Title : Quantum Physics: Interface With Islam

What is Quantum Physics?

Christian Bodhi

Quantum Physics is a branch of physics, which studies behaviour of sub-atomic particles; it is also called Quantum Mechanics (QM).

Discovery of quantum
The foundation of QM was laid by the German physicist Max Planck, who postulated in 1900 that energy could be radiated or absorbed by matter only in small, discrete packets called quanta. According to Planck, the energy of a quantum of light is equal to the frequency of the light multiplied by a constant, which is now called Plank’s constant (h = 6.626 × 10-34 joule-second in the meter-kilogram-second).

Particle-wave nature of matter
Light was believed to be a wave, but after the discovery of quantum, it was obvious that light had particle or corpuscular nature too - a quantum of light is called photon and it has particle properties. But not only light was exhibiting wave nature, it was discovered that electrons were behaving as waves, as well as other subatomic particles. This led to understanding that all matter had dual nature: wave-corpuscular.

Uncertainty Principle
While developing the theoretical model of atom scientists had to abandon Newtonian ideas that the electron was orbiting like a planet around the nucleus and adopt quantum-wave model. The electron was fluctuating around the nucleus changing energy levels when absorbing or emitting photons. When the exact particle properties of an electron were measured, it was discovered that it was not possible to measure all the known properties of an electron at the same time. In 1927 Werner Heisenberg postulated his famous uncertainty principle, also called principle of indeterminacy, as a direct consequence of dual nature of matter as well as different ways of observation.

Collapsing the wave
Niels Bohr, the famous Danish scientist, went even further and said that it was meaningless to speak about the particle proprieties of an electron before it was observed. He claimed that actual act of observation helped create the particle properties of an electron which did not exist before the observation as the electron was in a state of quantum fluctuation. According to Bohr, an observer was collapsing the wave to take a shape and properties of a particle; hence the observer’s consciousness was a part of the experiment.

EPR paradox
Albert Einstein who contributed to the development of the quantum physics, was not happy with ‘distasteful’ Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, which he objected with his famous saying “God does not play dice”. He also disagreed with Bohr’s interpretations of particle properties being crated by observer, so together with two other scientists Podolsky and Rosen he devised a theoretical experiment, called EPR paradox, where two entangled or twin photons travelled great distances before they were observed. According to Bohr, when properties of one photon were observed and therefore created, instantaneously properties of another twin photon would be created even though the photons could be separated by thousands of light-years. This would mean that the photons communicated with each other faster than light, which would violate Einstein’s own Special Theory of Relativity which stated that nothing could travel faster than light.

Non-locality
Bohr’s reply to Einstein’s objections was that the twin photons were not really separated. They were the one thing manifesting on two places, interacting with each other even though they were not connected with any known force field. This entanglement which Einstein called "spooky action at a distance" gave rise to a very challenging concept to classical physics called non-locality.

Bell’s Inequality theorem and Alain Aspect experiment
For many years the dispute between Einstein and Bohr could not be resolved by an actual physical experiment until John Bell, a theoretical physicist at CERN, in 1965 came with a mathematical theorem which was the basis of an experiment which could help scientists decide who was right Einstein or Bohr. And consequently in 1982, Alain Aspect, a French scientist, performed such an experiment and proved that a faster than light communication indeed was occurring between twin photons and that Bohr was right. This type of communication is sometimes called faster than light signalling.

Interpretations of Quantum Physics

Quantum Physics did not solve all problems and at the moment theoretical physicists are not able to invent a new theory which would unite Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Quantum Physics is very complex and we are not sure what does experimental verification of non-locality actually mean regarding the nature or reality. There are several major interpretation of Quantum Physics:

Copenhagen interpretation
This is Bohr’s school. Reality is fluctuating with all possibilities as a wave function until an act of observation collapses the wave and only one outcome materialises. Schrodinger’s Cat is a theoretical experiment which illustrates this: a cat is in a closed box with a bottle of deadly poison which might get broken by a mechanism activated by a radioactive decay with exactly 50% probability to happen during the experiment. If the bottle is broken cat will be dead. Copenhagen interpretation, which derives its name from Bohr’s speeches in Copenhagen in the late 1920s, says that the cat during the experiment will be fluctuating, assuming both states of being dead and alive at the same time, and only when a scientist actually look into the box, one outcome will happen. This interpretation emphasises the role of the observer as a co-creator of the reality and implies an intricate link between mind and matter.

“Physicist Nick Herbert, a supporter of this interpretation, says this has sometimes caused him to imagine that behind his back the world is always "a radically ambiguous and ceaselessly flowing quantum soup." But whenever he turns around and tries to see the soup, his glance instantly freezes it and turn it back into ordinary reality. He believes this make us all a little like Midas, the legendary king who never knew the feel of silk or the caress of a human hand because everything he touched turned to gold. "Likewise humans can never experience the true texture of quantum reality," says Herbert, "because everything we touch turns to matter." “ – from Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot

Multiple Universes interpretation
Hugh Everett in 1957 proposed a different interpretation of Quantum Physics. Instead of having just one universe he suggest that there can be a different parallel universe for each quantum possibility. When we influence a quantum system to take one state, we actually move along one branch of parallel universes, dividing it every time when an observation was made. So the universes are constantly branching to an infinite number of parallel universes. This theory, believed by its protagonists, avoids the problem of the nature of observer, so it is less ‘weird’ than other interpretations. It also explains why there is order in this universe – because it happens that after many branching of universes we find ourselves in an orderly universe as only one of the all possible universes. “Physical reality is the set of all universes evolving together.” - David Deutsch . But Paul Davis says that this interpretation might be ‘an anti-thesis to Occam’s Razor’.

Quantum potential interpretation
This interpretation is developed most notably by David Bohm and Basil Hiley. They propose another force or filed, which has attributes of non-locality, containing information on holistic level as implicate order. Bohm explains that the manifested world is a projection or unfoldment of higher multi-dimensional order. For example a cylinder is a 3D body which projects itself in two dimensions as a combination of a circle and a rectangle. In the same way our three dimensional world can be a projection of the multi-dimensional realm. On that basis non-locality is explained by the possible existence of subtle realities which are not explored yet, hence they can be called ‘hidden variables’. Consciousness, according to Bohm, is a part of that unfoldment and it cannot be seen as separate:

“So it will be ultimately misleading and indeed wrong to suppose, for example, that each human being is an independent actuality who interacts with other human beings and with nature. Rather, all these are projections of a single totality. As a human being takes part in the process of this totality, he is fundamentally changed in the very activity in which his aim is to change that reality which is the content of his consciousness.” - David Bohm, Wholeness and Implicate Order

David Bohm believes that the Universe has holographic properties and that we reflect in ourselves the whole reality: “In the implicate order we have to say that mind enfolds matter in general and therefore the body in particular. Similarly, the body enfolds not only the mind but also in some sense the entire material universe.” – David Bohm, Wholeness and Implicate Order

Conclusion
Some philosophical implications of quantum physics, especially regarding non-locality, give more plausible explanations how can be conscious life in supposedly inanimate universe:

An argument for the mind being an emergent property of the unbroken wholeness

• The non-locality is proven to exist in the physical world.

• The non-locality or particle entanglement is apparent whenever quanta are created or influenced by a single process.

• We can safely assume that all quanta in the Universe have interacted with each other at some point in time and that innumerable connections are formed.

• Furthermore, as the Universe, ontologically, has to be the one process, then, consequently, all quanta has to be non-locally interconnected.

• The non-locality, therefore, is a fundamental property of the entire Universe.

• Hence, the underlining reality of the world is unbroken wholeness – nothing can stand separated.

• The human mind, too, must be an emergent property or a process of the unbroken wholeness.

We can assume that the human mind demonstrates consciousness because consciousness is the very quality of the wholeness.

Quantum physics is the only theoretical bridge at the moment between religion and science. More and more physicists are proposing the idea that the Universe might be conscious. The Conscious Universe could explain many phenomena which are regarded as mysticism. There is now even a movie playing in cinemas about philosophical implications of quantum physics What the BLEEP do we know.

And the final word from Niels Bohr on quantum physics: “If you think you understand it, that only shows you don’t know the first thing about it.”

Title : Physics and philosophy

Original page : http://physics.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=physics&zu=http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/heisenb5.htm

Source : http://physics.about.com

Physics.about.com is a generic website which is part of about.com which covers “hundreds of topics”. Lot of people publish articles online through this site, or simply supply with advice. Then, the quality of information is not always reliable, but we can also find genuine scientific material, like this article by Werner Heisenberg, physician who got the Nobel Prize in 1932.

Summary : This text deals with the links between the outer world (matter, “reality”) and our mind. Descartes, with his famous statement cogito ergo sum, thought that we could be sure of our knowledge about ourselves ; then that we just had to study the world independent of our mind to know it. He contributed to divide our knowledge into three fields : God, the world and I. More, he launched the idea that our behaviours are determined by physical laws, which just remain to be discovered. But quantum physics ruined those ideas, and supports that human mind is part of the “outer world” and interferes with it even during physical experiments. Then a distinction between mind and an “outer reality” cannot be clear. Developing and discussing philosophical theories, those of Kant especially, Heisenberg finally explains how quantum physics, opposed to classical Newtonian science, radically changed our knowledge about our relationships with reality, and why simple concepts like causality have to be forgotten.

Résumé : Reprenant l’historique de notre conception des rapports entre le “monde extérieur” et notre esprit, à partir de Descartes et de Kant notamment, Heisenberg explique comment la physique quantique modifie notre conception de la réalité, qui ne peut plus être connue indépendemment de notre esprit, lui-même partie intégrante de cette réalité et interférant avec elle même dans les éxpériences scientifiques.

Lexicon :

interplay : effet (réciproque)

to convey : transporter, transmettre

nucleus : noyau

foregoing : susmentionné, qui précède

hitherto : jusqu’ici

innate : inné

Werner Heisenberg (1958)

Physics and Philosophy

Source: Physics and Philosophy, 1958; Chapters 2 (History), 3 (Copenhagen interpretation) and 5 (HPS), reproduced here;
Published: by George Allen and Unwin Edition, 1959.

5
The Development of Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes in Comparison with the New Situation in Quantum Theory

IN THE two thousand years that followed the culmination of Greek science and culture in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. the human mind was to a large extent occupied with problems of a different kind from those of the early period. In the first centuries of Greek culture the strongest impulse had come from the immediate reality of the world in which we live and which we perceive by our senses. This reality was full of life and there was no good reason to stress the distinction between matter and mind or between body and soul. But in the philosophy of Plato one already sees that another reality begins to become stronger.

In the famous simile of the cave Plato compares men to prisoners in a cave who are bound and can look in only one direction. They have a fire behind them and see on a wall the shadows of themselves and of objects behind them. Since they see nothing but the shadows, they regard those shadows as real and are not aware of the objects. Finally one of the prisoners escapes and comes from the cave into the light of the sun. For the first time he sees real things and realises that he had been deceived hitherto by the shadows. For the first time he knows the truth and thinks only with sorrow of his long life in the darkness. The real philosopher is the prisoner who has escaped from the cave into the light of truth, he is the one who possesses real knowledge. This immediate connection with truth or, we may in the Christian sense say, with God is the new reality that has begun to become stronger than the reality of the world as perceived by our senses. The immediate connection with God happens within the human soul, not in the world, and this was the problem that occupied human thought more than anything else in the two thousand years following Plato. In this period the eyes of the philosophers were directed toward the human soul and its relation to God, to the problems of ethics, and to the interpretation of the revelation but not to the outer world. It was only in the time of the Italian Renaissance that again a gradual change of the human mind could be seen, which resulted finally in a revival of the interest in nature.

The great development of natural science since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was preceded and accompanied by a development of philosophical ideas which were closely connected with the fundamental concepts of science. It may therefore be instructive to comment on these ideas from the position that has finally been reached by modern science in our time.

The first great philosopher of this new period of science was Rene Descartes who lived in the first half of the seventeenth century. Those of his ideas that are most important for the development of scientific thinking are contained in his Discourse on Method. On the basis of doubt and logical reasoning he tries to find a completely new and as he thinks solid ground for a philosophical system. He does not accept revelation as such a basis nor does he want to accept uncritically what is perceived by the senses. So he starts with his method of doubt. He casts his doubt upon that which our senses tell us about the results of our reasoning and finally he arrives at his famous sentence: ''cogito ergo sum'. I cannot doubt my existence since it follows from the fact that I am thinking. After establishing the existence of the I in this way he proceeds to prove the existence of God essentially on the lines of scholastic philosophy. Finally the existence of the world follows from the fact that God had given me a strong inclination to believe in the existence of the world, and it is simply impossible that God should have deceived me.

This basis of the philosophy of Descartes is radically different from that of the ancient Greek philosophers. Herethe starting point is not a fundamental principle or substance, but the attempt of a fundamental knowledge. And Descartes realises that what we know about our mind is more certain than what we know about the outer world. But already his starting point with the 'triangle' God - Word - I simplifies in a dangerous way the basis for further reasoning. The division between matter and mind or between soul and body, which had started in Plato's philosophy, is now complete. God is separated both from the I and from the world. God in fast is raised so high above the world and men that He finally appears in the philosophy of Descartes only as a common point of reference that establishes the relation between the I and the world.

While ancient Greek philosophy had tried to find order in the infinite variety of things and events by looking for some fundamental unifying principle, Descartes tries to establish the order through some fundamental division. But the three parts which result from the division lose some of their essence when any one part is considered as separated from the other two parts. If one uses the fundamental concepts of Descartes at all, it is essential that God is in the world and in the I and it is also essential that the I cannot be really separated from the world. Of course Descartes knew the undisputable necessity of the connection, but philosophy and natural science in the following period developed on the basis of the polarity between the 'res cogitans' and the 'res extensa', and natural science concentrated its interest on the 'res extensa'. The influence of the Cartesian division on human thought in the following centuries can hardly be overestimated, but it is just this division which we have to criticise later from the development of physics in our time.

Of course it would be wrong to say that Descartes, through his new method in philosophy, has given a new direction to human thought. What he actually did was to formulate for the first time a trend in human thinking that could already be seen during the Renaissance in Italy and in the Reformation. There was the revival of interest in mathematics which expressed an increasing influence of Platonic elements in philosophy, and the insistence on personal religion. The growing interest in mathematics favoured a philosophical system that started from logical reasoning and tried by this method to arrive at some truth that was as certain as a mathematical conclusion. The insistence on personal religion separated the I and its relation to God from the world. The interest in the combination of empirical knowledge with mathematics as seen in the work of Galileo was perhaps partly due to the possibility of arriving in this way at some knowledge that could be kept apart completely from the theological disputes raised by the Reformation. This empirical knowledge could be formulated without speaking about God or about ourselves and favoured the separation of the three fundamental concepts God-World-l or the separation between 'res cogitans' and 'res extensa'. In this period there was in some cases an explicit agreement among the pioneers of empirical science that in their discussions the name of God or a fundamental cause should not be mentioned.

On the other hand, the difficulties of the separation could be clearly seen from the beginning. In the distinction, for instance, between the 'res cogitans' and the 'res extensa' Descartes was forced to put the animals entirely on the side of the 'res extensa'. Therefore, the animals and the plants were not essentially different from machines, their behaviour was completely determined by material causes. But it has always seemed difficult to deny completely the existence of some kind of soul in the animals, and it seems to us that the older concept of soul for instance in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas was more natural and less forced than the Cartesian concept of the 'es cognitans', even if we are convinced that the laws of physics and chemistry are strictly valid in living organisms. One of the later consequences of this view of Descartes was that, if animals were simply considered as machines, it was difficult not to think the same about men. Since, on the other hand, the 'res cogitans' and the 'res extensa' were taken as completely different in their essence. it did not seem possible that they could act upon each other. Therefore. in order to preserve complete parallelism between the experiences of the mind and of the body, the mind also was in its activities completely determined by laws which corresponded to the laws of physics and chemistry. Here the question of the possibility of 'free will' arose. Obviously this whole description is somewhat artificial and shows the grave defects of the Cartesian partition.

On the other hand in natural science the partition was for .several centuries extremely successful. The mechanics of Newton and all the other parts of classical physics constructed after its model started from the assumption that one can describe the world without speaking about God or ourselves. This possibility soon seemed almost a necessary condition for natural science in general.

But at this point the situation changed to some extent through quantum theory and therefore we may now come to a comparison of Descartes's philosophical system with our present situation in modern physics. It has been pointed out before that in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory we can indeed proceed without mentioning ourselves as individuals, but we cannot disregard the fact that natural science is formed by men. Natural science does not simply describe and explain nature; it is a part of the interplay between nature and ourselves; it describes nature as exposed to our method of questioning. This was a possibility of which Descartes could not have thought, but it makes the sharp separation between the world and the I impossible.

If one follows the great difficulty which even eminent scientists like Einstein had in understanding and accepting the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory, one can trace the roots of this difficulty to the Cartesian partition. This partition has penetrated deeply into the human mind during the three centuries following Descartes and it will take a long time for it to be replaced by a really different attitude toward the problem of reality.

The position to which the Cartesian partition has led with respect to the 'res extensa' was what one may call metaphysical realism. The world, i.e., the extended things, 'exist'. This is to be distinguished from practical realism, and the different forms of realism may be described as follows: We 'objectivate' a statement if we claim that its content does not depend on the conditions under which it can be verified. Practical realism assumes that there are statements that can be objectivated and that in fact the largest part of our experience in daily life consists of such statements. Dogmatic realism claims that there are no statements concerning the material world that cannot be objectivated. Practical realism has always been and will always be an essential part of natural science. Dogmatic realism, however, is, as we see it now, not a necessary condition for natural science.

But it has in the past played a very important role in the development of science; actually the position of classical physics is that of dogmatic realism. It is only through quantum theory that we have learned that exact science is possible without the basis of dogmatic realism. When Einstein has criticised quantum theory he has done so from the basis of dogmatic realism. This is a very natural attitude. Every scientist who does research work feels that he is looking for something that is objectively true. His statements are not meant to depend upon the conditions under which they can be verified. Especially in physics the fast that we can explain nature by simple mathematical laws tells us that here we have met some genuine feature of reality, not something that we have - in any meaning of the word - invented ourselves. l his is the situation which Einstein had in mind when he took dogmatic realism as the basis for natural science. But quantum theory is in itself an example for the possibility of explaining nature by means of simple mathematical laws without this basis. These laws may perhaps not seem quite simple when one compares them with Newtonian mechanics. But, judging from the enormous complexity of the phenomena which are to be explained (for instance} the line spectra of complicated atoms), the mathematical scheme of quantum theory is comparatively simple. Natural science is actually possible without the basis of dogmatic realism.

Metaphysical realism goes one step further than dogmatic realism by saying that 'the things really exist'. This is in fact what Descartes tried to prove by the argument that 'God cannot have deceived us.' The statement that the things really exist is different from the statement of dogmatic realism in so far as here the word 'exist' occurs, which is also meant in the other statement 'cogito ergo sum' . . . 'I think, therefore I am.' But it is difficult to see what is meant at this point that is not yet contained in the thesis of dogmatic realism; and this leads us to a general criticism of the statement 'cogito ergo sum', which Descartes considered as the solid ground on which he could build his system. It is in fact true that this statement has the certainty of a mathematical conclusion, if the words 'cogito' and 'sum' are defined in the usual way or, to put it more cautiously and at the same time more critically, if the words are so defined that the statement follows. But this does not tell us anything about how far we can use the concepts of 'thinking' and 'being' in finding our way. It is finally in a very general sense always an empirical question how far our concepts can be applied.

The difficulty of metaphysical realism was felt soon after Descartes and became the starting point for the empiristic philosophy, for sensualism and positivism.

The three philosophers who can be taken as representatives for early empiristic philosophy are Locke, Berkeley and Hume. Locke holds, contrary to Descartes, that all knowledge is ultimately founded in experience. This experience may be sensation or perception of the operation of our own mind. Knowledge, so Locke states, is the perception of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas. The next step was taken by Berkeley. If actually all our knowledge is derived from perception, there is no meaning in the statement that the things really exist; because if the perception is given it cannot possibly make any difference whether the things exist or do not exist. Therefore, to be perceived is identical with existence. This line of argument then was extended to an extreme scepticism by Hume, who denied induction and causation and thereby arrived at a conclusion which if taken seriously would destroy the basis of all empirical science.

The criticism of metaphysical realism which has been expressed in empiristic philosophy is certainly justified in so far as it is a warning against the naive use of the term 'existence'. The positive statements of this philosophy can be criticised on similar lines. Our perceptions are not primarily bundles of colours or sounds; what we perceive is already perceived as something, the accent here being on the word 'thing', and therefore it is doubtful whether we gain anything by taking the perceptions instead of the things as the ultimate elements of reality.

The underlying difficulty has been clearly recognised by modern positivism. This line of thought expresses criticism against the naive use of certain terms like 'thing', 'perception', 'existence' by the general postulate that the question whether a given sentence has any meaning at all should always be thoroughly and critically examined. This postulate and its underlying attitude are derived from mathematical logic. The procedure of natural science is pictured as an attachment of symbols to the phenomena. The symbols can, as in mathematics, be combined according to certain rules, and in this way statements about the phenomena can be represented by combinations of symbols. However! a combination of symbols that does not comply with the rules is not wrong but conveys no meaning.

The obvious difficulty in this argument is the lack of any general criterion as to when a sentence should be considered as meaningless. A definite decision is possible only when the sentence belongs to a closed system of concepts and axioms, which in the development of natural science will be rather the exception than the rule. In some cases the conjecture that a certain sentence is meaningless has historically led to important progress, for it opened the way to the establishment of new connections which would have been impossible if the sentence had a meaning. An example in quantum theory that has already been discussed is the sentence: 'In which orbit does the electron move around the nucleus?' But generally the positivistic scheme taken from mathematical logic is too narrow in a description of nature which necessarily uses words and concepts that are only vaguely defined.

The philosophic thesis that all knowledge is ultimately founded in experience has in the end led to a postulate concerning the logical clarification of any statement about nature. Such a postulate may have seemed justified in the period of classical physics, but since quantum theory we have learned that it cannot be fulfilled. The words 'position' and 'velocity' of an electron, € for instance, seemed perfectly well defined as to both their meaning and their possible connections. and in fact they were clearly defined concepts within the mathematical framework of Newtonian mechanics. But actually they were not well defined, as is seen from the relations of uncertainty. One may say that regarding their position in Newtonian mechanics they were well defined, hut in their relation to nature they were not. This shows that we can never know beforehand which limitations will be put on the applicability of certain concepts by the extension of our knowledge into the remote parts of nature, into which we can only penetrate with the most elaborate tools. Therefore, in the process of penetration we are bound sometimes to use our concepts in a way which is not justified and which carries no meaning. Insistence on the postulate of complete logical clarification would make science impossible. We are reminded here by modern physics of the old wisdom that the one who insists on never uttering an error must remain silent.

A combination of those two lines of thought that started from Descartes, on the one side, and from Locke and Berkeley. on the other, was attempted in the philosophy of Kant, who was the founder of German idealism. That part of his work which is important in comparison with the results of modern physics is contained in The Critique of Pure Reason. He takes up the question whether knowledge is only founded in experience or can come from other sources, and he arrives at the conclusion that our knowledge is in part 'a priori' and not inferred inductively from experience. Therefore, he distinguishes between 'empirical' knowledge and knowledge that is 'a priori'. At the same time he distinguishes between 'analytic' and 'synthetic' propositions. Analytic propositions follow simply from logic, and their denial would lead to self-contradiction. Propositions that are not 'analytic' are called 'synthetic'.

What is, according to Kant, the criterion for knowledge being 'a priori'? Kant agrees that all knowledge starts with experience but he adds that it is not always derived from experience. It is true that experience teaches us that a certain thing has such or such properties, but it does not teach us that it could not be different. Therefore, if a proposition is thought together with its necessity it must be 'a priori'. Experience never gives to its judgments complete generality. For instance, the sentence 'The sun rises every morning' means that we know no exception to this rule in the past and that we expect it to hold in future. But we can imagine exceptions to the rule. If a judgment is stated with complete generality, therefore, if it is impossible to imagine any exception, it must be 'a priori'. An analytic judgment is always 'a priori'; even if a child learns arithmetic from playing with marbles, he need not later go back to experience to know that 'two and two are four'. Empirical knowledge, on the other hand, is synthetic.

But are synthetic judgments a priori possible? Kant tries to prove this by giving examples in which the above criteria seem to be fulfilled. Space and time are, he says, a priori forms of pure intuition. In the case of space he gives the following metaphysical arguments:

1. Space is not an empirical concept, abstracted from other experiences, for space is presupposed in referring sensations to something external, and external experience is only possible through the presentation of space.

2. Space is a necessary presentation a priori, which underlies all external perceptions; for we cannot imagine that there should be no space, although we can imagine that there should be nothing in space.

3. Space is not a discursive or general concept of the relations of things in general, for there is only one space, of which what we call 'spaces' are parts, not instances.

4. Space is presented as an infinite given magnitude, which holds within itself all the parts of space; this relation is different from that of a concept to its instances, and therefore space is not a concept but a form of intuition.

These arguments shall not be discussed here. They are mentioned merely as examples for the general type of proof that Kant has in mind for the synthetic judgments a priori.

With regard to physics Kant took as a priori, besides space and time, the law of causality and the concept of substance. In a later stage of his work he tried to include the law of conservation of matter, the equality of 'actio and reactio' and even the law of gravitation. No physicist would be willing to follow Kant here, if the term 'a priori' is used in the absolute sense that was given to it by Kant. In mathematics Kant took Euclidean geometry as 'a priori'.

Before we compare these doctrines of Kant with the results of modern physics we must mention another part of his work, to which we will have to refer later. The disagreeable question whether 'the things really exist', which had given rise to empiristic philosophy, occurred also in Kant's system. But Kant has not followed the line of Berkeley and Hume, though that would have been logically consistent. He kept the notion of the 'thing-in-itself' as different from the percept, and in this way kept some connection with realism.

Coming now to the comparison of Kant's doctrines with modern physics, it looks in the first moment as though his central concept of the 'synthetic judgments a priori' had been completely annihilated by the discoveries of our century. The theory of relativity has changed our views on space and time, it has in fact revealed entirely new features of space and time, of which nothing is seen in Kant's a priori forms of pure intuition. The law of causality is no longer applied in quantum theory and the law of conservation of matter is no longer true for the elementary particles. Obviously Kant could not have foreseen the new discoveries, but since he was convinced that his concepts would be 'the basis of any future metaphysics that can be called science' it is interesting to see where his arguments have been wrong.

As example we take the law of causality. Kant says that whenever we observe an event we assume that there is a foregoing event from which the other event must follow according to some rule. This is, as Kant states, the basis of all scientific work. In this discussion it is not important whether or not we can always find the foregoing event from which the other one followed. Actually we can find it in many cases. But even if we cannot, nothing can prevent us from asking what this foregoing event might have been and to look for it. Therefore, the law of causality is reduced to the method of scientific research; it is the condition which makes science possible. Since we actually apply this method, the law of causality is 'a priori' and is not derived from experience.

Is this true in atomic physics? Let us consider a radium atom, which can emit an a-particle. The time for the emission of the a-particle cannot be predicted. We can only say that in the average the emission will take place in about two-thousand years. Therefore, when we observe the emission we do not actually look for a foregoing event from which the emission must according to a rule follow. Logically it would be quite possible to look for such a foregoing event, and we need not be discouraged by the fact that hitherto none has been found. But why has the scientific method actually changed in this very fundamental question since Kant?

Two possible answers can be given to that question. The one is: We have been convinced by experience that the laws of quantum theory are correct and, if they are, we know that a foregoing event as cause for the emission at a given time cannot be found. The other answer is: We know the foregoing event, but not quite accurately. We know the forces in the atomic nucleus that are responsible for the emission of the a-particle. But this knowledge contains the uncertainty which is brought about by the interaction between the nucleus and the rest of the world. If we wanted to know why the ~~-particle was emitted at that particular time we would have to know the microscopic structure of the whole world including ourselves, and that is impossible. Therefore, Kant's arguments for the a priori character of the law of causality no longer apply.

A similar discussion could be given on the a priori character of space and time as forms of intuition. The result would be the same. The a priori concepts which Kant considered an undisputable truth are no longer contained in the scientific system of modern physics.

Still they form an essential part Of this system in a somewhat different sense. In the discussion of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum theory it has been emphasised that we use the classical concepts in describing our experimental equipment and more generally in describing that part of the world which does not belong to the object of the experiment. The use of these concepts, including space, time and causality, is in fact the condition for observing atomic events and is, in this sense of the word, 'a priori'. What Kant had not foreseen was that these a priori concepts can be the conditions for science and at the same time can have only a limited range of applicability. When we make an experiment we have to assume a causal chain of events that leads from the atomic event through the apparatus finally to the eye of the observer; if this causal chain was not assumed, nothing could be known about the atomic event. Still we must keep in mind that classical physics and causality have only a limited range of applicability. It was the fundamental paradox of quantum theory that could not be foreseen by Kant. Modern physics has changed Kant's statement about the possibility of synthetic judgments a priori from a metaphysical one into a practical one. The synthetic judgments a priori thereby have the character of a relative truth.

If one reinterprets the Kantian 'a priori' in this way, there is no reason to consider the perceptions rather than the things as given. Just as in classical physics, we can speak about those events that are not observed in the same manner as about those that are observed. Therefore, practical realism is a natural part of the reinterpretation. Considering the Kantian 'thing-in-itself' Kant had pointed out that we cannot conclude anything from the perception about the 'thing-in-itself'. This statement has, as Weizsäcker has noticed. its formal analogy in the fact that in spite of the use of the classical concepts in all the experiments a non-classical behaviour of the atomic objects is possible. The 'thing-in-itself' is for the atomic physicist, if he uses this concept at all, finally a mathematical structure: but this structure is - contrary to Kant - indirectly deduced from experience.

In this reinterpretation the Kantian 'a priori' is indirectly connected with experience in so far as it has been formed through the development of the human mind in a very distant past. Following this argument the biologist Lorentz has once compared the 'a priori' concepts with forms of behaviour that in animals are called 'inherited or innate schemes'. It is in fact quite plausible that for certain primitive animals space and time are different from what Kant calls our 'pure intuition' of space and time. The latter may belong to the species 'man', but not to the world as independent of men. But we are perhaps entering into too hypothetical discussions by following this biological comment on the 'a priori'. It was mentioned here merely as an example of how the term 'relative truth' in connection with the Kantian 'a priori' can possibly be interpreted.

Modern physics has been used here as an example or, we may say, as a model to check the results of some important philosophic systems of the past, which of course were meant to hold in a much wider field. What we have learned especially from the discussion of the philosophies of Descartes and Kant may perhaps be stated in the following way:

Any concepts or words which have been formed in the past through the interplay between the world and ourselves are not really sharply defined with respect to their meaning: that is to say, we do not know exactly how far they will help us in finding our way in the world. We often know that they can be applied to a wide range of inner or outer experience, but we practically never know precisely the limits of their applicability. This is true even of the simplest and most general concepts like 'existence' and 'space and time'. Therefore, it will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.

The concepts may, however, be sharply defined with regard to their connections. This is actually the fact when the concepts become a part of a system of axioms and definitions which can be expressed consistently by a mathematical scheme. Such a group of connected concepts may be applicable to a wide field of experience and will help us to find our way in this field. But the limits of the applicability will in general not be known, at least not completely.

Even if we realize that the meaning of a concept is never defined with absolute precision, some concepts form an integral part of scientific methods, since they represent for the time being the final result of the development of human thought in the past, even in a very remote past; they may even be inherited and are in any case the indispensable tools for doing scientific work in our time. In this sense they can be practically a priori. But further limitations of their applicability may be found in the future.

Title : Quantum Physics: Interface With Islam

Original page : www.crescentlife.com/spirituality/quantum_physics_interface_with_islam.htm

Source : www.crescentlife.com
Crescentlife.com is a personal website, “not associated with any business or commercial enterprise, nor is it associated with any group or organization” run by Uzma Mazhar, based in St. Louis, MO, USA. Its “mission statement” is to : “disseminate a wide range of information from sociological and psychological perspectives” about islam ; “introduce the work of Muslim scholars and intellectuals from different fields of expertise and their valuable works to the world at large”, and “understand the essence, spirit & heart of Islam, not the distorted & limited version spread by rigid, ignorant and uninformed people”.

Summary : Quantum physics discovered that small particles are able to instantaneously communicate even if they are scattered by large distances. This lead to think that the reality we know doesn’t realy exist, that space and time are just illusions. Instead, some physicians assume that there are other levels of reality than our, where particles are not separated but are dimensions of the same something. Then, reality can be compared to an hologram, like a brain, where humans would be a “whole within a whole”. This whole we are within should be the “Revelation”, the unity, the single soul from which our souls all derive. So we are all interconnected one each other, and all connected to this single soul. Soul is then a non material entity that lives beyond bodies and carries the message of God that we should follow to access this knowledge.

Résumé. La physique quantique, en remettant en cause les notions de temps et d’espace, ouvre la voie à de possibles multiples niveaux de réalité auxquels nous n’aurions pas accès par nos sens. Comme des hologrammes, nous ferions alors partie d’un tout unique, d’une âme, que cet article associe à Dieu.

Lexicon :

tantamount to : qui équivaut à

daunting : décourageant

beam (of light) : rayon

snippet : bribes

bias : préjugé

to be privy to : être au courant de

lodging : logement

clot : caillot

to shimmer : miroiter

to apportion : répartir

seamless : sans couture

to crisscross : silloner

uncanny : étrange, troublant

clumsy : maladroit ; malcommode

mind-blogging : époustouflant

foray : incursion

bestowed : accordé, conféré

lump : morceau

to pluck : cueillir

to withhold : retenir

cramped : gêné

niggardly : parcimonieux

to thwart : contrecarrer

sheer : pur

abiding : durable

Quantum Physics: Interface With Islam
Navid Masud

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN QUANTUM PHYSICS HAVE PROFOUND IMPLICATIONS FOR OUR UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION:
In 1982 a remarkable event took place. At the University of Paris a research team led by physicist Alain Aspect performed what may turn out to be one of the most important experiments of the 20th century. Aspect and his team discovered that under certain circumstances subatomic particles such as electrons are able to instantaneously communicate with each other regardless of the distance separating them. It doesn't matter whether they are 10 feet or 10 billion miles apart. Somehow each particle always seems to know what the other is doing. The problem with this feat is that it violates Einstein's long-held tenet that no communication can travel faster than the speed of light. Since traveling faster than the speed of light is tantamount to breaking the time barrier, this daunting prospect has caused some physicists to try to come up with elaborate ways to explain away Aspect's findings.
But it has inspired others to offer even more radical explanations. University of London physicist David Bohm, for example, believes Aspect's findings imply that objective reality does not exist, that despite its apparent solidity the universe is at heart a phantasm, a gigantic and splendidly detailed hologram. To understand why Bohm makes this startling assertion, one must first understand a little about holograms. A hologram is a three-dimensional photograph made with the aid of a laser. To make a hologram, the object to be photographed is first bathed in the light of a laser beam. Then a second laser beam is bounced off the reflected light of the first and the resulting interference pattern (the area where the two laser beams commingle) is captured on film. When the film is developed, it looks like a meaningless swirl of light and dark lines. But as soon as the developed film is illuminated by another laser beam, a three-dimensional image of the original object appears.
The three-dimensionality of such images is not the only remarkable characteristic of holograms. If a hologram of a rose is cut in half and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire image of the rose. Indeed, even if the halves are divided again, each snippet of film will always be found to contain a smaller but intact version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram contains all the information possessed by the whole. The "whole in every part" nature of a hologram provides us with an entirely new way of understanding organization and order. For most of its history, Western science has labored under the bias that the best way to understand a physical phenomenon, whether a frog or an atom, is to dissect it and study its respective parts. A hologram teaches us that some things in the universe may not lend themselves to this approach. If we try to take apart something constructed holographically, we will not get the pieces of which it is made; we will only get smaller wholes.
This insight suggested to Bohm another way of understanding Aspect's discovery. Bohm believes the reason subatomic particles are able to remain in contact with one another regardless of the distance separating them is not because they are sending some sort of mysterious signal back and forth, but because their separateness is an illusion. He argues that at some deeper level of reality such particles are not individual entities, but are actually extensions of the same fundamental something. To enable people to better visualize what he means, Bohm offers the following illustration. Imagine an aquarium containing a fish. Imagine also that you are unable to see the aquarium directly and your knowledge about it and what it contains comes from two television cameras, one directed at the aquarium's front and the other directed at its side. As you stare at the two television monitors, you might assume that the fish on each of the screens are separate entities. After all, because the cameras are set at different angles, each of the images will be slightly different. But as you continue to watch the two fish, you will eventually become aware that there is a certain relationship between them. When one turns, the other also makes a slightly different but corresponding turn; when one faces the front, the other always faces toward the side. If you remain unaware of the full scope of the situation, you might even conclude that the fish must be instantaneously communicating with one another, but this is clearly not the case.
This, says Bohm, is precisely what is going on between the subatomic particles in Aspect's experiment. According to Bohm, the apparent faster-than-light connection between subatomic particles is really telling us that there is a deeper level of reality we are not privy to, a more complex dimension beyond our own that is analogous to the aquarium. And, he adds, we view objects such as subatomic particles as separate from one another because we are seeing only a portion of their reality. Such particles are not separate "parts", but facets of a deeper and more underlying unity that is ultimately as holographic and indivisible as the previously mentioned rose. And since everything in physical reality is comprised of these "eidolons", the universe is itself a projection, a hologram. In addition to its phantom-like nature, such a universe would possess other rather startling features.
If the apparent separateness of subatomic particles is illusory, it means that at a deeper level of reality all things in the universe are infinitely interconnected. The electrons in a carbon atom in the human brain are connected to the subatomic particles that comprise every salmon that swims, every heart that beats, and every star that shimmers in the sky. Everything interpenetrates everything, and although human nature may seek to categorize and pigeonhole and subdivide, the various phenomena of the universe, all apportionments are of necessity artificial and all of nature is ultimately a seamless web. In a holographic universe, even time and space could no longer be viewed as fundamentals. Because concepts such as location break down in a universe in which nothing is truly separate from anything else, time and three-dimensional space, like the images of the fish on the TV monitors, would also have to be viewed as projections of this deeper order.
At its deeper level reality is a sort of super-hologram in which the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. This suggests that given the proper tools it might even be possible to someday reach into the super-holographic level of reality and pluck out scenes from the long-forgotten past. What else the super-hologram contains is an open-ended question. Allowing, for the sake of argument, that the super-hologram is - at the very least it contains every subatomic particle that has been or will be - every configuration of matter and energy that is possible, from snowflakes to quasars, from blue whales to gamma rays. It must be seen as a sort of cosmic storehouse of "All That Is."
Although Bohm concedes that we have no way of knowing what else might lie hidden in the super-hologram, he does venture to say that we have no reason to assume it does not contain more. Or as he puts it, perhaps the super-holographic level of reality is a "mere stage" beyond which lies "an infinity of further development". Bohm is not the only researcher who has found evidence that the universe is a hologram.
Working independently in the field of brain research, Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram has also become persuaded of the holographic nature of reality. Pribram was drawn to the holographic model by the puzzle of how and where memories are stored in the brain. For decades numerous studies have shown that rather than being confined to a specific location, memories are dispersed throughout the brain. In a series of landmark experiments in the 1920s, brain scientist Karl Lashley found that no matter what portion of a rat's brain he removed he was unable to eradicate its memory of how to perform complex tasks it had learned prior to surgery. The only problem was that no one was able to come up with a mechanism that might explain this curious "whole in every part" nature of memory storage.
Then in the 1960s Pribram encountered the concept of holography and realized he had found the explanation brain scientists had been looking for. Pribram believes memories are encoded not in neurons, or small groupings of neurons, but in patterns of nerve impulses that criss-cross the entire brain in the same way that patterns of laser light interference criss-cross the entire area of a piece of film containing a holographic image. In other words, Pribram believes the brain is itself a hologram. Pribram's theory also explains how the human brain can store so many memories in so little space. It has been estimated that the human brain has the capacity to memorize something on the order of 10 billion bits of information during the average human lifetime (or roughly the same amount of information contained in five sets of the Encyclopedia Britannica).
Similarly, it has been discovered that in addition to their other capabilities, holograms possess an astounding capacity for information storage: simply by changing the angle at which the two lasers strike a piece of photographic film, it is possible to record many different images on the same surface. It has been demonstrated that one cubic centimetre of film can hold as many as 10 billion bits of information. Our uncanny ability to quickly retrieve whatever information we need from the enormous store of our memories becomes more understandable if the brain functions according to holographic principles. If a friend asks you to tell him what comes to mind when he says the word "zebra", you do not have to clumsily sort back through some gigantic and cerebral alphabetic file to arrive at an answer. Instead, associations like "striped", "horse-like", and "animal native to Africa" all pop into your head instantly. Indeed, one of the most amazing things about the human thinking process is that every piece of information seems instantly cross-correlated with every other piece of information; another feature intrinsic to the hologram. Because every portion of a hologram is infinitely interconnected with every other portion, it is perhaps nature's supreme example of a cross-correlated system.
The storage of memory is not the only neurophysiological puzzle that becomes more tractable in light of Pribram's holographic model of the brain. Another is how the brain is able to translate the avalanche of frequencies it receives via the senses (light frequencies, sound frequencies, and so on) into the concrete world of our perceptions. Encoding and decoding frequencies is precisely what a hologram does best. Just as a hologram functions as a sort of lens, a translating device able to convert an apparently meaningless blur of frequencies into a coherent image, Pribram believes the brain also comprises a lens and uses holographic principles to mathematically convert the frequencies it receives through the senses into the inner world of our perceptions.
An impressive body of evidence suggests that the brain uses holographic principles to perform its operations. Pribram's theory, in fact, has gained increasing support among neurophysiologists. Argentinean-Italian researcher Hugo Zucarelli recently extended the holographic model into the world of acoustic phenomena. Puzzled by the fact that humans can locate the source of sounds without moving their heads, even if they only possess hearing in one ear, Zucarelli discovered that holographic principles can explain this ability.
It has been found that each of our senses is sensitive to a much broader range of frequencies than was previously suspected. Researchers have discovered, for instance, that our visual systems are sensitive to sound frequencies, that our sense of smell is in part dependent on what are now called "osmic frequencies", and that even the cells in our bodies are sensitive to a broad range of frequencies. Such findings suggest that it is only in the holographic domain of consciousness that such frequencies are sorted out and divided up into conventional perceptions. But the most mind-boggling aspect of Pribram's holographic model of the brain is what happens when it is put together with Bohm's theory. For if the concreteness of the world is but a secondary reality and what is "there" is actually a holographic blur of frequencies, and if the brain is also a hologram and only selects some of the frequencies out of this blur and mathematically transforms them into sensory perceptions, what becomes of objective reality? Put quite simply, it ceases to exist.
As the religions of the East have long upheld, the material world is an illusion, and although we may think we are physical beings moving through a physical world, this too is an illusion. We are really "receivers" floating through a kaleidoscopic sea of frequency, and what we extract from this sea and transmogrify into physical reality is but one channel from many extracted out of the super-hologram. This striking new picture of reality, the synthesis of Bohm and Pribram's views, has come to be called the holographic paradigm, and although many scientists have greeted it with skepticism, it has galvanized others. A small but growing group of researchers believe it may be the most accurate model of reality science has arrived at thus far.
In a universe in which individual brains are actually indivisible portions of the greater hologram and everything is infinitely interconnected, Revelation may merely be the accessing of the holographic level. If the mind is actually part of a continuum, a labyrinth that is connected not only to every other mind that exists or has existed, but to every atom, organism, and region in the vastness of space and time itself, the fact that it is able to occasionally make forays into the labyrinth and have transpersonal experiences no longer seems so strange.
The holographic paradigm also has implications for so-called hard sciences like biology. Keith Floyd, a psychologist at Virginia Intermont College, has pointed out that if the concreteness of reality is but a holographic illusion, it would no longer be true to say the brain produces consciousness. Rather, it is consciousness that creates the appearance of the brain as well as the body and everything else around us we interpret as physical. Such a turnabout in the way we view biological structures has caused researchers to point out that medicine and our understanding of the healing process could also be transformed by the holographic paradigm. If the apparent physical structure of the body is but a holographic projection of consciousness, it becomes clear that each of us is much more responsible for our health than current medical wisdom allows. What we now view as miraculous remissions of disease may actually be due to changes in consciousness which in turn effect changes in the hologram of the body. Similarly, controversial new healing techniques such as visualization may work so well because in the holographic domain of thought images are ultimately as real as "reality". Even visions and experiences involving "non-ordinary" reality become explainable under the holographic paradigm. In his book "Gifts of Unknown Things", biologist Lyall Watson describes his encounter with an Indonesian shaman woman who, by performing a ritual dance, was able to make an entire grove of trees instantly vanish into thin air. Watson relates that as he and another astonished onlooker continued to watch the woman, she caused the trees to reappear, then "click" off again and on again several times in succession.
Although current scientific understanding is incapable of explaining such events, experiences like this become more tenable if "hard" reality is only a holographic projection. Perhaps we agree on what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious at which all minds are infinitely interconnected. If this is true, it is the most profound implication of the holographic paradigm of all, for it means that experiences such as Watson's are not commonplace only because we have not programmed our minds with the beliefs that would make them so. In a holographic universe there are no limits to the extent to which we can alter the fabric of reality. What we perceive as reality is only a canvas waiting for us to draw upon it any picture we want. Anything is possible, from bending spoons with the power of the mind to the phantasmagoric events experienced by Castaneda during his encounters with the Yaqui brujo don Juan, no more or less miraculous than our ability to compute the reality we want when we are in our dreams. Indeed, even our most fundamental notions about reality become suspect, for in a holographic universe, as Pribram has pointed out, even random events would have to be seen as based on holographic principles and therefore determined.
INTERFACE WITH ISLAM
“Oh Mankind! We created you from a Single Soul, male and female, and made you into nations and tribes, so that you may come to know one and another. Truly, the most honored in God's sight is the greatest of you in piety. God is all knowing All Aware.” (Quran 49:13). This statement implies that the entire mankind is created from a Single Soul and surely as discussed above indicates that it must be holographic in nature. Each soul being a "whole within a whole" and thus being connected to every soul that has ever existed or exists. Furthermore we are informed about the meaning of paradise as follows: "The paradise is as wide as the heavens and the earth" (Quran 3.133, 57.21)
The Soul is actually a part of a continuum and is connected to every soul that exists or has existed, but also to every atom and organism, in the region of the vastness of space and time itself. Indeed the next stage of "reality" is like a live internet connected to every atom on the earth to that of every atom to the edges of this universe. This could only be the case if this universe is constructed on holographic principles. Now considering that this message was first given to sixth century Arabs and without confusing them with concepts like "hologram" this is as best as it could have been described. In a universe where every thing is interconnected "time" has no meaning and is stated at various places in Quran as follows: "in thy Sustainer's sight a day is like a thousand years of your reckoning” (Quran 22:47) "in a day the length whereof is {like} fifty thousand years" (Quran 70:4). The very concept of "time" is meaningless in relation to God, who is timeless and infinite, and in the hereafter time will cease to have a meaning for man as well as the above verses clearly indicate.
PHYSICAL OR MATERIAL EXISTENCE IS AN ILLUSION
Our physical or material existence is an illusion in spite of our solidity and the fact that we can see, feel and touch. We see the way we do as to what is "there" or "not there" because what we call consensus reality is formulated and ratified at the level of the human unconscious to which all minds are infinitely interconnected. Furthermore our mind converts from the blur of frequencies into our world of perception and gives these a coherent image when lit up in the light (Nur) of Creator. However this veil of physical or material illusion will be removed from our eyes at the next stage when we discover our true form of existence. "thou wast indeed heedless of this, but now We have removed from thee thy (material) veil, and so thy sight is sharp this day" (Quran 50:22). Sharp vision implies that one discovers one’s life preserved within it to its minutest detail.
CONSCIOUSNESS IS NOT A PRODUCT OF PHYSICAL BRAIN BUT OF SOUL
Since it is the human physical organism, which is bestowed with Self or Soul, it implies that the human organism was the only species, which first of all accomplished universality of the perceptions. Accordingly the next higher creative stage took its start in the Self or Soul of Man (a non-material entity) simultaneously on completion of sense organs during the development of human foetus. The creation of the new stage of life simultaneously the sense organs of the human foetus are fashioned is thus revealed in the Holy Quran: "Verily We created man from a product of wet earth. Then placed him as a drop (of seed) in a safe lodging. Then fashioned We the drop a clot, then fashioned We the clot a little lump, then clothed the bones with flesh and then produced it as another creation. So blessed be Allah, the best of the Creators." (Quran 23. 12-14).
The revelation that after a drop is safely lodged in the womb and then after going through the creative process of lump and bones, the bones are clothed with flesh establishes that at this phase of development, the foetus is almost complete, that is, its sense organs are fully fashioned. It is only on completion of sense organs that the Creator bestows on it His Soul and thus a new Creative Order emerges. It also reveals that Souls are distinct from human body. In other words, death comes to the physical body which is raised under physical laws and not to the Soul which lives in its mental state - the state of an illumination - and already exists as a non-material entity or personality outside the physical body. Soul is thus an illumination - the highest form of life - which appears as a distinct entity apart from all the rest of the universe. By virtue of its enlightenment as being, every Soul comes with intellectual enlightenment and moral exaltation and hence consciousness is not a product of our physical brain but of Soul.
If our physical existence is but an illusion and consciousness creates an appearance of physical body and every thing around us that we interpret as physical and we are merely "receivers" passing through a "sea of frequency" - than this blur of frequency when lit up in the Light (Nûr) of the Creator gives it a physical shape as we know it. "Allah is the light of the heavens and the earth. A likeness of His light is as a pillar on which is a lamp - the lamp is in a glass. the glass is as it were a brightly shining star - lit from blessed olive tree, neither eastern or western, the oil whereof gives light, though fire touch it not - light upon light. Allah guides to His light whom He pleases. And Allah sets forth parables for men, and Allah is Knower of all things.” (Quran 24.35). Nûr is the Arabic word for light but it also means conscious light or spiritual light or guiding light. And so Allah is the Nûr (light) of the heavens and the earth because of HIS light all comes into existence.
GIVEN THE RIGHT TOOLS EVENTS CAN BE PLUCKED OUT FOR LONG LOST PAST:
Human Self has the capability for true mental representation of images, of objects and their properties, without sense stimulus; establishes memory, thoughts, reason and concepts which are non-material, stand outside the domain of perceptual brain, which simply serves as the Analytic Faculty (Conscious mind or what Freud called the Ego) of the Human Self, as an instrument or yardstick for analysing the values and properties of the material universe as well as the physical body under its higher conscious enlightenment. It shows that the physical body and its sense perceptions are duly represented in the Self, as the Human Self is capable of keeping in it a sense of objects and their properties even if they do not provide a sensory stimulus. If a germ cell when delivered out of the physical body and planted in the womb could act in the form of a "physical brain" to construct it to the system of DNA chemicals, we can be sure that the Human Self which remains attached through its mental processes (Conscious mind) with the physical body and its perceptual brain would also construct its whole physical life which already lives fully preserved in it.
Memory is not a physical phenomenon; it is directly related with understanding. It can operate only if it exists out of the spatial time-matter and motion. As against it, the perceptual mind being material in nature cannot hold nonmaterial characters in it. Hence it can neither retrace the events nor can it jump into the future. Even DNA system - a sort of "physical memory" laid in chemicals strictly follows the process through physical motion in spatial time. These scientific facts establish that it is not the perceptual mind which perceives psychic life lived by the Human Self as an independent entity outside it; these are the mental processes of the Self or Soul which keep in it the whole psychic life and are capable of reproducing the same sense without stimulus of the physical body or brain. "Allah takes (mans) souls at the time of their death, and those that die not during their sleep. Than He withholds those on whom He has passed the decree of death, and sends the other back till an appointed term. Surely there are signs in this for a people who reflect." (Quran 39:42). If our Soul joins the "Super-Hologram" during our sleep and is able to construct "reality" in our dreams and we experience all the sensations - be they fear or joy or pain or whatever and yet we have not physically experienced them. It’s a reminder that our Soul is capable of reproducing all our emotions without the physical body or brain.
SOULS BETWEEN DEATH AND START OF NEXT STAGE
Human Souls live out of the spatial times of the material universe as non -material entities in the state of Self-enlightenment. The great gulf exists between the material universe and the universe laid on the mental states of the Human Souls, is bridged by the analytic faculty of the Human Soul, we call it the faculty of Reason or simply "Ego" as named by Freud. On death of the physical body, the link bridged by the "Ego" between the material universe and the Human Self is cut off. Since Human Soul as a non material entity living in its mental states cannot live or revert to the spatial times and physical forms wrought by the material universe, it is apt to remain suspended until the whole present Self-conscious Stage is wound up. As to the time gap between the suspension of the Souls and their Resurrection, the following verse of the Holy Quran sheds light on it: "And they say: When we are bones and fragments, shall we, forsooth, be raised up as a new creation? Say: Be ye stones or Iron or some created thing that is yet greater in your thought! Then they will say: Who shall bring us back (to life)? Say: He Who created you at first. Then will they shake their heads at thee, and say; When will it be. Say: it will be perhaps be soon." (Quran17.49-51). The words "it will perhaps be soon" reveal that the time interval between the departure of the Souls on death of the bodies and their resurrection has no significance for the souls held in suspension as they already live beyond the material times. The revelation also establishes that Souls live as independent entities and do not die with the death of the physical bodies. What is really significant and differentiates the individual Souls is the level and the grade of psychic development attained by them while living attached with the material universe through the perceptual system of their physical bodies.
WHAT MAKES THE HUMAN SELF (SOUL) GROW
There is a significant difference between the way the physical body develops and the manner the Human Self develops. The body grows by receiving substances from outside and incorporating them, that is, by taking in. The Self grows stronger by sharing its knowledge, wisdom and possessions with others. Its happiness lies in helping others. It is cramped when it keeps its riches to itself. Generosity of any kind enriches it and niggardliness impoverishes it. Therefore, if we want real happiness and spiritual bliss in this world and get out of all kinds of depression, we must give out and refrain from taking in. "And the soul and its perfection! - So He reveals to its way of evil and its way of good; He is indeed successful who causes it to grow, And he indeed fails who buries it." (Quran 91:7-10)
Within Islam ‘Halal’ and ‘Haram’ (lawful and unlawful) play a great part in making man conscious of his physical life on this earth, for these two have some connection with his every action and thought, and it is for man to decide which of them to choose in his everyday activities. Even though we may think that at times of doing wrong, no one is any wiser or hurt by our actions, misdeeds, or even bad thoughts - however in an holographic universe even thoughts have a meaning and a significance and are as real as an action.
START OF NEXT STAGE WITH THE CONTRACTION OF THIS UNIVERSE
“The heavens we have built with power and We are expanding it.” (Quran 51.47). We are first informed that this universe is expanding and will continue to do so till such time that Self-Conscious stage is wound up and the next stage or "reality" will take its start simultaneously with the contraction of this physical universe: “The day when We shall roll up the heavens as a recorder rolls up a written scroll. As We began the first creation, We shall bring it forth anew.” (Quran 21:104). Folding up of the universe does not mean reversal of time, as stated before, time is no longer a fundamental in "holographic universe" in which every thing is interconnected and hence time has no meaning. As to the words "As We began the first creation, We shall repeat it" - the first creation being the moment of big bang and the nucleus mass of the universe being the first living substance - and this could only mean in my opinion that the entire struggle of the life from that moment onwards lies preserved from within in a non material form and under the new "reality" we have a potential to access and witness any information that we may seek from within that "super-hologram". In the commentary to the above verse Mohammed Asad in his translation of Quran links the above verse to the following: "On the Day when the earth shall be changed into another earth, as be the heavens." (Quran 21:48).
We have known earth and heavens only in its material form and under new "reality" once the material veil is removed from our eyes that we discover their new form - ie: preserved from within as stated before. The creation of this Universe is not only for the Hawking or Dawkin's of this world or for the few professors to crow about but for the entire creation to witness. "And We have not created the heavens and the earth and all that is in between them in mere idle play."
SCOPE FOR INFINITE FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
According to the Holy Quran, life has manifested itself in the form of Human Self or Soul after passing through various stages of creation. This is the final link in the development of life in this world. But life is not limited to this world; it continues beyond death. The higher life that the individual with a developed personality is capable of leading after life in this material world is called a heavenly life, or the life of paradise (Jannah). On the other hand, the onward march of the personalities who could not fully develop in the present world is bound to be thwarted: this kind of life is called an infernal life or the life of hell (Jahannam). Hell and paradise do not stand for places or localities; they denote different conditions of Human Self, which have been described metaphorically in the Holy Quran.
The Holy Quran envisages the Human Self as a developing entity. When the Self has successfully completed the present journey of life, death opens the door to the fresh and more glorious possibilities. Joy at the accomplishments made is blended with prospectus of fresh opportunities. Having realised a certain quantum of potentialities during its earthly career, the Self becomes aware of what is still left to be actualised. This state of mind, blend of joy and zest at higher plane of existence cannot be described, but it can be symbolised. That is why the Holy Quran has resource to metaphorical language in regard to paradise: As described before "heavens" is different form of reality like a live internet connected to every corner of this universe and to every atom on the face of this earth. Higher Creative processes must build on Human Selfs in the form of greater and greater self-illumination. In other words, the universe beyond is the highest form of mental experience which already lives potentially in each Human Self waiting to be realised in steps or as the distinguished Physicists described it as beyond this holographic stage lies a possibility of "infinite further development."
"That ye shall journey on from stage to stage. What aileth them, then, that they believe not" (Quran 84:19-20). Hell on the other hand is seeing the ripple effect of your own actions and feeling and tasting the actual pain (being a part of the live internet) that those actions brought on those who had to face the after effect of those actions. So long the victim lasts, as many generations the effect lasts, to as many people the evil spreads, the perpetrator is in his own hell: "So he who does an atom's weight of good will see it. And he who does an atom’s weight of evil will see it." (Quran 99:7;8) or "Man will that day be informed of what he sent before and what he put off. Nay, man is witness against himself, though he put up excuses." (Quran 75:13-15).
We are informed in one of the authentic traditions of the prophet that a mark on our forehead will determine whether we are in heaven or hell - in my opinion it is referral to the holographic nature of our mind which under new "reality" is accessible by the entire creation with all the minutest details of our life on earth and would instantly know whether the persons actions in life conformed to the commandments of the Creator or not, and if not, will be relegated to lowest echelons of that "order". The popular belief that saints or saviour or someone else to that matter can "intercede" with God is no more than a myth.
PERFECT IDEAL CAN ONLY BE GOD AND WE ARE BORN TO SEEK IT:
Man lives with his ideals. Even those who deny this inner psychic urge to their Self's, already live with the ideal; although their ideal may be low or based on negative values because of sheer ignorance of their own Self's. The Self can, however, attain permanent satisfaction only if its ideal is based on the attributes of the very Self. It is because real satisfaction cannot be achieved if the ideal lacks in the qualities and attributes as are embedded in the Self or Soul. For instance, Human Self enjoys freedom, it exists as a unit entity, it gives decisions, it is conscious of itself, it has the attributes of love and attraction, it is aware of eternity, etc. Accordingly the Right Ideal must have similar attributes as manifested by the Soul. It follows therefore, that only such Ideal or Ideology, which is based on the attributes of Human Self, can satisfy the Self to identify with. The ideal is half of the Human Self and it lives in Soul just like the two complementary parts, which live in the unit-seed. If we take away the ideal, the Human Self cannot exist, that is, it can never know of itself as a Self-conscious Entity.
Although the human urge is to love and seek its Creator whose reflection he finds in his Self, yet as he is in the making, he may misuse the gift of freedom and adopt some wrong ideal. Mankind has been provided guidance by the Creator through the Prophets and Messengers created by Him through the law of Emergent Creation. Those people who follow different ideologies in fact live as different species of Human Self. According to the creative process, there is only one Right Ideology as the truth is only one but the forms of wrong are many. Therefore, the next stage of conscious light must build or start on the spiritual values attained by the followers of the Right Ideology. In other words, those who remained blind in the present stage of creation cannot see the light that will appear at the next higher stage. Such people will have to pass through great mental and spiritual agony to make them fit for reaching that conscious light. This is similar to the various species of animals in this world, which are consciously blind compared to the conscious light bestowed on man. The wrong ideologies, which negate the spiritual values of the Human Self, keep the Human Self-blind. The followers of such ideologies believe in the reverse order of creation. That is, they think themselves as the product of material forces. These people are prone to annihilate their Self's or Souls for ever and thus they may never attain the spiritual light in the next stage which has to build on the Human Self's only. This is the fundamental law of the creative process that life must start and advance on right conscious values. The conscious light at the next higher stage is spiritual light of glory of the Creator and as such, only that part of humanity that had faith in the Creator and developed their Self's in the right direction can see the glory of the Creator at the next higher stage. It is high time, therefore, for those who have the gifts of worldly life to choose the Right Ideology for their smooth journey in the next tier of their life - the universe beyond. Let us remember that no man other than the men created under the natural process of Emergent Creation can give laws and determine ideologies for the mankind.

CONCLUSION:
"O Soul thou art at rest, Return to thy Lord, well pleased, well pleasing, So enter among My servants, and enter My Garden!" (The Quran 89: 27-30). Man must achieve and attain the state of spiritual perfection before he can hope to gain the company and the pleasure of God, and this can only come about by the remembrance of Allah and abiding by his commandments, thereby avoiding the path of evil which only serves to divert him from the right path and thereby causing him a mental or spiritual agony in "universe beyond", until such time that he finally cleanses his spiritual Self in order to be fit for his final goal, by that time justice has already been done without God lifting the finger. It does not say enter a Muslim, Jewish, Christian or Hindu Soul - and so in the final analysis our destination is the same. God has no chosen people (not even Muslims) just a chosen message. This is so because in Islam all other true non-idolatrous religions are combined thus making it a unique religion.
Lastly the holographic universe can only be a creation but with a sting in its tail that having created man on the principle of "whole within a whole" - God has created nothing less than a potential God - and in spite of that man is not independent of God and when ever he tries to do so he only ends up by self destroying.

Hinduism & Quantum Physics

"THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE"-Prof.Henry Stapp, Quantum physicist.

BELL'S THEOREM - VEDANTA AND QUANTUM PHYSICS

HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE PHYSICAL WORLD

'Om Isha vasyam idam sarvam, yat kincha jagatyam jagat'

"All this- whatever exists in this changing
universe, is pervaded by God"
-Isa Upanishad

"Om purnamadah purnamidam purnaat purnamudachyate,
purnasya purnamadaya purnamevaavashishyate"

"That (pure consciousness) is full(perfect); this(the manifest universe of matter; of names and forms being maya) is full. This fullness has been projected from that fullness. When this fullness merges in that fullness, all that remains is fullness."
-Peace invocation- Isa Upanishad

"The Supreme Brahman(God) is the only Reality. The idea of the phenomenal universe is falsely superimposed upon it."
Swami Nikhilananda of Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Centre, New York.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF THIS THEOREM ARE STAGGERING

In recent years physicists have had to address the interplay of consciousness and the physical world. In Quantum Physics much has been made over Bell's Theorem. The implications of this theorem and the experimental findings that flow from it are staggering. They force us to consider that the entire notion of a purely objective world is in conflict not only with the theory of quantum mechanics, but with the facts drawn from actual experiments. These findings point insistently to a profound interaction between conscious mental activity and the physical world itself.

THE RISHI'S VISION

The Rishi's vision of a world in which man participates in a seamless existence, indivisibly united with the universe around him, resonates through a discovery called "BELL'S THEOREM". This discovery, first proposed in 1964 by the physicist John S. Bell was first confirmed by experiment in 1972 by Professor John Clauser at Berkley. It is an almost unbelievable result - unbelievable because the logical mind has great difficulty in comprehending how it can be true. Its impact on the physics community has been enormous. Professor Henry Stapp, a physicist at Berkley and an authority on the implications of Bell's Theorem, has called it THE MOST IMPORTANT DISCOVERY IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE.

A description of the proof of Bell's theory, as given by Stapp reads:

"If the statistical predictions of quantum theory are true, an objective universe is incompatible with the law of local causes."

Although formidable at first glance, Bell's Theorem seems simpler once key terms are understood.

First, an "objective universe" is simply one that exists apart from our consciousness.

Secondly, the "law of local causes" refers to the fact that events in the universe happen at a speed that does not exceed the speed of light. Things happen, in other words, always at the speed of light or less.This limitation is imposed by Einstein's special theory of relativity, and is a mainstay of modern physical theory. To be accurate, in actual experimental situations, it is not Bell's Theorem that is tested, but the predictions of Quantum Mechanics.

In 1935, Albert Einstein, together with Nathan Rosen and Boris Podolsky proposed through flawless mathematical reasoning that if the quantum theory were correct, then 'A change in the spin of one particle in a two particle system would affect its twin simultaneously, even if the two had been widely separated in the meantime'. And 'simultaneous' is a dirty word in the theory of special relativity, which forbids the transmission of any signal faster than the speed of light. Obviously, a signal telling the particle 'what to do' would have to travel faster than the speed of light if instantaneous changes were to occur between the two particles.

The dilemma into which Einstein, Rosen and Podolsky dragged the quantum theory was a profound one, coming to be known as THE ERP EFFECT.

In 1964 Bell's Theorem emerged as a proof that Einstein's impossible proposition did in fact hold true: instantaneous changes in widely separated systems did occur.

In 1972, Clauser confirmed the statistical predictions of quantum mechanics, working with an elaborate system involving photons, calcite crystals, and photo multiplier tubes The experiment has since been run several times with the same consistent results; Bell's Theorem stands solid.

THE IMPLICATIONS OF BELL'S THEOREM ARE
PRACTICALLY UNTHINKABLE

Even for the physicists involved, the implications of Bell's Theorem are practically unthinkable. Mathematics and experimentation have taken us where our logical mind cannot go. Imagine, two particles once in contact, separated even to the ends of the universe, change instantaneously when a change in one of them occurs!

Slowly, new ideas are emerging to explain these unthinkable occurrences. One view is that, in some unexplainable way, the separated particles are still in contact although separated in space. This is the suggestion of the French physicist Bernard D'Espagnat. In 1979, writing about quantum reality, he said that "the entire notion of an external, fixed, objective world now lies in conflict not only with quantum theory, but in facts drawn from actual experiments.... in some sense all these objects constitute an indivisible whole."

Physicist Jack Sarfatti of the Physics/Consciousness Research Group proposes that no actual energy-requiring signal is transmitted between the distant objects, but 'information' is transmitted instead. Thus no violation of Einstein's special theory of relativity occurs. Exactly what this information is is unclear, and it a strange thing which might travel instantly and require no energy to do so.

Nic Herbert, a physicist who heads the C-Life Institute, suggests that we have merely discovered an elemental oneness of the world. This oneness cannot be diminished by spatial separation. An invisible wholeness unites the objects that are given birth in the universe, and it is this wholeness that we have stumbled into through modern experimental methods. Herbert alludes to the words of the poet Charles Williams: "Separation without separateness, reality without rift."

It would be a mistake to suppose that these effects operate only with relevance to the invisible world of the atom. Professor Henry Stapp states that the real importance of these findings is that they translate directly to our microcosmic existence, implying that the oneness that is implicit in Bell's Theorem envelopes human beings and atoms alike.

The interrelation of human consciousness and the observed world is obvious in Bell's Theorem. Human consciousness and the physical world cannot be regarded as distinct, separate entities. What we call physical reality, the external world, is shaped - to some extent - by human thought. The lesson is clear; we cannot separate our own existence from that of the world outside. We are intimately associated not only with the earth we inhabit, but with the farthest reaches of the cosmos.

Certain quantum physicists now say that each part of the universe contains all the information present in the entire cosmos itself (similar to a giant oak tree producing an acorn that contains all the information to replicate itself).

This assertion is so audacious that it would be dismissed out of hand were it not for the scientific stature of its chief proponent David Bohm, a former associate of Einstein, professor of theoretical physics at Birbeck College of University of London. He is regarded as one of the pre-eminent theoretical physicists of our day.

THE HOLOGRAM

Bohm maintains that the information of the entire universe is contained in each of its parts. There is, he says, a stunning example of this principle in photography: the hologram (literally whole message).

Hologram is a specially constructed image which, when illuminated by a laser beam, seems eerily suspended in three dimensional space. The most incredible feature of holograms is that any piece of it, if illuminated with coherent light, provides an image of the entire hologram. The information of the whole is contained in each part. The entire representation of the original object is contained in each portion of the hologram. This principle, says Bohm, extends to the universe at large, that the universe is constructed on the same principles as the hologram. His theory rests on concepts that flow from modern physics. The world is an indivisible whole.

For Bohm, order and unity are spread throughout the universe in a way which escapes our senses. In the same way that order and organisation are spread throughout the hologram. Each part of the universe contains enough information to reconstitute the whole. The form and structure of the entire universe is enfolded within each part.

For many working physicists, these concepts are inescapable conclusions that flow from quantum mechanics and relativity. It is crucial to appreciate the scope of these implications. We frequently assume that quantum physics applies only to the diminutive realm of nature - electrons, protons etc., and that relativity has only to do with massive objects of cosmic proportions -stars, galaxies, nebulae etc. But Bohm's contention is that we are squarely in the middle of these phenomena. Ultimately the entire universe (with all its 'particles' including those constituting human beings, their laboratories, observing instruments etc). has to be understood as a single undivided whole, in which analysis into separately and independently existent parts has no fundamental status.

What are the implications of a holographic universe? As part of the universe, do we have holographic features ourselves that allow us to comprehend a holographic universe? This question has been answered affirmatively by Stanford neurophysiologist Karl Pribram. In an attempt to account for key observations about brain function which for decades have puzzled brain physiologists, Pribram arrived at a radical proposal: the hologram is a model brain function. In essence, the brain is the 'photographic plate' on which information in the universe is encoded.

When the proposals of Bohm and Pribram are conceptually joined, a new model of man emerges: we use a brain that encodes information holographically; and it is a hologram that is a part of an even larger hologram - the universe itself.

Pribram's radical suggestions are founded on work that originated in the laboratory of one of the pioneers of modern neurophysiology, Karl Lashley. At a time when it was popularly believed that there were specific centres in the brain for practically every human function - such as speech, vision, appetite, sleep etc.,- Lashley demonstrated that this was apparently not true for memory. Working with animals, he found that even when bulk of the cerebral cortex was surgically removed, leaving only a remnant intact, the memory of how to perform specific tasks remained. The rapidity and accuracy of the performance was frequently attenuated, but the knowledge was retained.

These findings fit poorly with existing theories about how information is stored in the brain. It was as if memory was spread everywhere in the cortex - but how? Pribram reasoned that the brain contained the memory in each of its parts. The analogy to a hologram was obvious. The entire memory pattern could be found throughout the cerebral cortex if the information had originally been encoded holographically.

In most right handed persons, the left side of the brain is presumed to control the movements of the right side of the body. In instances where the left side of the brain is injured - for example through a stroke or with a trauma -paralysis or profound weakness of the right side of the body is the predictable result. A physician, Richard Restak, has reported a case, in a twenty one year old female in which the entire left side of the brain was removed surgically in order to control epileptic seizures that were unmanageable with any other known form of therapy. The results of the therapy were astonishing.

Although the seizures were stopped, within a few weeks the woman began to regain control of the right side of her body. She was able to return to work and to lead an active social life. Where did the right side of her body receive its motor information with the left side of the brain in the surgeon's pail?

In 1975 a similar case was reported by Smith & Sugar. A six year old male underwent total removal of the left cerebral hemisphere because of intractable epileptic seizures. Conventional neurophysiological wisdom asserts that the left side of the cerebral cortex is responsible for our speech, mathematical reasoning and logical thought in general, and that the right cerebral hemisphere controls our intuitive, non-rational, non-verbal forms of thought. Yet this young man grew up to become a gifted student, proficient in verbal reasoning and language abilities, testing even into the gifted range of on standard intelligence tests.

SPACE AND TIME - THE HOLOVERSE

This indivisibility also applied fundamentally to space and time. Relativity has shown that they are inextricably linked, and cannot be teased apart.

Recall one of the possibilities embodied in Bell's theorem involving non-local features of the universe: objects once in contact, though separated spatially, even if placed at distant ends of the universe, are somehow in inseparable contact. Since any change in one immediately and unmitigatedly causes change in the other, this is a nonlocal occurance, meaning that any information passing between the two objects would have to travel faster than the speed of light to cause such instantaneous change. Since it is impossible for the speed of light to be exceeded, according to the special theory of relativity, this event is said to be noncausal-i.e. not caused by the transfer of any conceivable kind of energy passing between the distant objects.

Although these nonlocal and noncausal descriptions are worked out for objects separated in space, Bohm states that the implications of quantum theory also apply to moments in 'TIME'.

What is crucial is that, according to the theory of relativity, a sharp distinction between space and time cannot be maintained.

We all have roots in the universe. Conscious mental activity exerts measurable effects on the physical world - a world that includes human bodies, organs, tissues, and cells. Mind becomes a legitimate factor in the unfolding of health and disease. The inter-penetration of all matter is the rule. The dividing line between life and non-life is illusory and arbitrary. There is only one valid way, thus, to partake of the universe and that way is characterised by reverence - a reverence born of a felt sense of participation in the universe, of a kinship with all others and with all matter. A reverential attitude that bespeaks a oneness with the universe can transform the commonest act.

Bhagavad Gita, Ch.13,Verses 15 :

"Without and within all beings the unmoving and also the moving; because of Its subtlety, unknowable; and near and far away is That(God)".

Bhagavad Gita, Ch.13, Verse 16:

"And undivided, yet He exists as if divided in beings; He is to be known as the supporter of beings; He devours and He generates."

No division in Consciousness is admissible at any time as it is always one and the same. Even the individuality of the Jiva must be known as false, like the delusion of a snake in a rope. Shankaracharya (Aparokshanubhuti.43)

Vedanta as the synthesis
of Science and Religion
By Swami Ranganathananda, Ramakrishna Math:
Extracts (abridged)

The spirit of enquiry finds expression in any department of scientific study in the gathering of relevant facts and their rational interpretation. The practice of religion is nothing but a ceaseless quest after the facts of the inner life. A dispassionate study of these facts constitutes the science of religion which seeks to unravel the mystery of our inner being- the lights that guide us and the laws that mould us.

If 'man, the known', constituted of his body and its environing world, is the subject of study of the natural sciences, 'man. the unknown' is the subject of study of the science of religion. The synthesis of both these sciences is the high function of philosophy as understood in India. It is this function which Vedanta has performed in this country (India), ever since the time of the Upanishads. Exercising a pervasive and effective influence on our national thought and culture, Vedanta has spared us not only the fruitless opposition of reason to faith and vice versa, but also the more dangerous manifestation of this opposition in the form of intolerance, persecution, and suppression of opinion.

The need for a Vedantic approach to science and religion is insistent today when both have shed their respective prejudices and come closer to each other, imbued with the passion to serve man and save his civilisation. It is only such a synthesis of philosophy which blends in itself the flavour of the faith of religion and the reason of science that can reconstruct modern man, by restoring to him the integrity of his being and the unity

The 'Within' and the 'Without' of Nature

Explaining this Indian approach to religion and the cause of the misunderstanding between science and religion, Swami Vivekananda said:

"Religion deals with the truths of the metaphysical world, just as chemistry and the other natural sciences deal with the truth of the physical world. The book one must read to learn chemistry is the book of (external) nature. The book from which to learn religion is your own mind and heart. The sage is often ignorant of physical science, because he reads the wrong book - the book within and the scientist is too often is ignorant of religion, because he, too, reads the wrong book - the book without".

The practice of religion is a ceaseless quest after the facts of a man's inner life, at the innermost depth of which it finds the truth of God, which it defines as infinite existence, infinite knowledge, and infinite bliss, the Sat-Chit-Ananda Brahman it comes across, at the intermediate depths, and all higher values which find expression in man's ethical, moral, and aesthetic experiences. A dispassionate study of these facts constitutes the science of religion, the science of art of the spiritual life.

It is the eternal glory of Vedanta that the great thinkers of the Upanishads grappled with these questions: What is this universe? What is man? What is his destiny? Long ago they discovered that the universe of experience consists of two broad categories, the subjective and the objective. It is important to remember that this idea is basic to an understanding of Vedanta and to an understanding of whither science is going today. Now, when we apply this classification to the whole universe, we get the corollary that modern science is the study of only one of the two categories, namely, the objective field. But modern science is also trying to understand the subjective field.

Psychology is one such science. But Western psychology has suffered from too great a dominance by psychology . By resorting to time and space methodology, we get a knowledge of the 'without' of things, but not of their 'within'. Much of psychology in the West is behaviouristic psychology: it is a study of the human mind through the study of human behaviour.

But Western psychologists have also tried to break from this kind of limitation and have developed, through psycho-analysis, the beginning of what is called depth psychology. This is just the beginning of a great movement in modern psychology which, if continued steadily and penetratingly, will bring it to the truth of the real nature of man which Vedanta reached ages ago in India - the eternal, undying Self of man, the Atman.

Vedanta and modern science are close to each other in spirit and temper. They are close to each other in their objectives and in very many of their conclusions as well. Even in the cosmology of the physical universe, we find so many points of contact. The fundamental position in the cosmology of both science and Vedanta is what Swami Vivekananda calls the postulate of a self-evolving cause. Vedanta says that there is one self-evolving cause, Brahman, behind the universe. Science says that behind this universe there is one self-evolving cause, the background material, in the words of astronomer Fred Hoyle.

Both believe in the theory of a cosmic evolution. There are a number of such similarities. The truths expounded in the Upanishads are impersonal, Apauruseya, not deriving sanction from any person. Scientific truths are similarly impersonal, objective, not deriving sanction from any person. Because they are impersonal, they are universal, and provide a clear insight into the nature of the world. That is science.

When we study the development of science during the last hundred years, we can trace the higher reaches of science slowly appearing on the horizon, and trace also the slow emergence of a non-materialistic outlook in science.

Modern Physics and Philosophical Reason

In countless ways, every department of physical science today is extending the bounds of man’s knowledge of fundamental unity behind the manifold diversities of the universe. Physical science started with the exploration of the mysteries of external nature; but at the farthest end of this search, it finds itself face to face with the mystery of man, of his mind and consciousness, the deepest mystery of all.

The philosophies of the East, particularly the Vedanta of India, including Buddhist thought, directly faced this mystery of man, more than two thousand years ago, by initiating the exploration of the internal world and carrying it through to its depths. And, today, we witness a steady convergence of these two indirect and direct approaches in the steady emergence of a common philosophy of the one behind the many.

Physicists of the first quarter of the twentieth century, faced with the challenge of the revolutionary discoveries of relativity and quantum physics, turned into bold philosophical thinkers, initiating the development of reason of physics into Buddhi or philosophical Reason, by transforming it into a critique , not only of the observed sense-data of the physical world, but also of man the observer. Starting with Eddington, Jeans, Max Planck, Einstein, Shrodinger, Niels Bohr, Heisenberg, and other great creators of twentieth-century physics, this philosophical trend has grown through the last five decades, culminating in The Tao of Physics of Berkeley University Physics Professor, Dr.Fritjof Capra.

Concluding his Space, Time and Gravitation, Eddington hinted at the emergence of the mystery of man from the study of the mystery of physical nature:

"The theory of relativity has passed in review the whole subject-matter of physics. It has unified the great laws which, by the precision of their formulation and the exactness of their application, have won the proud place in human knowledge which physical science holds today. And yet, in regard to the nature of things, this knowledge is only an empty shell- a form of symbols. It is knowledge of structural form, and not knowledge of content. All through the physical world runs that unknown content, which must surely be the stuff of our consciousness.

Here is a hint of aspects deep within the world of physics, and yet unattainable by the methods of physics. And, moreover, we have found that, where science has progressed the farthest, the mind has but regained from nature that which the mind has put into nature. We have found a strange footprint on the shores of the unknown. We have devised profound theories, one after another, to account for its origin. At last, we have succeeded in reconstructing the creature that made the footprint. And lo! It is our own."

Hints such as these, given by the earlier philosopher-scientists, have developed into positive affirmations in Dr.Capra. The very title of his book: ‘The Tao of Physics’, is significant in this connection, apart from the masterly and fascinating exposition he gives, in the course of the book, of his main thesis that:

"the basic elements of the Eastern world-view are also those of the world-view emerging from modern physics,"

and that:

"Eastern thought, and more generally, mystical thought, provide a consistent and relevant philosophical background to the theories of contemporary science."

Noting that, through the two centuries of association with the philosophy of materialism and the contemporary reaction against the ravages wrought by over-technology, the image of science in the eyes of modern man has suffered much damage, Capra seeks to restore the image of pure science as the discipline in the pursuit of truth and human excellence, not in opposition but in tune with the spiritual heritage of man, and more especially, of the spiritual heritage of the East:

Capra writes:

"This book aims at improving the image of science by showing that there is an essential harmony between the spirit of Eastern wisdom and Western science. It attempts to suggest that modern physics goes far beyond technology, that the way–or Tao-of physics can be a path with a heart, a way to spiritual knowledge and self-realisation."

Echoing the voice of Vedanta and all mystical thought that the fundamental search for reality takes man beyond the senses and the sensory world of phenomena, Capra says:

"On this journey to the world of the infinitely small, the most important step, from a philosophical point of view, was the first one: the step into the world of atoms. Probing inside the atom and investigating its structure, science transcended the limits of our sensory imagination. From this point on, it could no longer rely with absolute certainty on logic and common sense. Atomic physics provided the scientists with the first glimpses of the essential nature of things. Like the mystics, physicists were now dealing with a non-sensory experience of reality and, like the mystics, they had to face the paradoxical aspects of this experience. From then on, therefore, the models and images of modern physics became akin to those of Eastern philosophy."

Referring to the basic unity of the universe, as upheld in Eastern mysticism and modern physics, Capra says:

"The most important characteristic of the Eastern world-view- one could almost say the essence of it- is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events…. The Eastern traditions constantly refer to this ultimate indivisible reality, which manifests itself in all things, and of which all things are parts. It is called Brahman in Hinduism, Dharmakaya in Buddhism, and Tao in Taoism…"

"The basic oneness of the universe is not only the central characteristic of the mystical experience, but is also one of the most important revelations of modern physics. It becomes apparent at the atomic level, and manifests itself more and more as one penetrates deeper into matter, down into the realm of sub-atomic particles. The unity of all things and events will be a recurring theme throughout our comparison of modern physics and the Eastern philosophy."

Both speak of reality as transcending space, time, and causality. Referring to this kinship, Dr.Capra says:

"The space-time of relativistic physics is a similar timeless space of a higher dimension. All events in it are interconnected, but the connections are not causal. Particle interactions can be interpreted in terms of cause and effect only when the space-time diagrams are read in a definite direction, e.g., from the bottom to the top. When they are taken as four dimensional patterns without any definite direction of time attached to them, there is no ‘before’ and no ‘after’, and thus no causation".

"Similarly, the Eastern mystics assert that, in transcending time, they also transcend the world of cause and effect. Like our ordinary notions of space and time, causation is an idea which is limited to a certain experience of the world and has to be abandoned when this experience is extended. In the words of Swami Vivekananda (Jnana Yoga):

‘Time, space, and causation are like the glass through which the Absolute is seen. … In the Absolute there is neither time, space, nor causation.’ –Swami Vivekananda

Capra continues:

"The Eastern spiritual traditions show their followers various ways of going beyond the ordinary experience of time and of freeing themselves from the chain of cause and effect- from the bondage of Karma, as the Hindus and Buddhists say. It has therefore been said that Eastern mysticism is a liberation from time. The same may be said of relativistic physics."

Again Capra says:

"Subsequent to the emergence of the field concept, physicists have attempted to unify the various fields into a single fundamental field which would incorporate all physical phenomena. Einstein, in particular, spent the last years of his life searching for such a unified field. The Brahman of the Hindus, like the Dharmakaya of the Buddhists, and the Tao of the Taoists, can be seen, perhaps, as the ultimate unified field, from which spring not only the phenomena studied in physics, but all other phenomena as well"

"In the Eastern view, the reality underlying all phenomena is beyond all forms and defies all description and specification. It is, therefore, often said to be formless, empty, or void. But this emptiness is not to be taken for mere nothingness. It is, on the contrary, the essence of all forms and the source of all life. Thus the Upanishads say (Chandogya Upanishad, 4-10-4):

‘Brahman is life, Brahman is joy.
Brahman is the void. …
Joy ,verily, that is the same as the void.
The void, verily, that is the same as joy’".

Atomic physics is confronted with the problem of consciousness through the datum of the ‘observer’ or to use the new, and more meaningful term coined by physicist John Wheeler, ‘participator.’ Accordingly, Dr.Capra says:

"In modern physics, the question of consciousness has arisen in connection with the observation of atomic phenomena. Quantum theory has made it clear that these phenomena can only be understood as links in a chain of processes, the end of which lies in the consciousness of the human observer. In the words of Eugene Wigner (Symmetries and Reflections- Scientific Essays):

‘It was not possible to formulate the laws (of quantum theory) in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.’ – Eugene Wigner

Dr.Capra continues:

"The pragmatic formulation of quantum theory used by the scientists in their work does not refer to their consciousness explicitly. Wigner and other physicists have argued, however, that the explicit inclusion of human consciousness may be an essential aspect of future theories of matter."

"Such a development would open exciting possibilities for a direct interaction between physics and Eastern mysticism. The understanding of one’s consciousness and its relation to the rest of the universe is the starting point of all mystical experience. … If physicists really want to include the nature of human consciousness in their realm of research, a study of Eastern ideas may well provide them with stimulating new viewpoints."

Referring to spiritual kinship between modern science and ancient Vedanta, Swami Vivekananda said in his speech at the Parliament of Religions held at Chicago in 1893:

"Manifestation, and not creation, is the word of science today, and the Hindu is only glad that what he has been cherishing in his bosom for ages is going to be taught in more forcible language, and with further light, from the latest conclusions of science."

Confirming this view of Swami Vivekananda, that the physicist and the mystic reach the truth of unity, though following different approaches, Dr.Capra says:

"In contrast to the mystic, the physicist begins his inquiry into the essential nature of things by studying the material world. Penetrating into ever deeper realms of matter, he has become aware of the essential unity of all things and events. More than that, he has also learnt that he himself and his consciousness are an integral part of this unity. Thus the mystic and the physicist arrive at the same conclusion; one starting from the inner realm, the other from the outer world. The harmony between their views confirms the ancient Indian wisdom that Brahman, the ultimate reality, is identical to Atman, the reality within."

Conclusion

Understood in this light, there is no conflict between science and religion, between the physical sciences and the science of spirituality. Both have the identical aim of discovering truth and helping man to grow physically, mentally, and spiritually, and achieve fulfilment. But each by itself is insufficient and helpless. They have been tried separately with unsatisfactory results. The older civilisations took guidance mostly from religion; their achievements were partial and limited. Modern civilisation relies solely on science; its achievements also have turned out to be partial and limited.

The combination today, of the spiritual energies of these two complementary disciplines in the life of man will produce fully integrated human beings, and thus help to evolve a complete human civilisation, for which the world is ripe and waiting. This is the most outstanding contribution of Swami Vivekananda to human thought today. This synthetic vision of his finds lucid expression in a brief but comprehensive testament of his Vedantic conviction:

" Each soul is potentially divine.

The goal of life is to manifest this divinity within by controlling nature, external (through physical sciences, technology, and socio-political processes) and internal (through ethical, aesthetic, and religious processes):

Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy-by one, or more, or all of these-and be free.

This is the whole of religion. Doctrines or dogmas or rituals or books or temples or forms, are but secondary details." -Swami Vivekananda

This science and technique for realising the true glory of man, followed with scientific thoroughness and detachment by the sages of the Upanishads, and revalidated by a succession of spiritual experimenters down the ages from Buddha to Ramakrishna, is glowingly revealed in one of the immortal verses of the Svetasvatara Upanishad:

"Hear, ye children of immortal bliss, even ye that reside in higher spheres! I have found the Ancient One, who is beyond all darkness, all delusion; knowing Him alone, you shall be saved from death over again."

Common Grounds between Buddhism, Quantum Physics, and the Baha'i Faith

by Jack Coleman

1997-05

Some "common grounds" exist among Buddhist, quantum physics and Bahá'í Faith concepts. Buddhist ideas on the Omniscient One, the Universal Mind, the Absolute, the Ultimate Reality and the "Empty Void" encompass how they see reality. ("Teachings of the Com passionate Buddha," pp 33,35,47,61, 103,128,167,181,194,196, 199,228) Such Buddhist concepts do not conflict with quantum physics nor the Bahá'í Faith. Since each vocabulary (Buddhist, quantum physics and Bahá'í) arose quite differently, it will be intere sting to interrelate them.

The heart of all religions is the relationship of the individual with Ultimate Reality. For centuries no concept of God or Creator existed in Buddhism with the same meaning as in most Western religions. According to Buddhism, Ultimate Reality is viewed as "Empty Void." ("Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha," pp 33,35,47,61,79,167) This idea of the "Empty Void" is a rich and productive one conveying an extensive variety of meanings. There are some interesting relationships between these Buddhist ideas and concepts in quantum physics and the Bahá'í Faith.

VOID OF BUDDHISM:

How can the Void of Buddhism (which is sometimes equated with the Buddha in His ultimate "Form") be viewed? The "Void" or "Emptiness" emphasizes the "Voidness" (Sunyata) of the Absolute. It cannot be described in practical terms since all concepts or view s about It fall into self- contradiction. "Voidness," however, is used to characterize the Absolute, the Ultimate Reality, in certain Mahayanist teachings. The Buddha in His ultimate "Form" is the Void only in the sense that He is manifested by the Void o r the Essence of Reality. He is not the Creator. Buddhahood is dependent on the Absolute; for the Absolute, the Void ("Sunya"), the Buddha says: "If by the Absolute ["Void"] is meant something out of relation to all known things, its existence cannot be e stablished by any known reasoning. How can we know anything unrelated to other relations: we know nothing that is, or can be related." (Tevijja Sutra, I.i)

Can the Buddha be considered, as He is referred to in His Teachings, as the Universal Mind? "The Master said to me: `All the Buddhas and all sentient beings are nothing but the Universal Mind, besides which nothing exists. This Mind, which has always existed, is unborn and indestructible'" ("Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha," pp 33,35,47, 61,79,167)

BUDDHIST VOID OR ABSOLUTE:

The Buddhists have told us that behind this changing world and its illusions there is the Buddhist Void or Absolute Reality (God). According to the Buddhist (and Bahá'í) teachings, it is possible for us to avoid the pains caused by the accidents and changes of this world. The Lord Buddha advises us to seek the Absolute or the Unconditioned. We do not have ample words, however, to speak of this Supreme Reality. The Buddha discusses It in His famous verse in the Udana passage in the Khuddaka Nikaya: "There is, O monks, an Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed. Were there not, O monks, this Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed, there would be no escape from the world of the born, originated, created, formed. Since, O monks, there is an Unborn, Unori ginated, Uncreated, Unformed, therefore is there an escape from the born, originated, created, formed. What is dependent, that also moves; what is independent does not move. Where there is no movement, there is rest; where rest is, there is no desire; whe re there is no desire, there is neither coming nor going, no ceasing-to-be, no further coming to be. Where there is no ceasing-to-be, no further coming-to-be, there is neither this shore [this world] nor the other shore [Nirvana], nor anything between the m." (Udana 8:3; Khudda Nikaya, in "Minor Anthologies," p 98)

RELATED BAHA'I IDEAS:

Although the Buddha employs such wording as the `Unborn, Unoriginated,'in His Writings, Bahá'u'lláh, the Prophet-Founder of the Bahá'í Faith, uses the word `God.' Both agree, however, that these are only words used as a name for something that we humans c an never fathom. Consequently all endeavors to interpret this Verity are only relative; it is conceivable that even contradictory statements can also be valid. When we consider various approaches to the "Unborn, Unoriginated, Uncreated, Unformed," each culture has a distinct manner of perceiving this Reality that may seem to be dissimilar. These dissimilarities are caused by the limitations of human minds. This Reality is One and is transcendent to our frail understandings to represent It. According to Ba ha'u'llah, the Buddhas are the Manifestations of the Absolute or Ultimate Reality in this world. Each Manifestation is the "Light of lights" and not in Himself just "another" light. Relative to humanity, however, He is in all respects the Absolute.

Bahá'u'lláh states that the Word of God is not the Essence of God. We can thus unravel whether or not the Void of Buddha refers to the Word of God or to the Absolute, the Unknown, the Ancient One. The Word of God must be distinguished from the Absolute ( or Ultimate Reality). If God equates to the Absolute, then the Word of God cannot equate to the Void of the Buddha. The Buddha equates the "Void" with the Absolute rather than to the Word of God. Instead, the Word of God is a Manifestation of the "Void" whenever the "Void" is referred to as the Absolute.

The concept of all the Buddhas being embodiments of the Universal Mind is clarified by `Abdu'l-Bahá, the oldest son of Bahá'u'lláh. Special characteristics of the Universal Mind incarnated as the Buddha and as any of the Holy Manifestations of God are ad dressed, when he states: "The universal divine mind, which is beyond nature, is the bounty of the Preexistent Power. This universal mind is divine; it embraces existing realities, and it receives the light of the mysteries of God. It is a conscious power , not a power of investigation and of research. The intellectual power of the world of nature is a power of investigation, and by its researches it discovers the realities of beings and the properties of existences; but the heavenly intellectual power, which is beyond nature, embraces things and is cognizant of things, knows them, understands them, is aware of mysteries, realities and divine significations, and is the discoverer of the concealed verities of the Kingdom. This divine intellectual power is t he special attribute of the Holy Manifestations and the Dawning-places of prophethood; a ray of this light falls upon the mirrors of the hearts of the righteous, and a portion and a share of this power comes to them through the Holy Manifestations." (Some Answered Questions, page 218)

What is the first thing that emanated from the Ultimate Reality we call God? `Abdu'l-Bahá explains, "The first thing which emanated from God is that universal reality, that the ancient philosophers termed the `First Mind,' or `Universal Mind', and which the people of Baha call the `First Will [or Word of God].' This emanation, in that which concerns the action of the world of God, is not limited by time or place; it is without beginning or end....Though the `First Mind' or `Universal Mind' is without beginning, it does not become a sharer in the preexistence of God [Ultimate Reality], for the existence of the universal reality in relation to the existence of God is nothingness."(Some Answered Questions, page 203)

EMPTY SPACE:

Democritus once said, "Nothing exists except atoms and empty space." How do forces, such as gravity or electromagnetic forces, stretch out from one atom to another through the empty space in between? In 1832, physicist Michael Faraday introduced the idea of a "field," the capability of space to be affected by the presence of a particle. A familiar case is a magnet communicating its presence to iron filings. Faraday viewed the space around the magnet as being "strained."

VOID OF QUANTUM PHYSICS:

Modern physics, at every turn, is coming face to face with a reality that goes beyond our rational ability to describe or understand. In quantum physics, the heart of matter springs from a "void," an "emptiness", a "quantum soup" that can only be conceived of in terms similar to the "Ground of Being" of the mystic. What is this "nothingness" that lies at the very core of the physics of the infinitesimal and the infinite? Is it different than the nothingness of which Buddhists speak? `Abdu'l- Baha declares that "existence and nonexistence are both relative. If it be said that such a thing came into existence from nonexistence, this does not refer to absolute nothingness. For absolute nothingness cannot find existence, as it has not the capacity for existence...Therefore, though the world of contingency exists, in relation to the existence of God it is nonexistent and nothingness." (Some Answered Questions, p 281)

The "void" or "nothingness" of quantum physics is distinctly different than the "Void" of Buddhism. The "void" or "nothingness" of quantum physics is like a gigantic "vacuum fluctuation" from which physicists think the universe came about. If God created the universe from a void or nothingness, then we should carefully look into the properties of that "void or nothingness" from which our being came. The vacuum is just the physicist's word for "void" or "nothingness." Over 100 years ago, this empty void was considered to be filled with a thin, transparent medium called ether through which light waves and electromagnetic waves, in general, are propagated. This seemed to be natural to physicists, since waves are usually observed as vibrations of something. For example, sound waves are vibrations of air, water and solids.

ETHER NOT MEASURABLE:

In 1887, however, physicists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley developed an ether "drift" experiment to try to measure the relative difference in the speed of light while the point of measurement moved towards the sun in the morning as well as away from the sun in the evening as the earth rotates about its axis. This ether "drift" experiment assumed that if space was filled with ether, the measurements should indicate a higher speed of light as the earth moved through the ether towards the sun as well as a lower speed of light as the earth moved through the ether away from the sun. But no change in the velocity of light was ever observed! (Einstein, Letters)

ETHER DECLARED SUPERFLUOUS:

It was Albert Einstein who declared that the speed of light is constant regardless of the velocity of the observer towards or away from the source of light. This hypothesis formed the basis of his relativity theory. He also declared that there was no need for ether, that light and all electromagnetic waves were thought of as wavelike disturbances in an independently existing electromagnetic field. Ether was considered "superfluous". He proposed that ether does not exist. For quite a while, few ever questioned his authority about ether. The question, however, still exists, how can we be sure there is no ether? Even an electromagnetic field is an abstract mathematical theory or entity that we cannot directly observe either. (Einstein's Scientific Papers)

ETHER'S EXISTENCE AFFIRMED:

According to `Abdu'l-Bahá, we can categorize realities into two types, sensible and objective or intellectual and abstract. Realities that are perceptible to the senses are objective or sensible realities, whereas a reality that "has no outward form and no place and is not perceptible to the senses" is an intellectual or abstract reality. Way before Einstein's proclamation and way before the results of the Michaelson-Morley experiments, `Abdu'l-Bahá explained in "Some Answered Questions" that ether was no t measurable. This did not mean, however, that ether did not exist. As `Abdu'l-Bahá states, "ethereal matter, the forces of which are said in physics to be heat, light, electricity and magnetism, is an intellectual reality, and is not sensible...If we wis h to deny everything that is not sensible, then we must deny the realities which unquestionably exist. For example, ethereal matter is not sensible, though it has undoubted existence. The power of attraction is not sensible, though it certainly exists. Fr om what do we affirm these existences? From their signs. Thus this light is the vibration of that ethereal matter, and from this vibration we infer the existence of ether."(Some Answered Questions, pp 84,190)

ACTION OVER "EMPTY SPACE":

How does a force field manifest itself in the intervening void? In quantum electrodynamics (QED), the field is quantized, i.e., is broken down into quanta as virtual, not matter, particles called messenger particles. These are called field particles. They transmit the force by traveling, at the speed of light, between different matter particles. These "messenger" particles are called photons in QED. Other forces, such as gravity and nuclear forces, have their own distinct messengers. Messenger particles are the way we can visualize transmission of forces in "empty space."

These messenger particles are also called "virtual" or "ghost" particles that are continuously created and destroyed in very short times, as predicted by quantum electrodynamics (QED) and that have been observed in the so-called "empty void" or vacuums. This tends to confirm that the so-called "empty void" of physics is not really empty nor a void after all but is an ethereal world. Ether is infinitesimally smaller than any known or hypothesized particle and does indeed exist! It is continuous as far as we know. It has now been recognized that theories exist in which the most elementary objects are lines or loops ("strings"), rather than points. These strings can also be considered as vortex loops of ether.

Real particles can travel from point to point. They conserve energy. They make clicks on Geiger counters. Virtual particles do none of these. Messenger particles, as force transmitters, can be real particles, but more frequently they appear in the theory as virtual particles; so the two terms are often the same. Virtual particles carry the force message from particle to particle. A virtual particle is a logical construct of quantum physics. The number of these exchange photons varies inversely with the square of the distance between the particles involved. When you rub a balloon and stick it to the ceiling, or feel the pull and push of magnets, you are witnessing the results of migrant photons invisibly doing their work.

In this view, the so-called "empty void" can be overflowing with these ghostly particles: virtual photons, virtual electrons and positrons, virtual quarks and antiquarks, etc. (A positron is identical to the electron except that it has a positive charge . A positron is sometimes called an anti-matter particle, as predicted by quantum theory. Quarks are particles out of which protons and neutrons are formed. An anti-quark is a quark with equal but opposite charge.) In this whirling, energetic "empty void," a real particle's properties are also modified. Luckily, these modifications are very small. But they are measurable. As an example, consider a real electron. There is always a cloud of fleeting virtual photons around it. These communicate to all space and particles in space that an electron is present. This cloud of virtual photons also influences the electron's behavior. Furthermore, a virtual photon can decay, very transiently, into a positron and an electron pair. In a blink of an angel's eye, the p air is back together again as a photon.

THE EMPTY VOID OF QUANTUM PHYSICS:

Today, physicists realize that the pristine absoluteness of the vacuum state or "empty void" is vastly more complex than previously surmised. (As we noted before, the "empty void" of physics is not the same as the "Empty Void" or Ultimate Reality of Buddhism.) This may be only the tip of the iceberg; a zoo of particles zoom in and out of this ethereal void. So the ether or "empty void" is now a reference frame for energy, at least potential energy. The "empty void" is overflowing with energy and particle s. Particles do indeed pop in and out of this apparent void. These particles come in all shapes and sizes, and flit in and out of existence over time and space. They are created instantaneously and then usually swiftly vanish almost as quickly as they app ear. As long as they are far way from other "matter," this on and off play repeats itself continuously. Both physicists know and non-physicists hear about this eery ballet of appearance and disappearance of multitudes of particles of all sizes and shapes. There are quantum mechanics rules for this turbulent weirdness of the so-called "empty void."

CINDERELLA PARTICLES:

These dancing particles borrow energy from the "empty void" and pay it back when they return. Like Cinderella particles, they have to disappear back into the "empty void" before the end of a time measured by an extremely tiny fraction of a second, as specified by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. However, if sufficient energy is provided from the outside, like the Prince spending his energy in search of his Cinderella, then the virtual and transient appearance can be converted to real existence, and the Cinderella particle goes to and remains in the Prince's castle for good! Obviously the greater the energy used to produce a particle out of the "empty void," the greater will be its mass, but the less frequently it will appear.

PLATO'S FORMS:

Some physicists argue that the laws of nature came into being with the universe. If that were so, then these laws cannot explain the origin of the present universe, because the laws would not exist until the universe existed. If these laws existed prior to the origin of the universe, they become like Plato's perfect Forms that act as blueprints for the construction of the ephemeral world of our perceptions. In our search for reality, we must turn to the ancient problem of whether the laws of natureexist i n an independent Platonic realm. (Plato, pp 456-459)

Plato had a dualistic vision of reality. One was the physical world, fleeting and impermanent, that was caused by the "Demiurge". The other was the realm of Forms or Ideas, eternal and unchanging, acting as sort of abstract templates for the contingent world of creation. Plato also considered mathematical objects to belong to this Ideal realm.

FORMS AND ATTRIBUTES:

The Word of God, the Primal Will, is reflected into infinite Forms. The totality of Forms is the created names and attributes of God concealed within the Primal Will. There is a distinct parallelism in meaning between the Forms of Plato and the names and attributes of God. A Creator creates through the Word of God the existence of creatures that manifest Its attributes. `Abdu'l-Bahá states that: "the names and attributes of God require the existence of objects or creatures upon which they have been bestowed and in which they become manifest...Because they convey life, they are called Life-giving; because they provide, they are called Bountiful, the Provider; because they create, they are called Creator; because they educate and govern, the name Lord God is applied. That is to say, the divine names emanate from the eternal attributes of Divinity." (Promulgation, p 219)

FORM OR FASHIONER:

Most of the laws of physics, as we know them or not, could be applied to some kind of primal substance, whatever it is. Plato's Timaeus consists of several arguments that might help us to understand. Plato's writings say that all contingent things consist of both primordial matter, the primary substance of the universe, and a subtle counterpart, the form or fashioner, which limits or shapes the primary substance into specific things.(Plato, pp 456-472)

Here we have "primary matter" that was caused by the Word of God or (in Plato's terms) the "Demiurge". The other realm is the domain of Forms or Ideas, called names and attributes that are eternal and unchanging, also caused by the Primal Will of God. T he Word of God is Its own cause. The Word of God is transcendent to but the Cause of primary matter (called the recipient) and also is the Cause of the active force, the Forms or totality of the names and attributes of God (called the Fashioner). Primary matter never changes its characteristics. As Plato describes: "[Primary matter] continues to receive all things, and yet never takes a permanent impress from any of the things that enter it; it is a kind of neutral plastic material on which changing impre ssions are stamped by the things which enter it, making it appear different at different times. And the things which pass in and out of it are copies of the eternal realities whose form they take in a wonderful way that is hard to describe... For the mome nt we must make a threefold distinction and think of that which becomes, that in which it becomes, and the model which it resembles." (Plato, p 67- 68)

CREATOR AND CREATION:

Strictly speaking, God the Creator cannot be described in terms of attributes. The attributes of God's Essence are completely and utterly unknowable. "As to the attributes such as will, knowledge, power and other ancient attributes that we ascribe to that Divine Essence, these are the signs that reflect the existence of beings in the visible plane and not the absolute perfections of the Essence of God that cannot be comprehended. As we consider `created'[Some Western Buddhists prefer the translation `made '] things we observe infinite perfections. If the created things exist in the utmost regularity we infer that the Creator, on which depends the existence of these beings, cannot be ignorant; thus we say He is All-Knowing. It is certain that it is not impotent; it must be then All-Powerful". (Bahá'í World Faith, pp 342-43)

WORD OF GOD IS THE FASHIONER:

The Word of God (Universal Mind), as `Abdu'l-Bahá states, is the Will of God. To Bahá'ís It is the "First Mind," the "Universal Mind," the "Primal Will," the "Command of God" or the "Fashioner". The Fashioner, as the Word of God, is not limited by time or place; it is without beginning or end. Since every contingent thing must have an origin, the Word of God is the Cause that has preceded the contingent world, that is being continuously re-created or "re-made" at all times. The Word of God is man's mystery, through which man must approach God.

As Bahá'u'lláh says in His Tablet of Wisdom, the Word of God "is higher and far superior to that which the senses can perceive, for it is sanctified from any property or substance. It transcendeth the limitations of known elements and is exalted above all the essential and recognized substances. It became manifest without any syllable or sound and is none but the Command of God which pervadeth all created things. It hath never been withheld from the world of being... Every thing must needs have an origi n and every building a builder. Verily, the Word of God is the Cause which hath preceded the contingent world - a world which is adorned with the splendours of the Ancient of Days, yet is being renewed and regenerated at all times." (Tablets pp 140-142)

THE FASHIONED AND THE FASHIONER:

All things are manifested from two entities: The "Fashioned" and the "Fashioner". The Fashioned is the primordial substance or primary matter. The "Fashioner" is the collective set of the names and attributes of God, the Word of God, the Inner Reality of all created things. Bahá'u'lláh mentions two principles inherent in the Word of God, the active force and its recipient. He states that the active force and its recipient "are the same, yet they are different. Thus doth the Great Announcement inform thee about this glorious structure. Such as communicate the generating influence [the attributes of God, that are collectively one as the Fashioner] and such as receive Its impact [primary matter or the Fashioned] are indeed created through the irresistible Word of God which is the Cause of the entire creation, while else besides His Word are the creatures and the effects thereof." (Tablets, pp 140-2)

ATTRIBUTES OF GOD:

`Abdu'l-Bahá qualifies God's attributes by saying: "God is the Ancient, the Almighty; His attributes are infinite. If He can be limited to human ideas, He is not God. Strange it is that, not withstanding these are self-evident truths, man continues to build walls and fences of limitation about God, about Divinity so glorious, illimitable, boundless. Consider the endless phenomena of His creation [or the contingent universe]. They are infinite; the universe is infinite." (Promulgation p 274)

The Manifestation of God is the totality of all the names and attributes of God. On the Word of God made manifest as a Messenger of God on earth, Bahá'u'lláh states: "Unto this subtle, this mysterious and ethereal Being He hath assigned a twofold nature; the physical, pertaining to the world of matter, and the spiritual, which is born of the substance of God Himself. He hath, moreover, conferred upon Him a double station. The first station, which is related to His innermost reality, representeth Him as One Whose voice is the voice of God Himself...The second station is the human station, exemplified by the following verses: `I am but a man like you.'" (Gleanings, pages 66-67)

ETHEREAL MATTER AND THE "EMPTY VOID":

What are the connections between the "empty void," ether, primary matter, space and time? What constitutes space and time? According to relativity theory, space and time are elastic. The contraction of moving objects and the dilation of time stems from th is. The electromagnetic field can also be described as a space-time curvature, distortion or warp. Space-time, according to Einstein, is elastic and is shaped or conditioned by various transitory forces or fields.

ETHEREAL MATTER:

The all-pervading ether acts in the physical world as a quantum reality filled with an infinite number of forms that give ril and real particles, and ban ks of energy from which mass, motion, charge, spin, energy, and whatever else is born. From this all- permeating ether also comes the world of the spiritually formed beings. From what `Abdu'l-Bahá says, ethereal matter is the basic substance and generator of all created things, both material and spiritual. This ether, according to Bahá'u'lláh, has "the cl osest likeness to the human spirit." (Tablets, p 146)

This ether, consisting of primary matter together with the active force that fashions it, becomes the "empty void" as an invisible power known only through the forces it exerts, such as electromagnetic radiation. This ether is an eternal reality that is spiritual in nature and corresponds to the constituent substance of all things, including that of the human spirit, that is fashioned with all of the names and attributes of God.

ETHEREAL MATTER AND THE BUDDHIST VOID:

The Void of the Buddha and Hinduism is beyond all power of words to explain. All the great Mahayana masters insist that this Void cannot be understood. In Sanskrit it is called Sunyanta, in Japanese Ku or Mu, in Chinese, Mu. All of these simply mean "Nothing." (No pun intended.) The best source for getting to know what can be known about it without a lifetime of Zazen is the Heart Sutra, the Paramita Sutra's very brief form. The key phrase there is: "Form is Emptiness [Void] and Emptiness is Form."(Suzuki , p 95) Although the Buddhist Void or Emptiness is equated with the Absolute, this does not mean that the Absolute is "Form" itself. The Absolute in reality is formless, without any form, name or attribute. This quote from the Heart Sutra is referring to a Manifestation of the Absolute, which is the totality of forms of all kinds, both physical and mental.

PRIMARY MATTER:

From the considerations made before, primary matter must be spiritual, formless, continuous as well as permeate the entire universe as "part" of the potential "inner reality" of all created things. Primary matter is the "Fashioned" and must be spiritual in nature. Primary matter has potentialities but is without form. It takes on form in its potentiality to become different things. The Fashioner, the Word of God, is above and separate from primary matter. The "Fashioned" is primary matter, that must also be spiritual in nature.

GOD OF ZEN BUDDHISM:

In an invited lecture to the Emperor of Japan, the famous Buddhist Professor Dr. Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, chose vital doctrines from the various Buddhist sects and presented what he claims to be the Essence of Buddhism: "As I see it, this is the summit of oriental thought as developed by the finest Buddhist minds, and represents Japan's contribution to world philosophy...We need to see God face to face, that we may live in each other...In Christianity self is non-assertive, and God stands above and besides the self. There is always a sharp distinction between the two, and the two are never merged. If there is a merging it takes the form of merging the self in God, and God never merges Himself in the Self. There is no mutuality between the two. In this sense Christianity is thoroughly dualistic, whereas in Buddhism God stands on the same level as man. God becomes man and man becomes god. Christians may think this reflects on the dignity of God, but Buddhism asserts not only the merging but the distinction i s retained, for merging does not efface distinction. God and man are distinct yet mutually merged." (Suzuki, p 67)

A NEW HUMAN RACE:

The simple truth appears to be that there lived on earth, "appearing at intervals of roughly one thousand years" among ordinary humans, the faint beginnings of another race. As in the days of Abraham, Moses, Krishna, the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, and now in the days of the Bab and Bahá'u'lláh, a new human race is being manifested or produced. It walks the earth and breathes the air with us, but at the same time walks another earth and breathes another air of which we know little or nothing. This progressiv e revelation produces evolutions in our spiritual life without which we would be spiritually dead. This new race is coming into being born from us, and in the near future it will occupy and possess the earth. This Kingdom of God on earth is presently tran sforming humanity with a new consciousness, a new life, a new soul.

The Bahá'í Faith is rapidly becoming a truly manifested World Order that no one can stop. This is its destiny. In the fulfillment of Lord Buddha and other Divine Teachers, Bahá'u'lláh has appeared with the revelation of a new world order, equipped with the essential means to thrust humanity as a whole out of the anarchy of prejudices, partisan politics, disunity, wars and human suffering into a new sphere of spiritual realization, on to a greater plane of human awareness and action, based upon universal application of equity, love, peace and fellowship, devoted to the goal of achieving humanity's full potential. The Impenetrable Void really exists. To gain an awareness of Its presence through Its infinitely divers and incredibly wonderful and perfect es sence is the truest Science and the purest Religion. Only a unified humanity can manifest Its Reality among us.

RETURN OF THE BUDDHA:

Thanks to Jamsheed Fosdar's studies, investigations and publications, (see Fosdar) we now have sufficient evidence regarding the time and the place of the greatest Spiritual Advent - He - Who unparalleled among any other claimants, past or present, meets the prerequisites described in the Scriptures of all the World Religions. He is the Blessed Beauty, Bahá'u'lláh, meaning the "Glory of God." He was born in Persia. Like Gautama Buddha, Bahá'u'lláh was born of an ancient and royal family. His father was th e Minister of State to the Shah of Persia. After His father's death, the Shah offered to Him His father's post of Minister of State. Like Gautama Buddha, however, Bahá'u'lláh declined. He busied Himself administering to the poor and the needy. Like the Bu ddha, He also searched for directions that would bring humanity to a new stature of dignity. Bahá'u'lláh heard of a young merchant in the city of Shiraz called the Bab who was heralding the Advent of "the Lord of the Age," Who would introduce a fresh spir itual age of Whom the Bab claimed to be the Forerunner. The Bab has an Arabic name that means "the Gate". The Bab was like John the Baptist. He declared His religion in 1844. Just as the Buddha was humiliated and harassed by the Brahmins, so was the Bab. Like the Buddha, the Bab faced the wrath of the Muslim clergy and civil leaders. For six years He taught and was tortured, imprisoned and finally martyred along with 20,000 of His followers.

Bahá'u'lláh's only offense was having advocated the Bab's call to a dissolute people to awaken and be ready to behold the appearance of an impending Spiritual Sun. While laying in a dungeon prison after being afflicted by torturers, He experienced the r are and mysterious call in the midst of His agonies. Like the Buddha, Who experienced the Revelation of His mission, Bahá'u'lláh saw the Spiritual Sun shining in His own Self. He was the Buddha, the Promised One of the Bab and awaited by all religions - t he Buddha Maitrya-Amitabaha. Powerless to destroy Bahá'u'lláh's will, His oppressors schemed with the Ottoman empire to banish Bahá'u'lláh, first to Baghdad, then to Constantinople and Adrianople, and finally to the fortress prison of Akka, in the Holy Land.

PROGRESSIVE REVELATION:

Bahá'u'lláh said that there is only one God Who educates humanity by sending His Messengers to us all down through the ages. This is Progressive Revelation: Adam, Abraham, Moses, Krishna, Buddha, Zoroaster, Jesus, Mohammed, the Bab and Bahá'u'lláh were all the same Word of God made flesh in different ages and in different bodies. The Bab and Bahá'u'lláh are the most recent Messengers.

Bahá'u'lláh's mission is to unite the peoples of the world. The Shrine of Bahá'u'lláh is in the Sharon Valley. As prophesied in Isaiah, Baha'ullah is the return of Christ in the Glory of the Father, the fifth Buddha, the tenth Avatar after Krishna. He w as a prisoner in solitary confinement for many years. He suffered for 40 years. During this time Bahá'u'lláh wrote over 100 volumes to guide humanity for the next 1000 years. Still a prisoner, He died in 1892 in the Holy Land. Today, there are over six million Bahá'ís from every nation, color, culture and religion throughout the world.

There are many prophecies concerning Bahá'u'lláh in the Buddhist Teachings. In the Buddhist books, Bahá'u'lláh is referred to as Maitrya Amitabha Buddha, the fifth Buddha after Gautama Buddha. The Buddha has shown us where, when and what to look for. We see in Bahá'u'lláh all of the signs and conditions of the Buddha's ancient Reality "in all its fullness and in all its purity." All the prophetic utterances of the Buddha have been completely fulfilled with "perfect knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as an educator, teacher of gods and men, an Exalted Buddha," the unique Guide for our era. (Fosdar, p 528)

ADDENDUM:

The struggle against the belief in the powers of the gods of Hinduism became the dominant passion of the early defenders of Buddhism. They found it, however, beyond their scope to achieve a true understanding of the allusions by the Buddha concerning the Universal Mind, the Self-Existent, the Un-Create or the Causeless Cause, [See Udana, 80-81]. Today, many Buddhist "fundamentalists," mostly western authors, repudiate faith in an all-pervading, omniscient and all-powerful Cause for the total scheme of things, physical and metaphysical - a misconception in which the Buddha could have had no role. Soon after the Buddha's passing, Buddhism was cleft with schisms. By the close of its first century, fourteen separate schools of thought on the meaning and purpo se of Buddha's Teachings had already started. Others soon followed. Hundreds of works that all claim the Buddha's authority contain most diverse and conflicting interpretations. (Fosdar, p 183)

In his forward to "The Way of the Buddha," published by the government of India, the saintly leader, Mahatma Gandhi addresses the conclusions that are made about the Buddha's rejection of a nonsensical concept of God: "I have heard it contended times wi thout number and I have read in books claiming to express the spirit of Buddhism, that the Buddha did not believe in God. In my humble opinion such a belief contradicts the very central fact of the Buddha's teaching. Confusion has risen over His rejection , and just rejection, of the base things that passed in His generation under the name of God. He undoubtedly rejected the notion that a being called God could be actuated by malice, could repent of His actions, and like the kings of the earth could possibly be open to temptation and bribes, and could have favorites.

God's laws are eternal and unalterable and not separable from God himself. It is an indispensable condition of His very perfection. Hence the great confusion that the Buddha disbelieved in God and simply believed in the moral law. Because of this confusion about God Himself arose the confusion about the proper understanding of the great word Nirvana. Nirvana is undoubtedly not utter extinction of all that is base in us, all that is vicious in us, all that is corrupt and corruptible in us. Nirvana is not like the black dead peace of the grave, but the living peace, the living happiness of a soul which is conscious of itself and conscious of having found its own abode in the heart of the Eternal."

REFERENCES

`Abdu'l-Bahá. "Tablet of the Universe," provisional translation by Dr. Ahang Rabbani of `Abdu'l-Bahá's Tablet of the Universe, from Makatib-i `Abdu'l-Bahá, vol 1, pp 13-32.
"Some Answered Questions" Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091, 1994.
"Selections from the Writings of `Abdu'l-Bahá," Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091, 1989.
"Promulgation of Universal Peace," Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091, 1987.
Bahá'u'lláh and `Abdu'l-Bahá. "Bahá'í World Faith," Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091, 1964.
Bahá'u'lláh. "Tablets of Bahá'u'lláh," Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091, 1990.
"Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá'u'lláh," Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Wilmette, Illinois, 60091, 1976. E. A. Burtt. "Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha," a Mentor Classic, 1955, edited by E.A. Burtt.
Jamsheed Fosdar. "Buddha Maitrya - Amitabha Has Appeared," Bahá'í Publishing Trust, Bahá'í House, 6 Canning Road, New Delhi.
Tevijja Sutra, I.i, "Digha-nikaya," a collection of 34 dialogues, a section of the Sutta-pitaka, part of the Pali canon.
Udana 8:3; Khudda Nikaya, cf translation in "Minor Anthologies."
Samyutta Nikaya, in the Sutta-pitaka, "Basket of Discourses," part of the Pali canon.
Plato, Volume 7, "Great Books of the Western World," published by Encyclopedia Britannica, 1952.
Einstein. "The Born-Einstein Letters," ed. I. Born, Macmillian, London, 1971.
"Scientific Papers Presented to M. Born on his retirement," Oliver and Boyd, London, 1953.
Dr. Daisetz T. Suzuki. Essays and a reprint of "The Essence of Buddhism," an invited lecture to H. M., The Emperor of Japan in April, 1946 in "What is Zen?," Harper & Row, 1972.
Mahatma Gandhi. "The Way of the Buddha," published by the Government of India, Indian Publishing Dept., 1952

Title : Introduction to Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics

Original page :

www.spaceandmotion.com/Philosophy-Fritjof-Capra.htm

Source : www.spaceandmotion.com

Metaphysics and physics. This is a personal website, which aims to "show how the Wave Structure of Matter explains and solves many of the current problems of human knowledge caused by the incomplete 'Particle' and 'Field' conception of matter in 'Space-Time'". Its authors focus a lot on the person and ideas of Fritjof Capra, famous scientist who wrote The tao of physics. By the way, this site is also a bit untidy ; so the text below is taken from its many clumsy parts.

Summary : Frijtof Capra’s best seller, The Tao oh Physics, has been published in 1975. In this book Capra explains the new relationships between modern physics (including quantum physics and relativity theory) and eastern religions and philosophies. According to him, these two fields join together while considering the universe like a dynamic unity composed of inter-related non-local particles. Then mystic intuition and rational science are likely to share the same basic conceptions, revealing the fundamental oneness of reality. Indeed, physicians admit that it is quite impossible to imagine the reality or quantum particles with our language and our thought ; this idea reminds with the definition of Tao : “the Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao”. Then we have to try to conceive a new reality with our old words, for instance the paradox of structure of atomic particles which are both waves and particles.

Résumé : Dans son célèbre livre Le Tao de la physique, Frijtof Capra présente les nouvelles connexions entre la science moderne et les philosophies orientales. En effet, ces deux domaines ont tendance à partager les mêmes idées d’un univers conçu comme un système global de particules inter-connectées. C’est en fait notre langage qui nous fait défaut pour appréhender ces nouvelles réalités physiques.

Lexicon :

to grasp : saisir

to cope with : faire face à

Introduction to Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics

Fritjof Capra, a fine Philosopher of Science, wrote the Tao of Physics in 1975, exploring the connection between modern physics (quantum theory) and Eastern mysticism / philosophy. Of most significance, is the understanding of the Universe as a dynamic interconnected unity. As Fritjof Capra writes;

In Indian philosophy, the main terms used by Hindus and Buddhists have dynamic connotations. The word Brahman is derived from the Sanskrit root brih – to grow- and thus suggests a reality which is dynamic and alive. The Upanishads refer to Brahman as ‘this unformed, immortal, moving’, thus associating it with motion even though it transcends all forms.’ The Rig Veda uses another term to express the dynamic character of the universe, the term Rita. This word comes from the root ri- to move. In its phenomenal aspect, the cosmic One is thus intrinsically dynamic, and the apprehension of its dynamic nature is basic to all schools of Eastern mysticism.

They all emphasize that the universe has to be grasped dynamically, as it moves, vibrates and dances. (Fritjof Capra, 1975)

The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. The cosmic web is alive; it moves and grows and changes continually. Modern physics, too, has come to conceive of the universe as such a web of relations and, like Eastern mysticism, has recognised that this web is intrinsically dynamic. The dynamic aspect of matter arises in quantum theory as a consequence of the wave-nature of subatomic particles, and is even more essential in relativity theory, where the unification of space and time implies that the being of matter cannot be separated from its activity. The properties of subatomic particles can therefore only be understood in a dynamic context; in terms of movement, interaction and transformation. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics)

Fritjof Capra is correct that matter can not be separated from activity, the error of modern physics has been in the conception of Motion as the motion of Matter ('subatomic particles') rather than the motion of Space.

Western Physics (with its 'particles' and 'forces' in 'Space Time' ) has never correctly understood the Eastern world view. It is also important to understand that the ancient Indian philosophers did not actually know how the universe was a dynamic unity, what matter was, how the One Thing / Brahman caused and connected the many things. Thus Eastern philosophical knowledge is ultimately founded on mysticism and intuition.

Recent discoveries on the properties of Space and the Wave Structure of Matter (Wolff, Haselhurst) suggests that we can understand Reality and the interconnection of all things from a logical / scientific foundation.

The One Thing / Brahman, (Space) has Properties (Wave-Medium) that give rise to the many things (Matter as the Spherical Wave Motion of Space). Thus explaining the universe as a dynamic, interconnected unity. Please see below for brief introduction to the Metaphysics of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure of Matter (WSM).

Fritjof Capra Quotes, The Tao of Physics, The Turning Point

Deep Ecology is rooted in a perception of reality that goes beyond the scientific framework to an intuitive awareness of the oneness of all life, the interdependence of its multiple manifestations and its cycles of change and transformation. When the concept of the human spirit is understood in this sense, its mode of consciousness in which the individual feels connected to the cosmos as a whole, it becomes clear that ecological awareness is truly spiritual. Indeed the idea of the individual being linked to the cosmos is expressed in the Latin root of the word religion, religare (to bind strongly), as well as the Sanskrit yoga, which means union. (Fritjof Capra, Turning Point, 1982)

The purpose of this book (the Tao of Physics) is to explore the relationship between the concepts of modern physics and the basic ideas in the philosophical and religious traditions of the Far East. We shall see how the two foundations of twentieth-century physics - quantum theory and relativity - both force us to see the world very much in the way a Hindu, Buddhist or Taoist sees it .. (Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics, 1975)

Introduction Fritjof Capra - Capra Quotes / Tao of Physics - Capra on Unity - Dynamic Universe - Physics & Quantum Theory

Fritjof Capra Links - On Truth and Reality: Summary & Purpose of Website - Search Website - Philosophy Shop - Top of Page

[Fritjof Capra - Tao of Physics - The Cosmic One is intrinsically dynamic, and the apprehension of its dynamic nature is basic to all schools of Eastern mysticism.] Fritjof Capra on the Unity of All Things, One

The most important characteristic of the Eastern world view - one could almost say the essence of it- is the awareness of the unity and mutual interrelation of all things and events, the experience of all phenomena in the world as manifestations of a basic oneness. All things are seen as interdependent and inseparable parts of this cosmic whole; as different manifestations of the same ultimate reality. (Capra, The Tao of Physics, 1975)

In ordinary life, we are not aware of the unity of all things, but divide the world into separate objects and events. This division is useful and necessary to cope with our everyday environment, but it is not a fundamental feature of reality. It is an abstraction devised by our discriminating and categorising intellect. To believe that our abstract concepts of separate ‘things’ and ‘events’ are realities of nature is an illusion. (Capra, The Tao of Physics, 1975)

The central aim of Eastern mysticism is to experience all the phenomena in the world as manifestations of the same ultimate reality. This reality is seen as the essence of the universe, underlying and unifying the multitude of things and events we observe. The Hindus call it Brahman, The Buddhists Dharmakaya (The Body of Being) or Tathata (Suchness) and the Taoists Tao; each affirming that it transcends our intellectual concepts and defies further explanation. This ultimate essence, however, cannot be separated from its multiple manifestations. It is central to the very nature to manifest itself in myriad forms which come into being and disintegrate, transforming themselves into one another without end. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p210)

A careful analysis of the process of observation in atomic physics has shown that the subatomic particles have no meaning as isolated entities, but can only be understood as interconnections between the preparation of an experiment and the subsequent measurement. Quantum theory thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe. It shows that we cannot decompose the world into independently existing smallest units. As we penetrate into matter, nature does not show us any isolated ‘basic building blocks’, but rather appears as a complicated web of relations between the various parts of the whole. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p78)

The ‘this’ is also ‘that’. The ‘that’ is also ‘this’… That the that and the this cease to be opposites is the very essence of the Tao. Only this essence, an axis as it were, is the center of the circle responding to endless changes. (Quoted in Fung Yu-Ling, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, 1958 p.112) (Capra, The Tao of Physics, 1975)

The Metaphysics of Space and Motion and the Wave Structure of Matter now provides this ‘clear metaphysical model’. A significant problem has been the conception of the ‘particle’ and thus the resulting paradox of the ‘particle / wave’ duality. These problems have caused great confusion within modern physics over the past seventy years, as Heisenberg, Davies and Capra explain;

Both matter and radiation possess a remarkable duality of character, as they sometimes exhibit the properties of waves, at other times those of particles. Now it is obvious that a thing cannot be a form of wave motion and composed of particles at the same time - the two concepts are too different. (Heisenberg, 1930)

The idea that something can be both a wave and a particle defies imagination, but the existence of this wave-particle “duality” is not in doubt. .. It is impossible to visualize a wave-particle, so don’t try. ... The notion of a particle being “everywhere at once” is impossible to imagine. (Davies, 1985)

The question which puzzled physicists so much in the early stages of atomic theory was how electromagnetic radiation could simultaneously consist of particles (i.e. of entities confined to a very small volume) and of waves, which are spread out over a large area of space. Neither language nor imagination could deal with this kind of reality very well. (Capra, The Tao of Physics, p56)

The solution to this apparent paradox is to simply explain how the discrete ‘particle’ properties of matter and light (quanta) are in fact caused by Spherical Standing Waves (Scalar Quantum Waves not Electromagnetic Vector Waves) which cause the Particle effect at their Wave-Center. For a more detailed explanation please see Quantum Theory: Particle Wave Duality

Beyond Language

The problems of language here are really serious. We wish to speak in some way about the structure of the atoms … But we cannot speak about atoms in ordinary language. (Heisenberg, The Tao of Physics, p53)

That every word or concept, clear as it may seem to be, has only a limited range of applicability. (Heisenberg, The Tao of Physics, p35)

The most difficult problem … concerning the use of the language arises in quantum theory. Here we have at first no simple guide for correlating the mathematical symbols with concepts of ordinary language: and the only thing we know from the start is the fact that our common concepts cannot be applied to the structure of the atoms. (Heisenberg, The Tao of Physics, p54)

The opening line of the Tao Te Ching: ‘The Tao that can be expressed is not the eternal Tao.' (Lao Tzu, The Tao of Physics, p37)

Well known Zen phrase: “The instant you speak about a thing you miss the mark.” (Capra, The Tao of Physics, p42)

The New Physics

The violent reaction on the recent development of modern physics can only be understood when one realises that here the foundations of physics have started moving; and that this motion has caused the feeling that the ground would be cut from science. (Heisenberg, The Tao of Physics, p61)

It seems probable to me that God in the beginning formed matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, movable particles, of such sizes and figures, and with such other properties, and in such proportion to space, as most conduced to the end for which he formed them; and that these primitive particles being solids, are incomparably harder than any porous bodies compounded of them; even so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide what God himself made one in the first creation. (Newton, The Tao of Physics, p64)

Every time the physicists asked nature a question in an atomic experiment, nature answered with a paradox, and the more they tried to clarify the situation, the sharper the paradoxes became. It took them a long time to accept the fact that these paradoxes belong to the intrinsic structure of atomic physics, and to realise that they arise whenever one attempts to describe atomic events in the traditional terms of physics. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p76)

Rutherford’s experiments had shown that atoms, instead of being hard and indestructible, consisted of vast regions of space in which extremely small particles moved, and now quantum theory made it clear that even these particles were nothing like the solid objects of classical physics. The subatomic units of matter are very abstract entities which have a dual aspect. Depending on how we look at them, they appear sometimes as particles, sometimes as waves; and this dual nature is also exhibited by light which can take the form of electromagnetic waves or of particles.

This property of matter and of light is very strange. It seems impossible to accept that something can be, at the same time, a particle- i.e. an entity confined to a very small volume- and a wave, which is spread out over a large region of space. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p77)

The apparent contradiction between the particle and the wave picture was solved in a completely unexpected way which called in question the very foundation of the mechanistic world view - the concept of the reality of matter.

At the sub-atomic level, matter does not exist with certainty at definite places, but rather shows ‘tendencies to exist’ and atomic events do not occur with certainty at definite times and in definite ways, but rather show ‘tendencies to occur’. In the formalism of quantum theory, these tendencies are expressed as probabilities and are associated with mathematical quantities which take the form of waves. This is why particles can be waves at the same time. They are not ‘real’ three-dimensional waves like sound or water waves.

They are ‘probability waves’, abstract mathematical quantities with all the characteristic properties of waves which are related to the probabilities of finding the particles at particular points in space and at particular times. (Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, p78)

Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, Wildwood House 1975

Title : Some thoughts on zen and modern physics

Original page : www.zen-deshimaru.com/EN/real-effect/science/zen-physique1.html

Source : www.zen-deshimaru.com

“The zen lineage of Deshimaru” website. Taisen Deshimaru was a famous zen monk. Originated from Japan, he introduced zen in Europe, especially in France, when it was almost unknown. He taught and trained the first French zen adepts. This website collects teachings, advices for zen practice and practical information.

Summary : This article is written by a zen monk who is also project leader at CERN (European centre on nuclear research). According to him, modern science and old zen ideas are complementary in seeking the same truth. As quantum physics broke apart old scientific certitudes, zen meditation and rational experiments seem closer one each other than ever. Non-locality principle, global knowledge making no difference between external world and internal conscience : new science joins old zen teachings in subjects like the importance of the vacuity (ku) and the conception of meditation as a way for a simple person to modify all the universe. Indeed, both approaches tend to consider life as a global system, and both abandon the idea of a single level of reality. Instead, several levels of reality and several universes can be imagined, knowing that they will stay anyway unknown to humans.

Résumé : Un moine zen physicien explique comment physique quantique et préceptes du zen ont des points de vue similaires concernant le monde qui nous entoure et notre conscience. Expériences scientifiques et méditation sont donc complémentaires pour aborder une réalité à plusieurs niveaux, constituée de particules en interconnexion qui forment un système global.

Lexicon :

to undergo : subir

to overrule : annuler

to embed : enfoncer

to pertain to : être relatif à

Some thoughts on zen and modern physics

By Dr. Vincent Vuillemin, zen monk, project leader at CERN in an experiment designed for the new accelerator of particles.

Until the beginning of our century, the scientific approach widespread in the Western World has always been based on the observation of the external phenomena which surround us, followed by an explanatory logical approach under the form of theories or models. Mankind was observing the world like an object of study separated from his own being. The reality of our world was perceived like an entity ruled by eternal laws unknown so far, by laws escaping our knowledge at the moment but whose discovery was considered as unavoidable and depending only on the progresses to get in our future observation means. Many people share anyway this opinion, thinking that any reality can be discovered provided that the telescopes or the microscopes become powerful enough.

This approach has the enormous disadvantage to entertain a separation between mankind itself and the surrounding universe. This is by the way the main cause of the troubles of our world in the domains of ecology and human relationships. This form of knowledge has overruled during the last centuries any other form of knowledge and has moreover totally shaded off in the western civilizations the intuitive and meditative knowledge, more widespread in the Middle Age. By the way, knowledge, science and technology should not be confused. The meditative approach, and in particular the one of the zen, is considered by many people as non scientific. It is an integrated approach, that is to say, at the same time, of the self and of the world to which we belong, immediate, spontaneous and direct. It is anyway easy to understand its basis given the fact that our cells are similar to all cells in the universe; we are of course constituted by the same atoms as everything in our observable universe. In that sense, the observation of the self, of the life which inhabits us, is the observation of one part of the whole thing, leading to the opening of a larger knowledge, spreading to our entire world.

The two approaches can be perceived as orthogonal, separated and impossible to be unified again. However the so-called modern physics has undergone and is still undergoing, first among other sciences, a profound revolution, breaking apart the certitudes that we had on the possibilities of our knowledge, ourselves as subjects and our external world as object of our knowledge. That happened with the arrival of quantum physics, time relativity, new notions of space and dimensions of our universe, in particular. These domains of physics were not expressed precisely of course by the historical zen Masters, but in many regards their profound intuition concerning the virtuality of time, the non separation between ourselves and our universe, is lighten up now in a obvious fashion by the new approaches of physics developed during the few past tens of years.

The content of these few lines is simply to suggest that the two approaches may be non contradictory but on the contrary quite complementary, immediate and integrated knowledge and knowledge based on the external observation and logic. Often anyway, the results of both approaches are very similar and drive us to a unique and global perception of our universe. In that sense bringing them together, still in recognizing their own limits, one due to the verification, the other one due to a fragmentary approach, is in itself interesting, every man having in himself the desire to integrate the scientific and, let us say, the religious worlds.

Quantum physics and intuitive knowledge.

The point here is obviously not to cover the field but to try to suggest, and not to completely explain, the parallelism between the teaching of the ancient Masters and what appears to be widely agreed by all in quantum physics. For that it is unavoidable to recall few basic concepts concerning quantum physics. These concepts are not immediately obvious for the ones, who like all of us, live in a macroscopic world.

The macroscopic world which surrounds us is ruled by laws of causes and consequences. In this world, matter is matter and waves, for example light, are waves. For example the waves are the movements of water and water is water, quite simply. In the microscopic world of quantum physics, things are not so clear. The duality to which we are accustomed in our everyday life is broken up. Similarly, we are used to observe interacting systems, where some information is transmitted across systems, for example by light or sound. However quantum physics has demonstrated that the duality between the waves and the particles, let's say the matter, should be overruled. The observation of some immediate phenomena has also shaken up our certainties.

Let us take a first example. Light does not exist at rest but is the propagation of a wave, of course at the speed of light. It is then not material, it would not be possible to have a table made of light because light does not exist at rest. On the other hand, the electron which is a small particle, in the sense of the current vocabulary, is not a wave. It so happens that light acts at the same time like a wave and like a particle, like a particle of light. The electrons, particles, behave also like waves and not like particles. Then what is reality? Is light a wave or a particle and is electron a particle or a wave? This concept of duality between waves and particles should then be overcome. In common language, another name should be invented, for example "parton". To talk about matter is certainly understandable in our everyday life, but in the microscopic world matter and energy are a same phenomenon.

In quantum physics, the way we observe a phenomenon defines the state in which it is projected in our macroscopic world. What is then the fundamental reality of things, if our observation itself defines, in the sense of our vocabulary, that we observe it either under the form of matter or the form of a wave, without any material consistence? It is then suggested that the single level of reality to which we are used must be overcome and that a new level of reality must emerge, in which these contradictions can be resolved, integrated, embraced. It is difficult for the mind to grab that, the human mind would like to conclude to the existence of a reality which remains hidden. That is not the case. This hidden real does not exist and the nature of things is embedded in this apparent contradiction, in the case where one limits oneself to a single level of reality. It is however possible to conceive a logic which allows, not to resolve the contradictions, but to accept them. It is another dimension of logic. The same in fact is true in our everyday life where we have to embrace the contradictions to which we are confronted.

In all times, zen Masters have asserted that matter is the phenomena (the wave, the electron) and that phenomena are matter (the electron, the wave). The fundamental nature of everything, matter, phenomena, is the vacuity, named ku. All things, all phenomena, including the phenomena of the mind, are in essence in ku, come from ku and go back to ku. The matter itself is a phenomenon and does not have any intrinsic existence, its essence is ku. Ku, although impossible to translate, suggests in a single word the vacuity, potentially inhabited by energy or matter; this comes to the same thing from the well-known Einstein's equation E=mc2. Today in physics, people talk about vacuity or field, which is in essence the same thing. In particle physics, the more we are trying to understand the foundations of matter, the more we find the vacuity. The vacuity is inhabited by interactive fields which materialize themselves when traversed by a primary grain, or by a grain of light, or by an energy perturbation. It somehow polarizes itself. A field is the scientific concept of ku, mentioned in buddhism from the oldest times. The concept of particles or waves is replaced by fields. On the same way that ku cannot be observed by itself, fields cannot be observed but they manifest themselves under different ways depending of the method of observation, or depending of the way they are projected in our macroscopic world.

The essence of this new physics was already contained in the intuition of the zen Masters. Today the intuitive and scientific approaches join each other, the immediate one, complete and expressed in terms full of imagery, the other one providing a verification of the first one by observations realized in our real world of everyday. The zen approach is the direct and intuitive approach of ku, the scientific approach, after multiple observations, deductions and contradictions to overcome, has found back this concept by another way.

Inter-dependence: interactions and non-local variables.

Let us take a second example. Let us start this time from the zen approach concerning inter-dependence. This inter-dependence is conceived as immediate and global. For example that can be translated in the following sentence: a person who practices zazen modifies the entire universe. Understand this sentence by contemplating an interaction which propagates itself first within our close environment, and then farther and farther is certainly justified. However it contains also a notion of immediate and universal action calling for no interaction propagating itself gradually, like if our whole universe were one, entirely linked and in complete inter-dependence. A priori, that seems to be in contradiction with the fact that in our world no interaction can propagate itself at a faster speed than the speed of light. According to this condition, billions of years would be needed until the influence of a person in zazen propagates itself to the frontiers of our universe. However in the last months, a new phenomenon was fully verified and established in physics, proving that a bound system in its initial conditions stays bound, and that changing one of its elements immediately modify the other ones. No signal would have the time to propagate itself from one part to the other one.

Two particles of light coming from the decay of an atom are emitted. These two particles of light are sent in opposite directions in kilometers of optical fibers. Although separated by kilometers their state stays bound, that is to say that a modification of the state of one of the particles is immediately observable on the other one, without any time for a signal to propagate itself, at the speed of light, from one to the other. The phenomenon is immediate, no spatial separation exists, space is discontinuous. That is a new level of reality. For the moment no mathematical formalism allows to pass from one level of reality to another one. To pass from the laws of the world of quantum physics to the ones of the macroscopic world. This experiment displays what the zen Masters had sensed in talking about inter-dependence among all beings, in the large sense of our universe, immediate inter-dependence, without any spatial separation. There are then in our universe phenomena which staid for a long time unknown from the scientific world, and which come closer of what was expressed from the beginning of buddhism.

Both approaches are complementary in the sense that intuition is certainly correct but can profit from the scientific observation to be verified and be projected as a real phenomenon in our visible world. One could compare this process to the projection of the world of Buddha, source of integrated intuition, in our everyday world, the world of the observation of the physical phenomena. Knowing that, the scientific approach, to the extent that it stays modest, can help the human being to understand the profound nature of things. Like Buddha was saying: if I tell you that I have a diamond in my closed fist, you would have to believe me. If I open my hand, you can see it. In that sense the scientific approach towards the understanding of our universe helps to open the hand, so everybody can see the diamond.

Another dimension in reality.

Along Planck's discovery, which is the basis of quantum physics, the energy has a discrete structure, discontinuous. Its building block is the quantum. That corresponds to a real revolution. We are used to a continuous world, made of relationship of causes to effects, of interactions from one place to another and of a linear time. How then can we understand a world made of discontinuous entities, the quanta. How can we understand the real discontinuity, that is to say how can we imagine that in between two points there is nothing, no objects, no atoms, no particles, just nothing? How, although physics has not really approached this subject and that time is still considered as a continuous variable, how can we understand the relationship between the time which flows away and the instant? How much time is there in between two instants? Is time a succession of instants? How to embrace at the same time the time which flows and the discontinuity of the instants? In physics a bizarre situation is established, the space-time of classical physics and the laws of quantum physics have been kept separately. This is really a bizarre situation which brings many problems in the understanding of our world.

We have seen that the classical concepts of material particles and waves are not quantum entities, very different from the objects of classical physics. One is lead to conclude that they are at the same time waves and particles, or are neither waves nor particles. We have to abandon the dogma of a single level of reality. The quantum objects are controlled by the laws of quantum physics, in rupture with the laws of the macroscopic world. There are two levels of reality. The simple logic where something and its contrary exist only separately should be overcome. For example if one stays in the single level of reality of the macroscopic world, the world of duality, waves and particles appear to be divided, it is a contradiction. The introduction of a new level of reality allows to overcome this contradiction. For example, in that reality waves and particles are in fact unified and called "partons".

The appearance of a level of reality where contradictions are overcome, are naturally embraced, is essential. From all times this level of reality pertains to the essence of knowledge in buddhism. During zazen, the apparent duality between body and mind is overcome by an integrated consciousness of the body-mind. This intuitive and integrated approach becomes an essential component of our way to look at things in our everyday life. We live, and consequently we can say that our time is flowing, but also we live only at each instant. If we remain in a single level of reality, we cannot bring the two together. During zazen, this contradiction disappears, the consciousness of time and instant are unified. It is an integrated approach, at the same time of the self and of the world to which we belong, immediate, spontaneous and direct. An approach in which the self and the world which surrounds us are reunified. That represents anyway the only way, the only hope for humankind, the essence of ecology, the respect and the compassion for all the beings.

Time in physics and instant.

It is enough to ask sincerely this question to realize that time is a concept which lives with us. Time has no being and is then not measurable by itself. It is perceived in function of things, in function of the human beings for example. In physics, time has been cleared of everything which makes its importance for us, its concept has been completely simplified, formalized, "mathematized". For example, in physics, time is without direction, past and future do not exist. The equations of general relativity are by the way symmetrical with respect to the time variable. This time is a time extremely simplified compared with the one we are living in and science had to develop huge efforts from the end of the 19th century to reestablish its reversibility.

We have kept in our minds this concept of linear time which flows away. It is real, that is enough just to observe the flow of our own life. But our consciousness of a time flowing in a regular and universal manner has profoundly changed in modern time.

In a chapter of the Shobogenzo, Uji, Master Dogen talks about the being-time. Countless documents have talked about time, also in physics about the arrow of time - the direction of time -, why it so happens that in our world time goes only in one direction. Until these last decades, time was considered in the western societies like an absolute entity. Time or moreover its measurement is extremely well defined. However in one hand, in the 13th century Master Dogen talked about the being-time, that is to say expressing the fact that outside of beings, outside of ourselves in particular, or more generally outside of any presence of matter, time does not exist in an absolute manner. Time is completely linked to beings. On the other hand within our century, Einstein has demonstrated that time is a relative concept, depending on the referential from which we observe it and which depends also on the masses in presence. Time has fallen from its pedestal of absolute variable.

One of the big Einstein's discovery has been to establish in the theory of the general relativity that time is not absolute but that its observation is modified by the presence of masses in our universe. In the absolute nothingness (called kakunen musho in the zen documents), time does not exist, first thing. To this regard, to talk about the beginning of our universe is to refer only to the inexact concept of an absolute time and not of a relative time, because the distribution of masses inside our universe is constantly changing. In that sense one could say that our universe has materialized suddenly from the infinity of time, that our universe and its own time are born at the same time, as one says currently. In buddhism, the concept of time separating the birth of a universe from its extinction is very vague and corresponds to the idea of kalpa. A kalpa is by the way also the time of a blink of an eye of Buddha, expressing this way that it does not have any real content or cannot be measured in an absolute way. That does not by the way prevent us to talk about any elapsed time, measured for example by the displacement of a clock hand.

The concept of time disappears on the cosmological level because no external referential to our visible universe exists to measure it. It is a concept which is internal to our own universe. The concept of a time measured between the appearance and the possible extinction of our universe does not have any signification in itself, one could talk about billions of years or fractions of seconds. On the other hand, inside our own universe, the measure of time is not absolute.

Dogen was not expressing something else, in other words. Our observation of time depends of where we are, depends and is linked to our being. Dogen first has realized that time was not an absolute concept; that has been observed and demonstrated by physics later on. But also, the knowledge of the relativity of time by physical observations allows the human being to become aware of the relativity and the impermanence of everything, the world is not perceived anymore like a fixed entity external to ourselves. Denying the impermanence of all things is certainly a source of suffering for the human being. On the other hand, the fundamental concepts in quantum physics lead us to see everything as constantly changing, in mutual interaction, linking anything to anything, like any human being to the other and to the world in which he lives.

The universe.

Ancient buddhism talks about a multitude of universes appearing and disappearing during countless kalpas. Like if each of these universes was similar to a bubble which grows, explodes, disappears, followed by other bubbles. Ourselves, we can only know our own bubble, which does not excludes that there could be other bubbles which will remain unknown to us, other universes for ever separated by the frontier of nothingness.

Ancient buddhism always talked about a multitude of countless universes, whereas the western science talked only about our own universe. How can we understand that? Although it is our everyday perception, we are not living in a universe made of straight lines. Einstein has demonstrated in the theory of general relativity that the geometry of our universe is curved by the action of the masses in presence, matter. We are then living inside a curved universe. The concepts of space and matter are linked together, space does not exist or does not have any signification without the presence of matter. Nothingness is then a concept which we cannot conceive because it has no time and no space. Our universe, although it appears to us naively infinite, finds its natural frontier at the blurred point where the influence of the masses which form it finishes. In that sense, it can be perceived as finite or infinite, because this frontier is blurred. Anyway our universe, taken in its totality, could be considered like an enormous black hole.

Nothing opposes the presence of multiple and countless universes, each of them being a complete stranger for the other, having no spatial nor time connection with any other. Universes are separated by nothingness, although in fact the concept of separation does not have any sense at all, because it cannot be measured by anything. The universes are disjoint. To talk about distance in between these universes does not mean anything, because there is no common geometry. The human being can only know or apprehend the universe in which he lives, the one which generated his own atoms and his own cells, like the ones of his brain for example. That does not prevent him to be able to suspect that his universe is not unique, even so if for himself his universe is in fact unique. The other universes remain for ever unknown to him, in that sense his own universe is unique.

When one talks about universe, it is important to understand if one talks about our own universe or about the collection of all disconnected universes. Looking at these remarks, it is probable that the human being starts to perceive an infinity much more immense than the one he considered so far. The universe of zen is infinite, people say. This infinity was sensed from the most ancient times. In our century this perception can be backed up by the scientific logic. This perception is born first from the generalized intuition of the world of Buddha.

The third millenium and in particular the 21st century will see more and more the unification of science and, lets say, of the religious world, of the integrated understanding of our universe, both marching hand to hand. That was the prediction of Master Deshimaru.

Title : Bibliography on paraphysics.

Original page : http://members.aol.com/jebco1st/Paraphysics/srchbibl.htm

Source : http://members.aol.com/jebco1st

This personal website has a single page, which consists in this bibliography taken from Yggdrasil : the journal of paraphysics, of 1998.

Summary : Paraphysics is not a joke of Alfred Jarry, but a serious research field on the limit between physics and parapsychology. One of its most famous individuals is a French, Olivier Costa de Beauregard, team director at the CNRS, who believes in telepathy and psychocinesy (the power of mind able to move or bend objects, matter). The list below shows that he is not the only one to be convinced that quantum physics provides with scientific evidences and explanations for paranormal activities.

Résumé : Téléphatie, télékinésie, psychocinèse… des scientifiques, à commencer par Olivier Costa de Beauregard (CNRS) pensent que la physique quantique apporte des preuves et des explications à des phénomènes paranormaux, la “paraphysique”.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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Robert H. Ashby, The Guide Book for the Study of Psychical Research. New York: Samuel Weiser, 1973.

James B. Beal, "The Emergence of Paraphysics: Research and Applications," in Mitchell, Psychic Explorations: 426-447.

James E. Beichler, "Twist 'til we tear the house down," Yggdrasil: The Journal of Paraphysics, 1 (Winter Solstice 1996) at ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/Paraphys.

James E. Beichler, "Ether/Or: Hyperspace Models of the Ether in America," in Stanley Goldberg and Roger H. Stuewer, editors, The Michelson Era in American Science, 1870-1930, American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings, #179. New York: American Institute of Physics, 1988: 206-223.

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J.S. Bell, "On the problem of hidden variables in quantum mechanics," Reviews in Modern Physics, 38 (July 1966): 447.

John Beloff, "Could There Be a Physical Explanation of Psi?" at moebius.psy.ed.ac.uk/~dualism/papers/physical.html; Originally published in The Relentless Question. McFarland, 1990.

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David Bohm, Causality and Chance in Modern Physics. Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1957.

David Bohm, Wholeness and the Inplicate Order. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.

David Bohm and B.J. Hiley, The Undivided Universe. London: Routledge, 1993.

C.D. Broad, "The Notion of 'Precognition'," in Smythies, Science and ESP: 165-196.

Robert T. Browne, The Mystery of Space: A Study of the Hyperspace Movement in the Light of the Evolution of New Psychic Faculties and An Inquiry into the Genesis and Essential Nature of Space. New York: Dutton, 1919.

Karl A. Brunstein, Beyond the Four Dimensions: Reconciling Physics, Parapsychology, and UFOs. New York: Walker and Company, 1979.

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C.T.K. Chari, "Some Generalized Theories and Models of Psi: A Critical Evaluation," in Wolman, Handbook, 1977: 803-822.

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Olivier Costa de Beauregard, "Quantum Paradoxes and Aristotle's Twofold Information Concept," in Tart, Puthoff and Targ, Mind at Large: 177-187; Also in Oteri, Quantum Physics and Parapsychology: 91-108.

Olivier Costa de Beauregard, "The Expanding Paradigm of the Einstein Theory," in Puharich, The Iceland Papers: 161-191.

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NOT A CONCLUSION

It is hard to put a conclusion on these subjects.

The less we can say is that new physics completely changed our views on the relationships between science and religion. These two fields now appear to be complementary parts of a global human search for a better knowledge concerning the external reality, and of course, his inner conscience.

M2RS

MARCH 2005

INTRODUCTION p. 3

1. THE QUANTUM REVOLUTION OF THOUGHT p. 4

2. RELIGIONS AND THE NEW PHYSICS p. 16

3. SPIRITUAL SCIENTISTS p. 47

Introduction to Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics, p. 48

Bibliography on "paraphysics", p. 58

NON-CONCLUSION p. 65

Physics and Philosophy

5
The Development of Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes in Comparison with the New Situation in Quantum Theory

Title : Common Grounds between Buddhism, Quantum Physics, and the Baha'i Faith

Common Grounds between Buddhism, Quantum Physics, and the Baha'i Faith

by Jack Coleman

M2RS

MARCH 2005

INTRODUCTION p. 3

1. THE QUANTUM REVOLUTION OF THOUGHT p. 4

2. RELIGIONS AND THE NEW PHYSICS p. 16

3. SPIRITUAL SCIENTISTS p. 47

Introduction to Fritjof Capra, Tao of Physics, p. 48

Bibliography on "paraphysics", p. 58

NON-CONCLUSION p. 65

Physics and Philosophy

5 The Development of Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes in Comparison with the New Situation in Quantum Theory

Title : Common Grounds between Buddhism, Quantum Physics, and the Baha'i Faith

Common Grounds between Buddhism, Quantum Physics, and the Baha'i Faith

by Jack Coleman

5
The Development of Philosophical Ideas Since Descartes in Comparison with the New Situation in Quantum Theory