to commit to being one thing or another. So a quantum mechanic event can set up a sequence of events that end up with a cat that is dead or alive without needing it be both at the same time.

All this cat really tells us about quantum mechanics is that trying to use quantum mechanics to explain normal day-to-day life doesn’t work. Understanding atoms doesn’t help you understand a whole cat, but then again understanding cats doesn’t help you understand atoms, so it works both ways (no matter what cats say). Einstein’s problem with quantum mechanics was summed in the idea that ‘God doesn’t play dice’. Everyone seems to remember that but do you know not what Niels Bohr said in reply: “It is not the job of scientists to prescribe to God how he should run the world.” (Some excellent advice, were that more of his fellow scientists followed it instead of penning best sellers on atheism.) 

At the end of the day quantum mechanics does make sense in its own realm and offers explanations for strange effects that have no other explanation. In the traditional interpretation of quantum theory –sometimes also called the “Copenhagen,” “standard,” or “orthodox” interpretation — one must, to avoid paradoxes or absurdities, posit the existence of so-called “observers” who lie, at least in part, outside of the description of the world provided by physics. That is, the mathematical formalism which quantum theory uses to make predictions about the physical world cannot be stretched to cover completely the person who is observing that world. What is it about the “observer” that lies beyond physical description? Careful analysis suggests that it is some aspect of the rational mind.

This has led some eminent physicists to say that quantum theory is inconsistent with a materialistic view of the human mind. Eugene Wigner, a Nobel laureate in physics, stated flatly that materialism is not “logically consistent with present quantum mechanics.” Sir Rudolf Peierls, another leading twentieth–century physicist, said, on the basis of quantum theory, “The premise that you can describe in terms of physics the whole function of a human being…including its knowledge, and its consciousness, is untenable. There is still something missing.”

Admittedly, this is a highly controversial view. That is only to be expected, especially given the materialist prejudice that affects a large part of the scientific community. Moreover, the traditional interpretation of quantum theory has aspects that many find disturbing or implausible. Some even think (wrongly, in Dr. Steven Barr’s opinion) that the role it assigns to observers leads to subjectivism or philosophical idealism. Dissatisfaction with the traditional interpretation has led to various rival interpretations and to attempts to modify quantum theory. However, these other ideas are equally controversial. The controversy over quantum theory will not be resolved any time soon, or perhaps ever. But, even if it is not, the fact will remain that there is an argument against materialism that comes from physics itself, an argument that has been advanced and defended by some leading physicists and never refuted.

Recently the Templeton Prize, awarded for contributions to “affirming life’s spiritual dimension”, has been won by French physicist Bernard d’Espagnat, who has worked on quantum physics with some of the most famous names in modern science.

d’Espagnat says a spiritual reality is veiled from us, and science offers a glimpse behind that veil. The bizarre nature of quantum physics has attracted some speculations that are wacky but the theory suggests to some serious scientists that reality, at its most basic, is perfectly compatible with what might be called a spiritual view of things. Some suggest that observers play a key part in determining the nature of things. Legendary physicist John Wheeler said the cosmos “has not really happened, it is not a phenomenon, until it has been observed to happen.”

D’Espagnat worked with Wheeler, though he himself reckons quantum theory suggests something different. For him, quantum physics shows us that reality is ultimately “veiled” from us. The equations and predictions of the science, super-accurate though they are, offer us only a glimpse behind that veil. Moreover, that hidden reality is, in some sense, divine. Along with some philosophers, he has called it “Being”.

The deeper questions in physics are bound to interact with the religious/philosophical assumptions of the physicist. So how do scientists investigating the fundamental nature of the universe assess any role of God. Mark Vernon, who writes science articles, did a little research and came up with the following:

1. THE ATHEIST

Nobel-prize winning physicist Steven Weinberg is well-known as an atheist. For him, physics reflects the “chilling impersonality” of the universe. He would be thinking here of, say, the vast tracts of empty space, billions of light years across, that mock human meaning. He says: “The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it seems pointless.”

So for Weinberg, the notion that there might be an overlap between science and spirituality is entirely mistaken: “I have to admit that, even when physicists will have gone as far as they can go, when we have a final theory, we will not have a completely satisfying picture of the world, because we will still be left with the question ‘why?’ Why this theory, rather than some other theory? For example, why is the world described by quantum mechanics? Quantum mechanics is the one part of our present physics that is likely to survive intact in any future theory, but there is nothing logically inevitable about quantum mechanics; I can imagine a universe governed by Newtonian mechanics instead. So there seems to be an irreducible mystery that science will not eliminate.

But religious theories of design have the same problem. Either you mean something definite by a God, a designer, or you don’t. If you don’t, then what are we talking about? If you do mean something definite by ‘God’ or ‘design,’ if for instance you believe in a God who is jealous, or loving, or intelligent, or whimsical, then you still must confront the question ‘why?’ A religion may assert that the universe is governed by that sort of God, rather than some other sort of God, and it may offer evidence for this belief, but it cannot explain why this should be so.”

2. THE SKEPTIC

The Astronomer Royal and President of the Royal Society, Martin Rees, shows a distinct reserve when speculating about what physics might mean, whether that be pointlessness or meaningfulness. He has “no strong opinions” on the interpretation of quantum theory: only time will tell whether the theory becomes better understood. “The implications of cosmology for these realms of thought may be profound, but diffidence prevents me from venturing into them,” he has written. In short, it is good to be humble in the face of the mysteries that physics throws up.

3. THE PLATONIST

Oxford physicist Roger Penrose differs again. He believes that mathematics suggests there is a world beyond the immediate, material one. Ask yourself this question: would one plus one equal two even if I didn’t think it? The answer is yes. Would it equal two even if no-one thought it? Again, presumably, yes. Would it equal two even if the universe didn’t exist? That is trickier to contemplate, but again, there are good grounds for a positive response. Penrose, therefore, argues that there is what can be called a Platonic world beyond the material world that “contains” mathematics and other abstractions.

4. THE BELIEVER

John Polkinghorne worked on quantum physics in the first part of his career, but then took up a different line of work: he was ordained an Anglican priest. For him, science and religion are entirely compatible. The ordered universe science reveals is only what you’d expect if it was made by an orderly God. However, the two disciplines are different. He calls them “intellectual cousins”. “Physics is showing the world to be both more supple and subtle, but you need to be careful,” he says. If you want to understand the meaning of things you have to go beyond science, and the religious direction is, he argues, the best.

5. THE PANTHEIST

Brian Swimme is a cosmologist, and with the theologian Thomas Berry, wrote a book called The Universe Story: From the Primordial Flaring Forth to the Ecozoic Era. It is avidly read by individuals in New Age and ecological circles, and tells the scientific story of the universe, from the Big Bang to the emergence of human consciousness, but does so as a new sacred myth. Swimme believes that “the universe is attempting to be felt”, which makes him a pantheist, someone who believes the cosmos in its entirety can be called God.

The simple explanations of quantum theory come from a kids’ science blog called “journeybystarlight.”

Book Review: Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe
by Robert Lanza and Bob Berman
Hardcover: 213 pages
Publisher: Benbella Books (May 5, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1933771690
ISBN-13: 978-1933771694

A third of the way through this book the authors say: “Quantum theory has unfortunately become a catch-all phrase for trying to prove various kinds of New Age nonsense.” And they refer to film “What the Bleep Do We Know?” as an example of the misuse of quantum mechanics. This might suggest the book’s message is similar to Stenger’s “Quantum Gods,” which argues against quantum mysticism and quantum theology? But it turns out to be the complete opposite.

Mind you, the authors do have credentials. The dust jacket describes Bob Berman as “one of the best-known astronomers in the world.” And Robert Lanza as “one of the most respected scientists in the world.” There is the problem of self-promotion in dustcover bios and personal webpages – even though written in the third person.

Lanza has a good publication record – in cell biology and stem cell research. But, this book is in a different field. It bases itself on a particular interpretation of quantum mechanics. An interpretation of the meaning of the “two-slit experiment.” And, strangely for a book written by scientists, it refers to little other experimental evidence. Lanza even appears to denigrate the role of evidence. Pointing out that he isn’t much of a reader he commented: “I think this was absolutely critical to the development of [my theory of] biocentrism. It was important not to have too many preconceptions.” (http://discovermagazine.com/2008/sep/31-robert-lanza)

The whole idea of Biocentrism rests on an interpretation of the “measurement problem” as seen in the two-slit experiment. The standard presentation of the problem is that it is impossible to define the position and momentum of a subatomic particle precisely and so the quantum world is indeterministic. However, we can describe quantum phenomena using the Schrödinger “wave” equation. This will provide a statistical or probabilistic description.

However, when a particle interacts with objects we can replace the formerly probabilistic description with an actual history of the interaction. In a popularly used jargon the “wave function collapses”.

Because experimenters have described this in terms of measurement and observers a myth has developed that a conscious observer causes the probabilistic quantum world to evolve into a real deterministic world. Hence the idea that consciousness creates reality.

Most physicists reject this interpretation. Murray Gell-Mann describes this as a “clumsy description of quantum mechanics” in his book The Quark and the Jaguar.

Consciousness creates reality

Biocentrism’s basic idea is that consciousness creates reality. Despite lack of evidence, or consideration of any data, the book manages to come up with seven principles. Briefly these are:

1: “What we perceive as reality is a process that involves our consciousness;”

2: “Our external and internal perceptions are inextricably intertwined;”

3: “The behavior of .. all particles and objects .. is inextricably linked to the presence of an observer. Without the presence of a conscious observer, they at best exist in an undetermined state of probability waves;”

4: “Without consciousness, ‘matter’ dwells in an undetermined sate of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state;”

5: “The universe is fine-tuned for life, which makes perfect sense as life creates the universe, not the other way around;”

6 & 7: Time and space do not have a real existence outside of animal-sense perception. “Thus there is no absolute self-existing matrix in which physical events occur independent of life.”

Despite the lack of evidence or good logic the authors are nevertheless anything but humble in their assessment of their own great idea. They claim biocentrism “offers far-and-away the best explanation for why things are as they are.” They also claim that biocentrism offers the most logical explanation of the strange results of quantum theory. And that biocentrism’s time may be upon us very soon.

They consider everything is so obvious:

“Biocentrism, however, explains why one view and not the other must be correct. The converse is equally true: once one fully understands that there is no independent external universe outside of biological existence, the rest more or less falls into place.”

Childhood memories

The book alternates between justifications of biocentrism as the best possible explanation of all the mysteries in the universe and snapshots of (presumably)  Robert Lanza’s childhood. Mystical speculation and personal reflection. I couldn’t help feeling that Lanza’s childhood experience of deprivation and abuse have contributed to an “I’ll show them” attitude – something I can sympathise with. But, perhaps the third person promotion of his website and book reflect this.

Lanza and Berman are clear they are not promoting religion. They say: “science and religion make odd bedfellows whose off-spring is usually deformed.” However, their mysticism comes close to religion.

Lanza reacted to the deaths of a close friend Alan and his own sister Christine with biocentric thoughts similar to contemplation of a Christian afterlife. On Christine’s death he writes: “I thought about . . . .  how every creature consists of multiple spheres of physical reality that pass through space and time like ghosts through doors. I thought about the two-slit experiment, with the electron going through both holes at the same time. I could not doubt the conclusions of these experiments: Christine was both alive and dead, outside of time, yet here in my reality I would have to deal with this outcome and no other.”

And: “I know Christine is going to look fabulous in them (her diamond earrings) the next time I see here . . . .  in whatever form she and I and this amazing play of consciousness assume.”

So the two slit experiment gives us heaven?

Biocentric mysticism

Other reviewers point out that biocentrism comes close to solipsism. The authors also come close to the criticisms of honest science which we have come to expect from creationists and similar people. For example, they promote a the mystical fine-tuning idea. And the sneering contempt for “cosmologists, biologists, and evolutionist (who) do not seem at all flabbergasted when they state that the universe – indeed the laws of nature themselves – just appeared for no reasons one day” has all the earmarks of creationist “logic.”

Some idea of the mysticism of the biocentrism promoted by this book is evidence in the following quotes:

“The animal observer creates reality and not the other way around.”

They set out “to question the standard view that the universe would exist even if it were empty of life, and absent any consciousness or perception of it”. “Certainly, great earlier thinkers have insisted that logic alone is all that’s needed to see the unverse in fresh light, not complex equations or experimental data using $50 billion particle colliders. Indeed, a bit of thought will make it obvious that without perception, there can be no reality.”

“Your brain animates the universe. You can imagine the brain as being like the electronics in your DVD player.”

Then there is the kitchen:

“Take the seemingly undeniable logic that your kitchen is always there, its contents assuming all their familiar forms, shapes and colors, whether or not you are in it. At night, you click of the light, walk through the door, and leave for the bedroom. Of course it’s there, unseen, all through the night. Right?”

“But consider: the refrigerator, stove and everything else are composed of a shimmering swarm of matter/energy. Quantum theory… tells us that not a single one of those subatomic particles actually exist in a definite place. Rather they merely exist as a range of probabilities that are unmanifest. In the presence of an observer, that is, when you go back in to get a drink of water –each one’s wave function collapses and it assumes an actual position, a physical reality. Until then it is merely a swarm of possibilities” ….. “So while you may think that the kitchen as you remember it is “there” in your absence, the reality is that nothing remotely resembling what you can imagine could be present when a consciousness is not interacting.”

In his book Cosmic Code Heinz Pagels comments on claims similar to those made in this book. He said: “That is rubbish; the quantum theory and Bell’s inequality imply nothing of this kind. Individuals who make such claims have substituted a wish-fulfilling fantasy for understanding.”

I think Lanza and Berman are substituting a wish-fulfilling fantasy for true understanding in this book.

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In this brief essay describing Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Principle”, my aim is to highlight the not so obvious workings of nature’s flow… For even I, when originally presented with Heisenberg’s marvel of observation, did not fully grasp the principle behind the magic of Quantum mechanics. In fact his basic idea took several years of carefully study and a lot checked thought before I stumbled over the essence of his ideal in the dark of my unilluminated mind.

Werner Heisenberg best known for asserting the uncertainty principle of quantum theory.

And what a marvel of an ideal it is… For one of the very first times in Physics, an observer has become aware of a very important fact i.e. that how he/she perceives the environment around him/her, directly affects the way in which he/she measures it… If one is uncertain of one’s observations, even if these uncertainties are nearing such miniscule amounts so as to seem almost insignificant in the fine-spun scheme of the preceise workings of the human world… This overlooked resolution will breed into any calculations involving these measurements a fallacy that will extrapolate further down the line, and mix with other errors from alternative details that have been omitted, until a cascade of “blunder” comes awkwardly to light.

When dealing with the preceision of universal flow, the dot of an electron truly becomes a point which has a definite position in space, but neither size nor shape. And so, when something is so small and specific, especially in comparision to our somewhat large and cumbersome bodies, we can all too readily overlook the details at play in its fate and think nothing of it. Just as Edward Lorenz had discovered in the winter of 1961, when running a computer simulation of a weather system; his assumption that 3 decimal place numbers rounded off from 6 decimal place number enteries should not make any difference to the output of the simulation… And how wrong was he. For there is the crux of the matter; that small errors prove catastrophic to the final results. In 1979 Lorenz entitled a paper he wrote examining this phenomenon, “Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?” and the title has avidly carried the magic held within Chaos’ own never ending and never repeating flow. Today this sensitive dependence on initial conditions is referred to as “The Butterfly Effect.” For these seemingly minor oversights on current input data tallied up over time to yield vastly different outcomes; outcomes that were/are totally unpredicatable.

So could Heisenberg’s “Uncertainty Priciple” be the initial realization that, when something is so small and sensitive to its surrounding environment i.e. the electron, which is sensitive to minute charges and influential magnetic fields, like the magnetic fields that come off from the human body, from a mains plug, electric lights, another atom’s charge, etc… Then how could we as humans ever hope to accurately reproduce any of the intricate workings inside the Universal mechanisms of matter without this spill over from the world around us? For all of these charges and electromagnetic fields deeply affect one another in an almost infinitely long chain of cause and effect… And if the things we are studying are “unimaginably” sensitive to initial conditions, while we are so robust… Then it is my fear that we will never have the chance to precisely understand Universal harmony.

And this beckon’s the question… If we could never really hope to grasp the abstruse nature of reality (if only because of it’s sheer complexity), then is there any point in studying it as certainty? Or are we doomed to make approximations of reality for the rest of eterntiy? For example, if a swiss watch maker, through flaws in his own perception of time AND/OR errors in his manufacture of watches, could never make an accurate watch, would there be any point in continuing his trade? Perhaps he could continue trading if there was a steady demand for inaccurate timepieces… But these would not suite the purpose of knowing the precise time. But then again, are not all watches only approximations of the perfect ideal of a watch i.e. the perfect watch that keeps perfect time based on the daily rotation of the earth around the sun? But as you have seen in the previous post, not even the heavenly spheres move with a precise certainty or symmetry. And every two years or so, I notice my own watches and clocks, whether digital or analog, drifting out by a few minutes… So as chaos theory predicts, are all things prone to chaotic cycles? Where the details, when observed on the microscopic scales, are really vast expanses away from the perfect ideal?

It is here that Heisenberg’s uncertainty priciple philosophically comes into its own… Because if one cannot know the precise position and momentum of a particle at a given instant, mainly due to its stupendously small size in relation to the observer, then its exact path, and so future position, could never be realistically or accurately determined. And when something is not accurate… Then it is in essence marginalized or wrong. So in essence, Heisenberg’s argument reiterates what Edward Lorenz’s simulated weather systems demonstrate… That every concept only has meaning in terms of the experiments used to measure it. And as these measurements would be imprecise as best; that is, in comparision to the size of the particle being measured, and other subtle external forces that might effect it in a chaotic world of charge… Then we must agree that things which cannot be measured really, have no real bearing on their trajectory or the course that they might take here in life… And thus they surely hold no real meaning in physics i.e. the path of a particle has no meaning beyond the precision with which it is observed.

Kurt Gödel and Albert Einstein near the IAS. Gödel was an Austrian-American logician, mathematician and philosopher. One of the most significant logicians of all time, his ideas had an immense impact upon scientific and philosophical thinking in the 20th century, a time when many, such as Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead and David Hilbert, were pioneering the use of logic and set theory to understand the foundations of mathematics.

Again… Is this not what Kurt Gödel discovered with his incompleteness theorems? That ultimately there is the romantic notion that man imposes on this environment i.e. what he expects it to do, whether using self referential axioms to describe its flow or arbitary statements about what it actually is… Only later to discover that it is nothing like what he imagined it to orginally be? Perhaps we are doomed to make these approximations for all eternity when we observe the Lilliputian and Herculean levels of reality (this is where my idea that the implications of the Mandelbrot set could guide us better in our search for truth, demonstration ever finer, more complex structures within and without, infinitely into and out of “precision” itself). Perhaps Georg Cantor was onto something with the idea of varying degrees of infinity, limited only by scaling factors i.e. the infinitely large might never hope to realize the infinitely small?

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Phillip Cantor, best known as the creator of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics.

But I digress… Once one gains a firm grasp of the basic facts that Heisenberg proposed, I would beckon them to recap on Deng Ming-Dao’s lesson on mindfulness, entitled “Make A Single Point”. Again, I do not want to lecture, but rather encourage the reader to think about the two separate ideas and find their own method of sewing them together… For to continually mend holes in the fabric of people’s perception could be misconstrued as being sanctimonious, which could never be further from my intentions. Rather I am happy to quote certain others’ works who have more pertinently and eloquently touched on aspects of this puzzel over the years, with a hope that the reader’s mind will naturally settle on the splendor lying behind the complex and distracting facades of catechism.

The Uncertainty Principle

“The more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known in this instant, and vice versa.”

It was in Copenhagen, in February of 1927, that Heisenberg developed his uncertainty principle, while working on the mathematical foundations of quantum mechanics. In his paper about this principle, he used the word “Ungenauigkeit” (imprecision). Heisenberg realized that the uncertainty relations had profound implications. First, if we accept Heisenberg’s argument that every concept has a meaning only in terms of the experiments used to measure it, we must agree that things that cannot be measured really have no meaning in physics. Thus, for instance, the path of a particle has no meaning beyond the precision with which it is observed. But a basic assumption of physics since Newton has been that a “real world” exists independently of us, regardless of whether or not we observe it. (This assumption did not go unchallenged, however, by some philsophers.) Heisenberg now argued that such concepts as orbits of electrons do not exist in nature unless and until we observe them.

Erwin Schrödinger was an Austrian theoretical physicist who achieved fame for his contributions to quantum mechanics, especially the Schrödinger equation, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1933. In 1935, after extensive correspondence with personal friend Albert Einstein, he proposed the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment.

With this idea, Heisenberg drew profound implications for the concept of causality, or the determinacy of future events. Schrödinger had earlier attempted to offer an interpretation of his formalism in which the electron waves represent the density of charge of the electron in the orbit around the nucleus. Max Born, however, showed that the “wave function” of Schrödinger’s equation does not represent the density of charge or matter. It describes only the probability of finding the electron at a certain point. In other words, quantum mechanics cannot give exact results, but only the probabilities for the occurrence of a variety of possible results.

Max Born was a Jewish-German physicist and mathematician who was instrumental in the development of quantum mechanics. He also made contributions to solid-state physics and optics and supervised the work of a number of notable physicists in the 1920s and 30s. Born won the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Heisenberg took this one step further: he challenged the notion of simple causality in nature, that every determinate cause in nature is followed by the resulting effect. Translated into “classical physics,” this had meant that the future motion of a particle could be exactly predicted, or “determined,”  from a knowledge of its present position and momentum and all of the forces acting upon it. However… The uncertainty principle denies this, Heisenberg declared, because one cannot know the precise position and momentum of a particle at a given instant, so its future cannot be determined. One cannot calculate the precise future motion of a particle, but only a range of possibilities for the future motion of the particle. (However, the probabilities of each motion, and the distribution of many particles following these motions, could be calculated exactly from Schrödinger’s wave equation.)

Although Einstein and others objected to Heisenberg’s and Bohr’s views, even Einstein had to admit that they are indeed a logical consequence of quantum mechanics. For Einstein, this showed that quantum mechanics is “incomplete.” Research has continued to the present on these and proposed alternative interpretations of quantum mechanics.

One should note that Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle does not say “everything is uncertain.” Rather, it tells us very exactly where the limits of uncertainty lie when we make measurements of sub-atomic events. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle constituted an essential component of the broader interpretation of quantum mechanics known as the Copenhagen Interpretation.

The Copenhagen Interpretation

Heisenberg formulated the uncertainty principle in February 1927 while employed as a lecturer in Bohr’s Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of Copenhagen. Bohr, who had been on a skiing vacation, returned to the institute to find Heisenberg’s paper already in draft. Forwarding the paper to Einstein at Heisenberg’s request, Bohr complained to Einstein that Heisenberg’s approach was too narrow and his gamma-ray microscope was flawed, although the result was correct. For Bohr, the uncertainty relations arose not merely from the quantum equations and the use of particles and discontinuity. Waves and particles had to be taken equally into account, and the scattering of light waves by the electron was also crucial. When Heisenberg corrected his thought experiment, it only confirmed the results.

Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein debating quantum theory at Paul Ehrenfest's home in Leiden (December 1925).

In Bohr’s words, the wave and particle pictures, or the visual and causal representations, are “complementary” to each other. That is, they are mutually exclusive, yet jointly essential for a complete description of quantum events. Obviously in an experiment in the everyday world an object cannot be both a wave and a particle at the same time; it must be either one or the other, depending upon the situation. In later refinements of this interpretation the wave function of the unobserved object is a mixture of both the wave and particle pictures until the experimenter chooses what to observe in a given experiment. (Remember that, according to Heisenberg, the path of an object first comes into existence when we observe it.) By choosing either the wave or the particle picture, the experimenter disturbs untouched nature. Such favoritism unleashes a limitation in what one can learn about nature “as it really is.” This limitation is expressed by Heisenberg’s uncertainty relations, which, for Bohr, were related to what he was now calling “complementarity.” Complementarity, uncertainty, and the statistical interpretation of Schrödinger’s wave function were all related. Together they formed a logical interpretation of the physical meaning of quantum mechanics known as the “Copenhagen Interpretation.”

Heisenberg vehemently objected at first to Bohr’s views. Insisting on the primary use of particles and discontinuity, he refused Bohr’s suggestion that he withdraw his paper, which was already in press. He did, however, append a paragraph alerting readers to Bohr’s views and admitting the error regarding the resolution of the microscope. The battle with Bohr grew so intense in the early months of 1927 that Heisenberg reportedly burst into tears at one point, and even managed to wound Bohr with his sharp remarks. Obviously, there was much at stake for the 25-year-old.

By the fall of 1927, matters had completely changed. Heisenberg’s job situation was settled upon his appointment to the University of Leipzig. And Bohr presented to a conference at Lake Como, Italy, his complementarity argument. A month later, in October 1927, Born and Heisenberg, speaking to the Solvay physics conference in Brussels, Belgium, went so far as to declare quantum mechanics to be complete and irrevocable.

Not everyone agreed with the new interpretation, or with Born and Heisenberg’s statement about future work. Einstein and Schrödinger were among the most notable dissenters. Until the ends of their lives they never fully accepted the Copenhagen doctrine. Einstein was dissatisfied with the reliance upon probabilities. But even more fundamentally, he believed that nature exists independently of the experimenter, and the motions of particles are precisely determined. It is the job of the physicist to uncover the laws of nature that govern these motions, which, in the end, will not require statistical theories. The fact that quantum mechanics did seem consistent only with statistical results and could not fully describe every motion was for Einstein an indication that quantum mechanics was still incomplete.

The objections of Einstein and others notwithstanding, Bohr, Heisenberg and their colleagues managed to ensure the acceptance of their interpretation by the majority of physicists at that time. They did this both by presenting the new interpretation on lecture trips around the world and by demonstrating that it worked. The successes of the theory naturally attracted many of the best students to institutes such as Heisenberg’s, some coming from as far away as America, India, and Japan. These bright students, nurtured by the Copenhagen doctrine and educated into the new quantum mechanics, formed a new and dominant generation of physicists. Those in Germany and Central Europe carried the new ideas with them as they dispersed around the world during the 1930s and 1940s in the wake of Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.

Practical Application

The equations developed by Heisenberg, Schrödinger and their colleagues give us all a glimpse into the nature of reality… But that’s not just all. They are also the essential tools of modern work in key areas of practical technology – including the electronics you are using to read this text. Thousands of physicists use the equations of quantum mechanics every day to understand and improve computer components, metals, lasers, the properties of chemicals, and so on and so on. Many important physical effects, from fluorescent lights to the shape of a snowflake, cannot be understood at all without quantum mechanics.

Even the Uncertainty Principle isn’t “merely” philosophy: it predicts real properties of electrons. Electrons jump at random from one energy state to another state which they could never reach except that their energy is momentarily uncertain. This “tunneling” makes possible the nuclear reactions that power the sun and many other processes. Physicists have put some of these processes to practical use in microelectronics. For example, delicate superconducting instruments that use electron tunneling to detect tiny magnetic fields are enormously helpful for safely scanning the human brain…

So when something tends to be used with great success to yield desired results… We know it has some basis for being at least as right as it can be for the moment. Perhaps our brains, when we observe the flow of thoughts through them and atune them to finely honed points of focus, might one day function more precisely than they do presently? Food for thought, no doubt…

Because she’s so important, Jennifer Aniston is on the cover of the Czech Republic’s Joy Magazine. After Angelina Jolie silently inherited Aniston’s princess baggage via partner Brad Pitt, Forbes Magazine finally checked Aniston’s mooching streak, by deservedly naming Angelina at just 34 years-of-age, the #1 celebrity in the world for 2009.

I’m glad somebody did. Thank you Forbes. Now Jenn will actually have to find another celebrity meal ticket that will kindly adopt her. Jenn has been subtly playing the sympathy card and riding Angelina’s ‘home wrecking‘ coattails for years now; in between “hanging out at Courtney and David’s house” and going to work sometimes by appearing in the odd film. We’ve given Jenn our empathetic movie ticket dollars for years now! It’s just got to stop! Young emerging actors now need them in a recession.

Playing the spurned ‘other woman’ to Angelina has been Aniston’s MAIN gig for half a decade now. Forbes totally called her on it by moving Angie up to #1. It’s now time for Jennifer Aniston to put down her hair straightening tongs for a Hollywood minute and book a plane ticket to a third world country… not just Mexico for margaritas on the beach… a real one!

Jennifer, all of America and the world gives you their blessing and permission to finally grow up, go to Africa and make a difference too! On that note… 

Here’s 10 Hot Posts right now in Hollywood on Horiwood.Com

1. RIHANNA LIGHTS UP THE LAKERS GAME

2. WILL BEYONCE FILM HER MUSIC VIDEO FOR HER SONG ‘VIDEO PHONE’ ON AN iPHONE 3G S?

3. AGELESS SHAKESPEARE: JUDE LAW IS HAMLET IN LONDON

4. SCHRODINGER’S CAT: SIMON COWELL & SUSAN BOYLE

5. KATE HUDSON GOES COUNTRY IN OKLAHOMA

6. JESSICA SIMPSON LOVES THE MIU MIU

7. STEPHEN COBERT IS MORE THAN JUST HIS HAIR

8. JESUS LUZ HITS THE BOXING RING FOR D & G

9. SELENA GOMEZ GETS THE CHOP

10. ZAC EFRON & LEONARDO DICAPRIO REVISIT THE LAKERS TOGETHER

Oscar nominated actress, Elizabeth Shue wowed American audiences in Adventures of Babysitting, Saturday.

A horse called Summer Bird winning the Belmont Stakes, Nick Diaz -a prized fighter, self-seeking Brat Pratts in a loveless wasteland of a Reality TV jungle turned against them… and two tragedies in the Mullenix Murder case and David Carridan’s unexplained shocking death in Thailand; round out the hottest news from Hollywood on Horiwood.Com. I know… rather eclectic news, to say the least!

SHOCK DEATH: DAVID CARRADINE’S DEATH PHOTO

1. NEW LADY GAGA: CHILLIN

2. FIGHTER NICK DIAZ: TWO VIEWS

3. RACHAEL MULLENIX & BARBARA MULLENIX: DID THE DAUGHTER KILL HER ACTRESS MOM?

4. SCHRODINGER’S CAT: SIMON COWELL & SUSAN BOYLE

5. HEIDI PRAT IS HOSPITALIZED IN COSTA RICA

6.  SPENCER PRATT RIDES HEIDI LIKE SHE’S SUMMER BIRD…

7. MEGAN FOX IS SO ELLE-GANT…

8. WILL POCAHANTAS STAR Q’ORIANKA KILCHER JOIN ROBERT PATTINSON IN TWILIGHT’S ECLIPSE?

9. AUSSIE GIRL EMILIE DE RAVIN IS ROBERT PATTINSON’S NEW LEADING LADY

10. THE BEST & WORST REALITY TV SHOWS OVER THE LAST 10 YEARS

Let’s hope that Susan Boyle being managed by Simon Cowell in the glass music box known as Sony Music, is nothing like a Schrodinger’s Cat experiment for the American Idol music producer.

She’s a national Scottish and British Cultural treasure, and may SuBo’s music continue to touch the world.

• Murphy, Michael P. ; O’Neill, Luke A.J. (eds.): La biología del futuro : ¿qué es la vida? cincuenta años después. Barcelona : Tusquets, 1999

El tiempo no suele apiadarse de los ensayos científicos. Por eso no deja de sorprender que, en el cincuentenario de las conferencias que dieron lugar a un ensayo premonitorio y decisivo como ¿Qué es la vida? de Erwin Schrödinger, varios especialistas de campos tan alejados como la física, la paleontología, la bioquímica o la biología se reúnan y rindan homenaje a su legado. Y es que pocas veces la especulación científica sale tan airosa como en el caso del breve libro de Schrödinger. Las ideas adelantadas en él propiciaron grandes descubrimientos científicos, y por ejemplo animaron a científicos como James Watson y Francis Crick a explorar las bases físicas de la vida en el ADN.

La biología del futuro viene a demostrar que, además, sigue todavía estimulando y sirviendo de modelo a la hora de plantearse los logros futuros de las ciencias de la vida.

Michael P. Murphy y Luckes A.J. O’Neill recogen aquí los diferentes puntos de vista de destacados científicos sobre las cuestiones centrales de la biología contemporánea, así como sus proyecciones sobre el futuro de la investigación biológica en los próximos cincuenta años. Reunidos en septiembre de 1993 en el Trinity College de Dublín —el mismo escenario de las conferencias originales de Schrödinger—, Jared Diamond (fisiólogo de la UCLA Medical Center de Los Ángeles), Christian de Duve (microbiólogo del International Institute of Cellular and Molecular Pathology, Bruselas), Manfred Eigen (bioquímico del Max Planck Institut, Gotinga), Stephen Jay Gould (paleontólogo de la Universidad de Harvard), John Maynard Smith (biólogo de la Universidad de Sussex, Brighton), Roger Penrose (físico del Mathematical Institute de Oxford), Lewis Wolpert (biólogo del Department of Anatomy and Developmental Biology de la University College, Londres) y Stuart A. Kauffman (bioquímico en el Instituto de Santa Fe), entre otros científicos, nos ofrecen un panorama valiosísimo, tanto en su concisión como en su multiplicidad, de las cuestiones candentes en las ciencias de la vida. Cierra el volumen la semblanza y el recordatorio del propio Schrödinger, trazados por su hija, Ruth Braunizer.

Como dice Alun Anderson en New Scientist: «Si alguien desea un libro breve que contenga tantas ideas estimulantes como una pequeña biblioteca, aquí lo tiene».

Otros científicos participantes en esta obra:

• Hermann Haken (Institute for Theoretical Physics and Synergetics, University of Stuttgart)
• James J. Kay (Environment and Resource Studies, University of Waterloo, Canadá)
• J. A. Scott Kelso (Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences,  Florida Atlantic University)
• Eric D. Schneider (Hawkwood Institute, Livingstone)
• Eörs Szathmáry (Department of Plant Taxonomy and Ecology, Eötvos University)
• Walter Thirring (Institut für Theorische Physik, Universität Wien)

The Character of Life

Watson and Crick, in their respective accounts of the discovery of the structure of DNA, both cited “What is Life” as their source of inspiration. It’s amazing how a physicist’s insights triggered a breakthrough in molecular biology.

Schrödinger, based on the principles of quantum mechanics and thermodynamics and very limited experimental data, deduced with amazing accuracy the size and character of the genetic material, later known to be DNA. He treated molecules as discrete quantum states (“a definite configuration of all the corpuscles”) and mutations as quantum jump between the discrete states (using a model proposed by Max Delbrück).

He also deliberated on the contrast between the law of physics which states that objects tend to reach maximum entropy and the law of life where there is increasing order, the opposite of entropy. This he believed to be the character of life, i.e., the mechanism that produces “order from order”.

In “Mind and Matter”, Schrödinger’s endeavored to construct a worldview in accord with his knowledge as a physicist. His reasoning is not quite easy to follow as it is in “What is Life”, however. The main points of interest are: 1. Behavior of the individuals, interacting with the environment, influences selection and the path of evolution. 2. The artificial barrier between mind and matter hinders western scientific thoughts . 3.  Space and time are the dimensions that reality projects on. There probably are other forms of appearance in which space and time play no role.

Quotes:

“Consciousness is the tutor who supervises the education of the living substance, but leaves his pupil alone to deal with all those tasks for which he is already sufficiently trained”.

Links:

• Schrödinger’s Nobel Lecture

• Schrödinger, Erwin: Mi concepción del mundo ; seguido de Mi vida. Barcelona : Tusquets, 1988

Tal y como dice el propio Erwin Schrödinger en el prefacio, su dedicación a la filosofía ha sido permanente y profesional. Pero sus intereses han ido hacia la especulación de temas generales y éstos han constituido la base de su visión científica. Su oposición obstinada, y en ciertas ocasiones violenta, a la mecánica cuántica es un ejemplo de su concepción filosófica, según la cual el mundo físico es plenamente comprensible en cuanto que es consecuencia obvia del carácter «mental» de la realidad. Si el mundo físico es expresión de una Mente Universal, su estructura debe ser accesible a la mente y no inaccesible como pretende la mecánica cuántica. La primera y segunda parte de Mi concepción del mundo fueron escritas con un intervalo de 35 años, y su coherencia, a pesar de los años que distancian estos textos, demuestra la profundidad y la raigambre de sus ideas filosóficas. Completa este volumen Mi vida, texto autobiográfico que terminó dos meses antes de morir y que, más que un perfil de su historia, recoge los hechos más determinantes de su vida.

- Obras de Erwin Schrödinger en la biblioteca

The Archimedes Codex这本书在中台都有了汉译本。为了看看到底写得咋样找到了两篇书评：一篇台湾人写的书评，还有一篇中国人写的。后者是研究科学史的吴国盛同学，他对阿基米德羊皮纸的传奇历史和其在科学史上的爆炸性似乎兴趣不大，对中国缺乏人才兴趣很大。其实缺乏专门人才并不奇怪。一个正常的中国人应该不但漠视、而且歧视“冷门专业”。最近的例子是让影帝丢面子的德国砸鞋学生，中国媒体在所知甚少的情况下为了表示该人本来就是个人渣，均引用一位剑桥中共学子的话，称其为“冷门专业学生”。实际效果是自证中国社会的原始和势利。

从吴国盛的短文中可以看出，追溯古希腊思想的不仅有欧美人，也有日本人。这证明了日本虽然地处亚洲，但是一个西方国家。薛定谔在《自然与希腊人》中解释他为什么要追溯远古的思想：古希腊哲学今天仍然能吸引我们，是因为世界上没有其它地方在任何历史时段能建立起象他们那样高度发达、表达清晰的知识和思维体系，并且该体系没有致命的分裂。在薛定谔的时代，物理学发生了颠覆性的变化——他本人也参与其中，同时也产生了深层危机。因此薛定谔想通过修正早期奠基者的理论基础来使物理学找到危机的原因。虽然在漫长的历史中，古代观念已经被更广泛和更高明的见解所替代，但是我们的全部科学知识来源于古希腊，即便不自知，也已经受到古希腊人的影响。因此古希腊无法被忽略。

古希腊人的影响，举个例子：观测某个世界时，把自己独立于观测的世界之外。

Deutschlandradio Kultur – Forschung und Gesellschaft – Was ist Leben?

“Entertain, or else….” headlines the Comment and analysis column in the 20/27 December 2008 issue of the New Scientist magazine. Here, Michael Brooks, a consultant for New Scientist and author of 13 Things That Don’t Make Sense asserts forcefully that scientists need to make their work more appealing and less boring if they don’t want funding to dry up.

In his hard-hitting article he quotes the great physicist Erwin Schrodinger addressing the scientific community: “Never lose sight of the role your particular subject has within the great performance of the tragi-comedy of human life. If you cannot – in the long run – tell everyone what you have been doing, your doing is worthless.”

This challenging comment piece inspired me to write an appreciation of the New Scientist.

Last spring, whilst preparing mentally to transform from techno-dinosaur into cyber-babe via computer lessons to enable me to set up this website, I responded to a magazine insert promoting the New Scientist, taking out a year’s subscription. Normally immune to the blandishments of promotional leaflets, this uncharacteristic impulse has proved to be highly beneficial; my lifelong interest in science – purely as a lay person with no formal scientific education – has been very well stimulated during 2008 as a result.

In sum, I think that the New Scientist does an excellent job in telling us all what the scientific community has been up to, simultaneously weaving global, political, cultural and social issues into its information-giving, never losing sight of “ the great performance of the tragi-comedy of human life ”, as Schrodinger so eloquently put it.

I cannot pretend for a moment to read the magazine from cover to cover every week, sometimes only finding time to read the lead article in the Cover Story. But when, for example, that story is From big bang to big bounce (writer Anil Ananthaswamy, 13 December 2008 issue) and is summarised thus:

“What if our universe didn’t appear from nothing, but was recycled from one that went before?” …., going on fully to inform me about loop quantum cosmology, which predicts that the universe didn’t arise from nothing in a big bang, but “grew from the collapse of a pre-existing universe that bounced back from oblivion….” – this provides me with enough mind-boggling reflection to make the one-hour journey to my dentist, across the city on the number 40 bus, fly by in what feels like a nano-second.

Read the New Scientist !

The latest issue of this brilliant magazine now travels around with me in my backpack, thereby ensuring that any waiting becomes an educative opportunity. I’ve also taken to reading it over breakfast (nobody speaks much in our house before 11am), at times being unable to resist offering gems:
“This is amazing! Did you know that a corroded lump of bronze, salvaged from an ancient shipwreck, has turned out to be nothing less than a computer used to plot the motion of heavenly bodies – possibly invented by Archimedes around 200 BC?” (Decoding the Antikythera by Jo Marchant, p36 New Scientist, 13th December )

The New Scientist is most accessibly and clearly laid out, with lots of arresting photography, clear illustrative diagrams and a healthy sprinkling of cartoons. Content is summarised on the very first print page, under these headings: (examples from 3 Jan 2009 Issue)
News – ‘Obama’s dream team prepares for business’
Technology –  ‘polymer bubbles target tumours’
Features – ‘Cover Story “Three Degrees of Contagion” Detox your life by harnessing the power of other people – even some you’ve never met’
Opinion –  ‘Comment and Analysis If more kids are to become scientists, fun and learning must be one and the same, says TV presenter Richard Hammond’
Regulars – Letters, Enigma (a baffling question set as a challenge to readers), Feedback, The Last Word, and Jobs.

This layout means that even if you don’t read everything, you find out in summary what the hot issues of the week are, thereby gaining an archive which can be looked up eg when a subject comes up in conversation and you think “I’m sure there was something about that in a recent New Scientist….”

The writing is lively, clear, often witty, generally first class. And there is always  – ALWAYS – in every issue something so totally mind-boggling that you go around all week telling everyone about it.
My recent personal favourite(can’t quite find which issue it was in, but I will!) concerned an American woman sitting quietly in an armchair at home when a small meteorite came crashing through the roof, scarring her thigh and narrowly missing killing her. It just so happened that her house was situated across the street from a club – whose promotional neon lighting featured a lightning bolt and a hurtling meteorite….

So – can you survive without a regular subscription to the New Scientist? If you subscribe to the ethos of this website, I think not !!

(this review is now referenced on the New Scientist’s wikipedia page)

800 words copyright Anne Whitaker 2008
Licensed under Creative Commons – for conditions see Home Page

Schrödinger wrote:

“It is typical of these cases that an indeterminacy originally restricted to the atomic domain becomes transformed into macroscopic indeterminacy, which can then be resolved by direct observation. That prevents us from so naively accepting as valid a “blurred model” for representing reality. “

An augmented Multiverse Bubble Theory involving connected, infinite, alternate universes is able to resolve the singular universe perspective as ascribed to by Schrödinger, and discussed by Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen.  Additionally, adapting an alternate universe connectivity model, whereby information can be exchanged between alternate universes within the multiverse, allows an object to exist, and ‘be percieved’ in a multi-state mode, as the Cat is expressed as both alive and dead.

References:

Alternate Universes Permeable, and Allow Transfer of Information

Multiphasic Resonance: Information Transfer in the Multiverse

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger’s_cat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_superposition

I’ve always been intrigued by physicists and mathematicians, not only because of their revolutionary breakthroughs in their field, but because of their nonchalant way of dressing. Has anyone really considered scientists stylish? Most people don’t; but I definitely do. Check out the pictures below. Anyone that can write an equation that spans the entire length of a chalkboard definitely gets a thumbs up in my book; and the best part is that some of these guys invented those equations!

J. Robert Oppenheimer - Head of the Manhattan Project. Check out the links and french cuffs - probably smudged with ink from writing all of those equations; definitely an extra coolness factor!

Theoretical Physicist Erwin Schrodinger - Discovery of Schrodinger's Equation

Physicist John Bardeen - two time winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics & co-inventor of the transistor in 1956

Physicist Louis Alvarez - 1968 Nobel Prize winner & inventor of the Asteroid Impact Theory and the Jet Recoil Theory

Physicist Edwin Mcmillan - First to produce a transuranium element and winner of the 1951 Nobel Prize in chemistry

Edward Percell - Winner of the 1952 Nobel Prize for the discovery of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance. He's also pretty damn good at tying a bowtie

Wolfgang Pauli - Discovery of the Exclusion Principle and noted for his work on the Spin Theory

Physicists around the world are busily working on a single theory to unite the major physical forces of nature once and for all. Known as the unified field theory, or half-jokingly as the Theory of Everything (TOE), this grand mathematical unification of spacetime involves mathematics so complex it hasn’t even been invented yet!

Can it be done? Well, Isaac Newton invented calculus to solve elusive mysteries of the cosmos in his day. Maybe scientists can do it again.

Some scientists, like Richard Dawkins, suggest this theory will once and for all render obsolete the need for a supernatural creator. Once the final variables describing the physical properties of the cosmos are locked into place, God will be out of a job.

Will the TOE put God in the unemployment line? Let’s take a look.

Rumi, Carlos Castaneda and David Hawkins: the path needs love

In Question #6—”Can science prove the existence of God?”—we explored the simple mystical assertion that without love there is no truth. Sounds like a bumper sticker but it’s true. That includes grand unification theories with fancy eleven-dimensional math.

From a spiritual standpoint, we can observe without absolute context, there is no unification. In Question #4 we explored the idea of changlessness, and discussed how absolute understanding of something renders change meaningless. For example, if I know the essential essence (akin to their Soul or Spirit) of maple trees is that they change color each fall, that fundamental essence won’t change in my eyes during their annual fall color-switch. They’re still maple trees in my eyes.

Every fall people say, “Oh the trees are changing!” like it’s a big surprise. To believe in change one must abandon one’s understanding of the totality of any essence; the fundamental error that created spacetime in the first place.

Einstein proved space is made up of energy down to its core. Even empty space has energy called zero point energy or quantum fluctuation energy. Yet energy is the capacity to cause change as we will explore in depth in a later post. I should say the perceived capacity to cause change. In ultimate reality, where essence is never considered apart from creation, there is no such thing as change.

Having absolute context about anything renders its various conditions simply part of what or who it is. We can call this the Grandparent’s Effect. Ever notice how parents—especially new parents—freak out about evevything their kids do that may be slightly out of line? Yet the more “attrocities” grandparent’s hear about their grandkids, it seems the more they just smile and say, “Kids will be kids.” With perspective and wisdom grandparents come to realize that the more kids change, the more they remain the same, as the saying goes. That’s continuous loving perspective comes from experience, patience and wisdom and can lead us down the road to understanding what absolute perspective might look like in an absolute universe.

Yet until we pull our awareness back “out” of spacetime and into the absolute knowledge of Spirit, then there is no unification of its constructions. Period.

There is no such thing as unified factual knowledge; only a unified experience, as Gary Renard has observed. The reason is simple. In the purely non-dualistic understanding of Spirit there is only oneness. In other words you must become one with all knowledge. You must literally become that knowledge, the Native American principle of knowing by being.

Thus all real knowledge must be experiential knowledge that you must self-identify as “my Self.” This is a Buddhist principle called absolute knowledge, as described by physicist Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics.

Rumi said love was the astrolabe of the mysteries of God. Meaning, if you want to know the secrets of the cosmos, use love to find them. David Hawkins says love opens the door to truth, always in that order.

Carlos Castaneda offers the same basic advice in The Teachings of Don Juan, as quoted by Capra in The Tao of Physics:

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you…Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.

Physicist David Bohm: No love, no unified theory

One of the greatest ambassadors between modern physics and the spiritual community was David Bohm, an Einstein contemporary and personal science advisor/friend to the Dalai Lama (see the Dalai’s The Universe in a Single Atom).

Bohm offered a comprehensive model of spacetime called the implicate order, detailed in his book Wholeness and the Implicate Order. On his spiritual journey, which included a number of years studying with Indian philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurti, he seems to have come to the same conclusion as Rumi, Hawkins and Castaneda: no love, no truth.

Here’s writer Renee Weber on Bohm’s vision for a unified field theory, as detailed in Ken Wilber’s The Holographic Paradigm:

[Bohm's] vision is a unified field theory undreamed of by science, in which the searcher and what is sought are apprehended as one, the holomovement becoming translucent to itself. That unified field is neither neutral nor value-free as current scientific canon requires, but an intelligent and compassionate energy, manifesting in an as yet unborn realm where physics, ethics and religion merge. For human life, widespread awareness of such a realm will be revolutionary, leading us from information to transformation and from knowledge to wisdom.

The pursuit of the Unified Field Theory slams into Einstein’s Tree

Einstein too believed, like Bohm, that true knowledge comes from a unified source. He said, “All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree.” We’ll call this idea Einstein’s Tree. Unfortunately, it stands squarely in the path of the unified field theory.

How can a “Theory of Everything” not include the branches of its own tree?

The map is not the terrain. The branch is not the tree. Everything must include everything.

If we are not exploring a theory that can unify science and religion (Einstein and Bohm’s vision), we’re headed down the wrong path. And as Castaneda said, there’s no harm in abandoning it.

Here’s Indian philospher Jiddu Krishnamurti in Total Freedom on the necessity of unified knowledge:

…every…form of revolution is fragmentary and, therefore, inevitably brings about further problems. But the man who is seeking out what is truth, what is God, is the real revolutionary because the discovery of what is truth is an integrated response and not a fragmentary response.

The question for physicists is, are you after ultimate truth or not? If so, then the unified field theory that wholly ignores any branch of Einstein’s Tree isn’t going to get you there.

Integration is truth, Krishnamurti said. Truth is union, A Course in Miracles says. This is the foundational principle of non-dualistic spirituality. Absolute knowledge is oneness.

You can’t be the number 3.14159. You can’t be the equation E=mc^2. You can’t be a mathematical theory. Does a theory feel love, or joy or peace? Do you?

The Unified Theory doesn’t kill God; it doesn’t even kill human love

So when atheist author and scientist Richard Dawkins insists that one discipline—modern physics—will somehow burp out some magical, universal constants (see his article in Time magazine, 11/13/2006) that will provide answers to everything within spacetime, thereby obliterating the need for God in one fell swoop, this is ego-driven nonsense.

We discussed in earlier posts that psychologist Carl Jung and Nobel-prize-winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli believed the discipline of physics and psychology would merge. How can physics alone, wholly ignoring the fact there is no such thing as equations for human experience, claim to possess the absolute truth on anything that encompasses sentient beings, including spacetime? If our sentient awareness isn’t in spacetime, where is it? And if it is in spacetime, can I see the equations that govern it, please? Certainly it would be included in any unified field that physics would bind into one mathematical equation.

Brain researchers claim our consciousness is simply electro-chemical brain activity. Isn’t electricity included in the unified field theory? Then let’s see the equations governing human cognitive functions.

Here’s Ken Wilber on the necessity of combining physical understanding with psychological understanding:

…[Bohm] faces the conclusion that modern microphysics must deal with information defined psychologically, i.e. through behavioral observations.

Thus modern physicists and modern perceptual psychologists have converged onto a set of issues that neither can solve alone. if the psychologist is interested in the nature of the conditions which produce the world of appearances, he must attend to the inquiries of the physicist. If the physicist is to understand the observations which he is attempting to systematize, he must learn something of the nature of the psychological process of making observations.

So, you have the Dalai Lama’s science advisor/physicist David Bohm saying the unified field theory as it is currently being pursued is way off in left field. We have one of the most skeptical, hard-nosed physicists of all times—Nobelist Wolfgang Pauli—saying psychology and physics will one day merge. You have Einstein saying all sciences and religions are branches of the same tree.

And finally a quote from Nobelist and quantum-mechanical pioneer Erwin Shrödinger from The Essence of Vedanta by Brian Hodgkinson. It puts the kicker on our discussion:

You may ask—you are bound to ask me now: What, then, is in your opinion the value of natural science? I answer: Its scope, aim and value is the same as that of any other branch of human knowledge. Nay, none of them alone, only the union of all of them, has any scope or value at all, and that is simply enough described: it is to obey the command of the Delphic deity…know yourself.”

So, we have one of the giants of physics—Nobel-prize-level—saying physics doesn’t have any scope or value at all if it is not united with other branches of human knowledge.

No love. No truth. It’s that simple.

A path that excludes love—and its absolute power to unify and contextualize—is a dead end. Not of some value; no value. A path we should abandon.

Yet, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, the master contextualizer, any path—even the hunt for the unified field theory—can become a radiant, shining path of salvation, illuminating the structures that bind the human mind in suffering, as we will examine in Part 2 of this question.

Without the contextual power of love, the unified field theory
is the Spam Filter from Hell

Absent love, the unified field theory is none other than the Spam Filter from Hell (see Question #7) dressed up in eleven-dimensional, mathematical clothing. It is a perceptual filter; an attempt to block out everything but physical reality. Calling love itself false and mathematical projection laid over truth real.

What is the equation for love? How many vibrating strings does peace have? What’s the formula for freedom? Again, we come back to Rabbi Yehuda Berg’s research in The Power of Kabbalah: the things human beings truly desire from life are non-quantifiable, non-mathematical, non-scientific inner experiences.

How can physics avoid this continuous tendency to build an impenetrable mathematical fort around their branch of Einstein’s Tree?  Put first things first, Stephen Covey says.

Scientists should ask everyone they know—including themselves—Berg’s bottom-lining question, “What does a human being truly desire from life?”

Study the answers to that question and see for yourself they are not found on a map, on a scale or in an equation.

Putting first things first should most certainly include prioritizing the experiences humans most desire from life. What profession should not put the deepest desires of humanity at the core of their field?

Einstein again:

Concern for man and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors. Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.

Schrödinger believed that, since quantum theory and the theory of relativity has shaken the foundations of science, it is incentive to revisit the foundations, i.e, the philosophies of the ancient Greeks, in the hope of discovering neglected wisdom and also correcting inveterate errors (pre-conceived ideas and unwarranted assumptions) which may have been perpetuated.

He divided the great thinkers of antiquity roughly into two groups, Pythagoreans and Ionians (who are connected to the Atomists, the forerunners of modern philosophy). The division is based on their emphasis on reason vs. senses when constructing their worldview.

I’m intrigued by the Pythagorean cosmology. It was based on “unfounded, preconceived ideals of perfection, beauty and simplicity”, and yet it was perhaps closer to the truth than the geo-centric view. It makes me wonder how and why erroneous theories get perpetuated through history whereas the correct ones are obliterated.

Schrödinger lamented that, because man himself (the observer), has been removed from his picture of the world (the observed), “the scientific worldview contains of itself no ethical values, no aesthetical values, not a word about our own ultimate scope or destination.”