Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Is Consciousness Quantum?
I AM Spirit ^ | February 14, 2006 | Tim Phares, RScP

Posted on 02/12/2006 9:37:11 PM PST by TBP

"Consciousness is the singular for which there is no plural," wrote the scientist Erwin Schroedinger. Schroedinger, famous for his theoretical disappearing cat, was one of the pioneers of quantum science.

Lately, I've been contemplating the idea, if I understand it correctly (I am emphatically NOT a scientist), that things in a quantum Universe are essentially wavicles -- potentially, at least, in several places at once, achieving locality only when observed. Only when we focus on them do they show up in a specific place called here.

The essential principle is that there is an observer consciousness that is the overriding force in the world, that we all live in that consciousness and that it reveals itself through each of us. It is only when it acts as us that the quantum wave of all things collapses and it settles into an "objective" reality, all other possibilities being discarded in this experience.

Well, isn't God like that? God is everywhere. God is Omnipresent. "There is no spot where God is not," as we often say in New Thought. Yet when we go into treatment and focus on a specific aspect or quality of God, it shows up right here. The nonlocal becomes local, as the scientists say, the only difference being that it is also simultaneously local to everyone else and in different ways.

Ultimately, of course, the observer and the observed are the same thing, but the Universe is set up in such a way as to be able to observe itself. Were it not set up in this way, it could never collapse the wave of potential and nothing would then occur, according to Dr. Amit Goswami, one of the scientists featured in the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know?”. There would be no choices made, thus there would be no resulting actions. The continued unfolding of the blessings of God requires an observation and an observed to interact and get the show on the road.

In his book The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World, Dr. Goswami produces a scientific case for the idea that consciousness drives what manifests in the world. He makes his case by means of quantum physics, but the ideas he discusses comport closely with New Thought.

Goswami defines consciousness as "the ground of being (original, self-contained, and constitutive of all things) that manifests as the subject that chooses, and experiences what it chooses, as it self-reflectively collapses the quantum wave function in the presence of brain-mind awareness."

The idea that consciousness is "original, self-contained, and constitutive of all things" and that it "manifests as the subject that chooses and experiences what it chooses" will be quite familiar to New Thoughters. This is quintessential New Thought philosophy.

Goswami discusses the quantum wave -- the existence of objects in a field of potentiality -- and the experiments that have shown that particles such as photons, even when separated by massive distances, can "communicate" and act in the same way instantly, defying the theorem that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. These particles have been shown to be able to be in more than one place simultaneously, until observed, at which time, a choice having been made, they collapse their quantum wave and concretize into a given state which is perceived.

Does the same thing happen for people? An experiment in which people who had established a mental bond were locked in metal boxes and one was stimulated to test his response showed that the other partner responded in essentially the same way, showing that these quantum properties apply also to macro objects such as people.

This is why that which is known anywhere in consciousness is known everywhere in consciousness. That is why treatment (scientific prayer) said anywhere works right where the person is who is being prayed for.

According to Goswami, Rene Descartes got it slightly wrong when he wrote "Cogito, ergo sum." ("I think, therefore I am.") It should be "opto, ergo sum" ("I choose, therefore I am.")

In New Thought, we say that it is all about choices. We are always at choice, and the choices we make determine what happens in our lives. It's not what we want, but what we choose. Our choices are revealed by our expectations. When our choices don't work for us anymore, in the words of A Course in Miracles, we simply "Choose Once Again." As we make new choices, new circumstances follow. The formless shows up in new forms, the nonlocal takes on new locality.

The process of creation is a quantum event continually unfolding as and through you. Will you choose to direct it and make your life what you desire it to be?


TOPICS: Apologetics; Current Events; Ecumenism; General Discusssion; Prayer; Religion & Science
KEYWORDS: consciousness; god; newthought; quantum; quantummechanics; religion
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last

1 posted on 02/12/2006 9:37:13 PM PST by TBP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: TBP

No.


2 posted on 02/12/2006 9:43:28 PM PST by quantim (If the Constitution were perfect it wouldn't have included the Senate.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TBP
Decisions, decisions, decisions. All I ever do is make decisions. Do I go to bed now or shall I finish reading the article? I can finish it tomorrow. So, I decide to go to bed now, hoping my bed and my bedroom is in the same place I left it. I would expect it to be. Or do I command it to be there? Or maybe I should pray that it will be there. Okay, I'll do all four. Expect, command, hope and pray.

Good article. Strange, but good.

3 posted on 02/12/2006 10:38:21 PM PST by Eastbound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TBP
Is Consciousness Quantum?

No, for then Consciousness would be finite, locked within the boundries of a word, Quantum.

4 posted on 02/13/2006 2:30:05 AM PST by IronManBike (Lodestar in the LoneStar)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TBP

Everything is.


5 posted on 02/13/2006 6:57:37 AM PST by onedoug
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TBP
"The process of creation is a quantum event . . . "

Input, process, output. The logic. It would seem that the quantum is the output of the process. The process would include a list of variables to choose from, then making the choices one decision at a time, then a sequential mixing or manipulation of those variables (data), which produces a particular output which would exist as discrete forms of solidness in the quantum. Or actually is the quantum -- --the product, the output, the creation.

So consciousness must be the programmer. The intelligence that wants to create a product, or a situation.

(I think too many people are nothing but data, things to be processed and manipulated in someone else's programs -- programs written by a lesser and not so benign intelligence.)

Many ways to apply the logic here, TBP. Making my synapses fire at the quantum level.

As above, so below. The 'above' is the intelligence where the program is written, the 'below' is the quantum universe, the product.

Let me offer this model: Perhaps the firing synapses of the intelligence bump into the membrane surrounding the quantum and cause all those little superstrings in the potential to jump around -- which become data points in a micro-program, the output of which become data points, parameters passed to the macro-program, all working in concert to provide a universe.

Now why the universe was created is another topic. I'll think about that.

6 posted on 02/14/2006 9:44:41 AM PST by Eastbound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Eastbound

The computer model of mind is similar to the pre-computer model of afferent-efferent nerves plus memory. We still don't know how the will can cause an efferent nerve to fire. Or at least I don't know. The radio model rather than the computer model seems to apply to the thesis of this article.


7 posted on 02/14/2006 9:50:05 AM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Eastbound
"Now why the universe was created is another topic. I'll think about that."

Lemme re-word that. Now why the universe is continually created (or re-created) is another topic. I'll think about that.

8 posted on 02/14/2006 9:50:52 AM PST by Eastbound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: TBP

Quondam Phone.


9 posted on 02/14/2006 10:21:18 AM PST by Flavius Josephus (Enemy Idealogies: Pacifism, Liberalism, and Feminism, Islamic Supremacism)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TBP

Consciousness is analog.


10 posted on 02/14/2006 10:23:27 AM PST by MortMan (Trains stop at train stations. On my desk is a workstation...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: RightWhale
"We still don't know how the will can cause an efferent nerve to fire."

How about, the intensification of desire (a focal point of consciousness existing outside of quantum) causes mini-orgasms (in a manner of speaking) for the production and release of radio signals. Signals which have their origin outside of the quantum, but can penetrate the membrane and excite the potential -- like sperm penetrating the egg.

Concerning the activity of intense desire, it could be in the same realm or comparable to the mechanics of having a wet-dream and experiencing mental orgasm (release) but the physical body was in no way effected, responsive, or involved. (But you reach for a cigarette anyway. Heh.)

I hope I'm understanding your reference to radio here. I'm not familiar with it.

11 posted on 02/14/2006 10:24:47 AM PST by Eastbound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Eastbound
So consciousness must be the programmer. The intelligence that wants to create a product, or a situation.

As the article says, that consciousness that Goswami describes as "the ground of all being" is both teh programmer and the program. It is the observer and the observed.

As above, so below. The 'above' is the intelligence where the program is written, the 'below' is the quantum universe, the product.

As within, so without. This is how a quantum Universse works. The observer and the observed, the programmer and the program, the above and the below, the internal and the external are aspects of the same quantum wave of the All-in-All.

Let me offer this model: Perhaps the firing synapses of the intelligence bump into the membrane surrounding the quantum and cause all those little superstrings in the potential to jump around -- which become data points in a micro-program, the output of which become data points, parameters passed to the macro-program, all working in concert to provide a universe.

And we do the same thing with our patterns of thought, creating our Universe by the neural connections we create in our brains with our thought.

Now why the universe was created is another topic. I'll think about that.

The Universe continues ot be created anew every moment. "Behold, I make all things new again."

12 posted on 02/14/2006 10:36:03 AM PST by TBP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: IronManBike
No, for then Consciousness would be finite, locked within the boundries of a word, Quantum.

Quantum is an aspect, a way of operating. It does not necessarily make it finite.

13 posted on 02/14/2006 10:37:41 AM PST by TBP
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: TBP
"Quantum is an aspect, a way of operating. It does not necessarily make it finite."

As an aspect, a way of operating Quantum is thus defined, placing Conciousness within boundries--as does your opinion :>

14 posted on 02/14/2006 11:39:50 AM PST by IronManBike (Lodestar in the LoneStar)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: TBP
"The Universe continues ot be created anew every moment. "Behold, I make all things new again.""

Yes, I corrected myself in # 8.

"As within, so without. . . . "

Well, of course everything has to exist concurrently in the mind of the creator. In, out, above, below, up, down, are relative to your reference point.

But the quantum is maya in the mind of the creator, right? As our dreams are maya. So as our intelligence exists in a state non-connected to our dreams when we are not dreaming, can I say so must the Creator intelligence exist in a state non-connected to the universe in any physical way, but only through inversion, when the dream becomes the dreamer? The transferrence occurs when the quantum gates are stormed, perhaps, as you say, continually. Well, at least in Planck time, for I don't think motion is smooth, but only has the appearance of smoothness because of the after-image effect. Similar to a film strip which creates the illusion of smooth motion, the after-images in the brain blend smoothly with the next incoming static scene (frame).

The blank spots seperating the images on the film could correspond to Planck time, the see-don't see, on-off blink. If so, then things in motion can only be observed because of the blank part separating the images on the film, the visual on-off shutter in our brain which holds the after-image of the previous scene (location), otherwise everything would be a blur.

To apply that analogy, could it be there is no such thing as motion, but only a re-locating of static three dimensional objects (discrete blocks of energy in motion at the micro level) -- disappearing and re-appearing continually in different three directional time/space coordinates in Planck time along a plane (direction) concordant to our expectations and will?

Yeah, I know I'm stretching, but just trying to draw models. I'm not sure I understand what I'm saying here. Things start getting fuzzy at the 'ring-pass-not.' 0:)

15 posted on 02/14/2006 12:10:53 PM PST by Eastbound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Eastbound

The radio model is less well-known than the computer model that assails us on all sides like car ads, but the computer is older than the radio so maybe the radio model will catch up eventually. The question, which has a lot of presupposition built in, is: where or what is the mind? and how does it interact with the body? If the mind is an electric field, could not a mass of hydrogen gas have a mind? and what is the difference between the electric mindfield in the vicinity of the brain and the electric field around a radio transmitter? That's more than one question, bujt maybe somewhere in there is a filetab where the subject can be opened up properly.


16 posted on 02/14/2006 12:54:11 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: TBP

What the heck is a RScP?


17 posted on 02/14/2006 12:55:33 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: TBP
Lately, I've been contemplating the idea, if I understand it correctly (I am emphatically NOT a scientist), that things in a quantum Universe are essentially wavicles.

Nossir.

All things in the univers are essentially popsicles.

18 posted on 02/14/2006 12:56:23 PM PST by Lazamataz (Islam is a fatal disease that must be eradicated from the body Earth.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Eastbound
The blank spots seperating the images

Some say the entire world is recreated thirty times a second. Maybe thirty is a low number. In any case the image our mind has of the world may be recreated thirty times a second whether or not the mind creates the world or merely perceives it.

19 posted on 02/14/2006 1:00:19 PM PST by RightWhale (pas de lieu, Rhone que nous)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: Flavius Josephus
"Quondam Phone."

rings mainly on the plain in Spain where I built my quonset home.

20 posted on 02/14/2006 1:41:37 PM PST by Eastbound
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-6061-63 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson