"Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science, but man needs both," is the epilogue of Fritjof Capra's book The Tao of Physics (1975), where he explores the parallels between eastern spirituality/mysticism (including buddhism, taoism, and hinduism) and modern science, especially quantum physics and relativity.
This is a great article! However, I think you may be neglecting to mention a big piece when it comes to why many of the greatest physicists long believed consciousness collapses the wave function, and that was the von Neumann chain. As I understand it, Einstein was bothered by takes like those of von Neumann (who, it's worth noting, was considered the "smartest man who ever lived" at the time https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/maniac-book-benjamin-labatut-john-von-neumann/675443/), and that's why he sought to find a flaw in Quantum Theory with his EPR paper (but, of course, the weirdness he thought was a refutation was confirmed by Bell and subsequent experiments just as you've so adeptly described).
Here's an excerpt from page 238 in "Quantum Enigma" by Rosenblum and Kuttner:
"In his 1932 treatment, 'The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics', John von Neumann rigorously displayed quantum theory's inevitable encounter with consciousness. Von Neumann considered an idealized quantum measurement starting with a microscopic object in a superposition state and ending with the observer. A Geiger counter, for example, completely isolated from the rest of the world, contacts a quantum system, say, an atom simultaneously in two boxes. The Geiger counter is set to fire if the atom is in the bottom box, and to remain unfired if the atom is in the top box. Von Neumann showed that the isolated Geiger counter, a physical object governed by quantum mechanics, would entangle with the atom in both boxes. It would thus be in superposition state with the atom. It would thus be simultaneously in the fired and unfired state. (We saw this situation in the case of Schrodinger's cat.)
Should a second device, also isolated, contact the Geiger counter--say an electronic instrument indicating whether or not the Geiger counter has fired--it joins the superposition state wavefunction, indicating both situations simultaneously. Von Neumann showed that no physical system obeying the laws of physics (i.e. quantum theory) could collapse a superposition state wavefunction to yield a particular result. However, we know that the observer at the end point of the von Neumann chain always sees a particular result, a fired or not fired Geiger counter, not a superposition. Von Neumann showed that for all practical purposes the wavefunction could be *considered* collapsed at any macroscopic stage of the measurement chain where an interference demonstration becomes essentially impossible. Nevertheless, he concluded that, strictly speaking, collapse takes place only at the "Ich", the same word Freud used for the Ego, the conscious mind."
In other words: While you can arbitrarily choose some physical point along the chain at which to consider collapse to have occurred, the laws of physics never actually predicate collapse at any point of purely physical interaction, because all physical objects (including those of measurement devices) are in theory defined by the pre-collapse wavefunction at all times. And yet, human observers only ever see collapsed entities.
If you really want to pursue the relationship of consciousness and reality to its logical conclusion, I highly recommend Chris Langan's Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). Langan (who may be of particular interest to you as a psychologist, having one of the world's highest ever measured IQs) shows that reality is self-modeling, which is model-theoretic talk for self-valid interpretation, i.e. consciousness. In order to nontrivially model itself from within, reality needs localized subsystems like us to carry it out, which is why we are so critical to collapsing the wave function.
The best place to start with is probably his 2002 paper, "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory"
Thank you for the clear explanation of these two visions and what the evidence shows. I have never seen it better explained than here.
The problem reminds me of how memory appears to work: as something that is constructed, build up, at the moment we consciously connect with fragments of perceptions, emotions, meanings and former knowledge.
According to Rudolf Steiner it is a conscious, creative action. Isn't that somehow alike?
Just to throw a (humorous!) spanner in the works, I've been hit & hurt by things that I didn't see coming, & nor did anyone else. Is it only around ME that certain things DO exist when I'm not looking at them, or do other people also experience this? Or is it that God, being Omnipresent, is looking at all things all the time, & that's why the Moon & things that hit me do actually exist all the time, in spite of Bohr being right? But at this point, all my mental trip-switches have now blown, so I'm going to go make coffee, lol
Yes indeed, and what about the invisible and bad goblins which swipe your socks in the washing macine >so that you always have odd numbers. Then of course as soon as you discard that odd sock the the globlins return its partner. You can't see these gobilns but you can hear them at night laughing. I'm going to catch all of them and after that they won't exist no matter where you look, Bell's theorem upgraded by New Zealander who studied physics at high school.
Sorry I did get lost in your article (my fault) but I am still curious. . My twin sister and I have discussed the point that a puzzle made by my sister, can then be more easily made by myself, but whether a different physical copy of that puzzle in another part of the world could also be more easily made by another person as well. Is the information conveyed between my twin and I, or in the pieces of the puzzle or on the ether (for want of a better way of describing it). Just a curious thought. I have heard that many discoveries, ideas or realisations occur in the world at the same time without direct communication. Is this quantum physics.
In my youth I read a fascinating article about Rupert Sheldrake (yes, a scientist) who postulated that the "morphogenetic fields", or "morphic resonance", that connect all living things on Earth can explain what you describe, e.g. "that many discoveries, ideas or realisations occur in the world at the same time without direct communication";
or that an Olympic record, once reached by someone, is then regularly surpassed by others in the following years. Sheldrake suggests that all living things are biologically related and interacting with each other, especially those of the same species. Information on these theories can be found, which have been criticized a lot of course.
But, here is my little personal story:
A few years ago, in an attempt to correct our problem of many groundhogs eating our entire country garden, we acquired a special self-closing cage: attracted by food, the groundhog entered the cage, was trapped without being harmed, and then we moved him by transporting the cage 5-10 km away to release him into the wild.
Everything worked well that summer, although the groundhogs did not appreciate this imprisonment, even temporarily.
But, after a few weeks, the groundhogs stopped entering the cage completely...
Well, we thought that the word must have "happened", the local groundhogs had learned to avoid the cage.
We know that the groundhog does not live more than 6 years in the wild.
Today, more than 18 years after this experience, no groundhog has ever entered this same cage again, tempting food or not.
Mystery.
Is it the effect of the groundhog "morphogenetic field"? Or has the genetic code of ALL groundhogs changed as a result of this story?
Yes I can go with you there. If we see men and children dying in these terrible wars > Their wives and children never welcome them back home .They are gone forever and only the sudffering remains .
The Big L's "blathering" approach in a dialogue with Stevie Wonder after invading four White Russians might look something like this:
L: It's all based on the assumption that there is such a thing as the same time.
S: I'd just call.
L: But that's absurd if X,Y,Z requires time and vice versa.
S: I can't see.
L: Therefore I can never measure or observe what you do.
S: I feel you.
Und die Moral von der Geschichte: Man muss kein Einstein sein, aber man darf nicht blind sein, um das Sprichwort “Die Wahrheit liegt im Auge des Betrachters” als wahr anzusehen.
But my question is, did you see the satanic rituals while you were at CERN? 😂
Seriously though, as an energy healer who teaches and practices distant healing, the only way that I can explain it to people is by using quantum entanglement theory.
Perhaps science will eventually catch up to be able to explain our multidimensional aspects. In the meantime, the conversation is good, and we need to keep talking!
Light from billions of distant galaxies interacts with everything in its path over millions of years to hit the retina of an evolved ape… The idea that observation collapses a quantum state has an effect on a cosmic scale and over time too just by looking up at the night sky, not at a workbench blows my mind.
I think this is why I struggled to get past the wooden desk observations by Bertrand Russell in his book ‘The Problems With Philosophy’ 😅
In the same breath: The idea that someone walking past me who looks up at the night sky at the same galaxy would be witnessing events minutes apart, just because they’re moving and I’m stationary blows my mind too.
There is another layer that is even more mind-blowing, however. This is evidenced by Wheeler's "Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser" variation on the Double Slit experiment. Materialists like to say that when we "measure" the "which-way data" (or "which-path data) at the slit it is this "interaction that "collapses the waveform" (not a helpful expression, but it is the common one, so we'll use it for now). However Wheeler showed, that if you measure the which-way data and even record it, but then erase that data before any conscious observer ever looks at the result on the detector screen, the interference pattern appears again (wave-like behavior), and not the two lines, as one would expect had the waveform collapsed. A very simple explanation is that this is a Virtual Reality (VR) and it only exists in the minds of the players--there is no "reality" "out there". We, the players making the free will choices for our avatars here, only need to have that data rendered into our data streams when we actually call for it. Nothing exists independent of the data we call forth as our consciousness interacts with this VR "Physical Matter Reality" (PMR) simulation.
Former NASA Physicist and 50+-year consciousness researcher, Tom Campbell is currently funding a variety of variations on Wheeler's Delayed Choice experiments to support his "My Big TOE (Theory of Everything)" (MBT), which postulates that is is actually a Virtual Reality(VR), consciousness is fundamental, and we are all netted in a Larger Consciousness System (LCS), which, like the data base (aka the Akashic Records), the "computer" calculating this VR, the rendering engine, and we the players, all exist "in other", i.e. a reality which must appear to be "non-physical" to the avatars here in this "Physical Universe".
It explains not only the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, but a few other dozen famous paradoxes and questions that have stumped the great minds throughout history all the way back to Zeno (of the famous "Zeno's Paradox").
Check it out: www.my-big-toe.com (I recommend starting with the "Overview of MBT" found in the header before tackling the 820 page trilogy). ;-)
Excellent discussion even I could follow. I now have some basis for my own delusions regarding theocratic reality. Since, per Einstein, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely converted one to the other, all of us are in a way immortal. We have always existed in some form and will always exist in some form as long as the universe(s). Paraphrasing Hawking, since the universe is constantly expanding in all directions since the Big Bang, the origin of the universe is literally at the tip of your nose, so to speak. If all wave behavior is "converted" to particle behavior solely by our act of observation regardless of measurement, then in a way we are created in God's image--God created all, and we create a version of it by our acts of observation. The final conundrum--when homo sapiens or some version of sentience ceases to exist, will the observable universe cease to "exist"?
Wow. Terrific. What a wonderfull world.
"Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science, but man needs both," is the epilogue of Fritjof Capra's book The Tao of Physics (1975), where he explores the parallels between eastern spirituality/mysticism (including buddhism, taoism, and hinduism) and modern science, especially quantum physics and relativity.
Hi Dr. Desmet,
This is a great article! However, I think you may be neglecting to mention a big piece when it comes to why many of the greatest physicists long believed consciousness collapses the wave function, and that was the von Neumann chain. As I understand it, Einstein was bothered by takes like those of von Neumann (who, it's worth noting, was considered the "smartest man who ever lived" at the time https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/11/maniac-book-benjamin-labatut-john-von-neumann/675443/), and that's why he sought to find a flaw in Quantum Theory with his EPR paper (but, of course, the weirdness he thought was a refutation was confirmed by Bell and subsequent experiments just as you've so adeptly described).
Here's an excerpt from page 238 in "Quantum Enigma" by Rosenblum and Kuttner:
"In his 1932 treatment, 'The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics', John von Neumann rigorously displayed quantum theory's inevitable encounter with consciousness. Von Neumann considered an idealized quantum measurement starting with a microscopic object in a superposition state and ending with the observer. A Geiger counter, for example, completely isolated from the rest of the world, contacts a quantum system, say, an atom simultaneously in two boxes. The Geiger counter is set to fire if the atom is in the bottom box, and to remain unfired if the atom is in the top box. Von Neumann showed that the isolated Geiger counter, a physical object governed by quantum mechanics, would entangle with the atom in both boxes. It would thus be in superposition state with the atom. It would thus be simultaneously in the fired and unfired state. (We saw this situation in the case of Schrodinger's cat.)
Should a second device, also isolated, contact the Geiger counter--say an electronic instrument indicating whether or not the Geiger counter has fired--it joins the superposition state wavefunction, indicating both situations simultaneously. Von Neumann showed that no physical system obeying the laws of physics (i.e. quantum theory) could collapse a superposition state wavefunction to yield a particular result. However, we know that the observer at the end point of the von Neumann chain always sees a particular result, a fired or not fired Geiger counter, not a superposition. Von Neumann showed that for all practical purposes the wavefunction could be *considered* collapsed at any macroscopic stage of the measurement chain where an interference demonstration becomes essentially impossible. Nevertheless, he concluded that, strictly speaking, collapse takes place only at the "Ich", the same word Freud used for the Ego, the conscious mind."
In other words: While you can arbitrarily choose some physical point along the chain at which to consider collapse to have occurred, the laws of physics never actually predicate collapse at any point of purely physical interaction, because all physical objects (including those of measurement devices) are in theory defined by the pre-collapse wavefunction at all times. And yet, human observers only ever see collapsed entities.
If you really want to pursue the relationship of consciousness and reality to its logical conclusion, I highly recommend Chris Langan's Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe (CTMU). Langan (who may be of particular interest to you as a psychologist, having one of the world's highest ever measured IQs) shows that reality is self-modeling, which is model-theoretic talk for self-valid interpretation, i.e. consciousness. In order to nontrivially model itself from within, reality needs localized subsystems like us to carry it out, which is why we are so critical to collapsing the wave function.
The best place to start with is probably his 2002 paper, "The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of the Universe: A New Kind of Reality Theory"
http://knowledgebase.ctmu.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Langan_CTMU_0929021-1.pdf
Langan also has a column here on Substack: https://chrislangan.substack.com/
God bless!
A solipsist would, of course, say no.
Thank you for the clear explanation of these two visions and what the evidence shows. I have never seen it better explained than here.
The problem reminds me of how memory appears to work: as something that is constructed, build up, at the moment we consciously connect with fragments of perceptions, emotions, meanings and former knowledge.
According to Rudolf Steiner it is a conscious, creative action. Isn't that somehow alike?
What is the purpose of this article?
Just to throw a (humorous!) spanner in the works, I've been hit & hurt by things that I didn't see coming, & nor did anyone else. Is it only around ME that certain things DO exist when I'm not looking at them, or do other people also experience this? Or is it that God, being Omnipresent, is looking at all things all the time, & that's why the Moon & things that hit me do actually exist all the time, in spite of Bohr being right? But at this point, all my mental trip-switches have now blown, so I'm going to go make coffee, lol
Yes indeed, and what about the invisible and bad goblins which swipe your socks in the washing macine >so that you always have odd numbers. Then of course as soon as you discard that odd sock the the globlins return its partner. You can't see these gobilns but you can hear them at night laughing. I'm going to catch all of them and after that they won't exist no matter where you look, Bell's theorem upgraded by New Zealander who studied physics at high school.
Sorry I did get lost in your article (my fault) but I am still curious. . My twin sister and I have discussed the point that a puzzle made by my sister, can then be more easily made by myself, but whether a different physical copy of that puzzle in another part of the world could also be more easily made by another person as well. Is the information conveyed between my twin and I, or in the pieces of the puzzle or on the ether (for want of a better way of describing it). Just a curious thought. I have heard that many discoveries, ideas or realisations occur in the world at the same time without direct communication. Is this quantum physics.
In my youth I read a fascinating article about Rupert Sheldrake (yes, a scientist) who postulated that the "morphogenetic fields", or "morphic resonance", that connect all living things on Earth can explain what you describe, e.g. "that many discoveries, ideas or realisations occur in the world at the same time without direct communication";
or that an Olympic record, once reached by someone, is then regularly surpassed by others in the following years. Sheldrake suggests that all living things are biologically related and interacting with each other, especially those of the same species. Information on these theories can be found, which have been criticized a lot of course.
But, here is my little personal story:
A few years ago, in an attempt to correct our problem of many groundhogs eating our entire country garden, we acquired a special self-closing cage: attracted by food, the groundhog entered the cage, was trapped without being harmed, and then we moved him by transporting the cage 5-10 km away to release him into the wild.
Everything worked well that summer, although the groundhogs did not appreciate this imprisonment, even temporarily.
But, after a few weeks, the groundhogs stopped entering the cage completely...
Well, we thought that the word must have "happened", the local groundhogs had learned to avoid the cage.
We know that the groundhog does not live more than 6 years in the wild.
Today, more than 18 years after this experience, no groundhog has ever entered this same cage again, tempting food or not.
Mystery.
Is it the effect of the groundhog "morphogenetic field"? Or has the genetic code of ALL groundhogs changed as a result of this story?
PS: another mystery is that raccoons don't seem to learn, they keep coming in the cage!
Forgive me, but in the final analysis I have to comment - so what.
Yes I can go with you there. If we see men and children dying in these terrible wars > Their wives and children never welcome them back home .They are gone forever and only the sudffering remains .
The Big L's "blathering" approach in a dialogue with Stevie Wonder after invading four White Russians might look something like this:
L: It's all based on the assumption that there is such a thing as the same time.
S: I'd just call.
L: But that's absurd if X,Y,Z requires time and vice versa.
S: I can't see.
L: Therefore I can never measure or observe what you do.
S: I feel you.
Und die Moral von der Geschichte: Man muss kein Einstein sein, aber man darf nicht blind sein, um das Sprichwort “Die Wahrheit liegt im Auge des Betrachters” als wahr anzusehen.
A couple of short videos, 11 minutes and 7 minutes, to watch for a follow up to these ideas:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4VuS3TGUsM - Panpsychism in the West.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3O7Yth-dqM - Max Planck's Universal Mind.
But my question is, did you see the satanic rituals while you were at CERN? 😂
Seriously though, as an energy healer who teaches and practices distant healing, the only way that I can explain it to people is by using quantum entanglement theory.
Perhaps science will eventually catch up to be able to explain our multidimensional aspects. In the meantime, the conversation is good, and we need to keep talking!
Light from billions of distant galaxies interacts with everything in its path over millions of years to hit the retina of an evolved ape… The idea that observation collapses a quantum state has an effect on a cosmic scale and over time too just by looking up at the night sky, not at a workbench blows my mind.
I think this is why I struggled to get past the wooden desk observations by Bertrand Russell in his book ‘The Problems With Philosophy’ 😅
In the same breath: The idea that someone walking past me who looks up at the night sky at the same galaxy would be witnessing events minutes apart, just because they’re moving and I’m stationary blows my mind too.
I love reading this stuff 😂🤯
Another explanation is, that it is not observation, but the act of particles bumping into each other which causes them to collapse.
Other is the theory of self-collapse, where the gravitational pull between the various superposition states causes the collapse.
I am not a physics major, so I dont not what to make of any of these, but I thought it worth mentioning.
Excellent article, thanks! :-)
There is another layer that is even more mind-blowing, however. This is evidenced by Wheeler's "Delayed Choice Quantum Eraser" variation on the Double Slit experiment. Materialists like to say that when we "measure" the "which-way data" (or "which-path data) at the slit it is this "interaction that "collapses the waveform" (not a helpful expression, but it is the common one, so we'll use it for now). However Wheeler showed, that if you measure the which-way data and even record it, but then erase that data before any conscious observer ever looks at the result on the detector screen, the interference pattern appears again (wave-like behavior), and not the two lines, as one would expect had the waveform collapsed. A very simple explanation is that this is a Virtual Reality (VR) and it only exists in the minds of the players--there is no "reality" "out there". We, the players making the free will choices for our avatars here, only need to have that data rendered into our data streams when we actually call for it. Nothing exists independent of the data we call forth as our consciousness interacts with this VR "Physical Matter Reality" (PMR) simulation.
Former NASA Physicist and 50+-year consciousness researcher, Tom Campbell is currently funding a variety of variations on Wheeler's Delayed Choice experiments to support his "My Big TOE (Theory of Everything)" (MBT), which postulates that is is actually a Virtual Reality(VR), consciousness is fundamental, and we are all netted in a Larger Consciousness System (LCS), which, like the data base (aka the Akashic Records), the "computer" calculating this VR, the rendering engine, and we the players, all exist "in other", i.e. a reality which must appear to be "non-physical" to the avatars here in this "Physical Universe".
It explains not only the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox, but a few other dozen famous paradoxes and questions that have stumped the great minds throughout history all the way back to Zeno (of the famous "Zeno's Paradox").
Check it out: www.my-big-toe.com (I recommend starting with the "Overview of MBT" found in the header before tackling the 820 page trilogy). ;-)
Blessings on your path,
Jamie
Excellent discussion even I could follow. I now have some basis for my own delusions regarding theocratic reality. Since, per Einstein, matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, merely converted one to the other, all of us are in a way immortal. We have always existed in some form and will always exist in some form as long as the universe(s). Paraphrasing Hawking, since the universe is constantly expanding in all directions since the Big Bang, the origin of the universe is literally at the tip of your nose, so to speak. If all wave behavior is "converted" to particle behavior solely by our act of observation regardless of measurement, then in a way we are created in God's image--God created all, and we create a version of it by our acts of observation. The final conundrum--when homo sapiens or some version of sentience ceases to exist, will the observable universe cease to "exist"?