You aren't including the ideas of Lothar Schafer in that generalization, are you? Schafer is an expert in quantum mechanics. A former professor of physical chemistry.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22lothar%20schafer%22&sm=12
Posted on 01/17/2014 7:43:11 PM PST by DaveMSmith
You aren't including the ideas of Lothar Schafer in that generalization, are you? Schafer is an expert in quantum mechanics. A former professor of physical chemistry.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22lothar%20schafer%22&sm=12
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Lothar Schafer CHEM 218 Degrees:Ph.D., University of Munich, 1965 |
Lothar Schäfer and his coworkers are interested in applying Computational Chemistry to the structural and dynamical properties of proteins. Recently we developed an algorithm that allows predicting backbone bond lengths and angles in proteins from first principles (i.e. ab initio calculations of peptides) with accuracy similar to that afforded by high resolution protein crystallography. In cooperation with Prof. Kris van Alsenoy of the University of Antwerp in Belgium, an investigation is under way to study the normal modes of vibration of proteins as a basis of modeling protein folding mechanisms.
In a second project the general quantum nature of molecules is explored as a basis to support the pre-Darwinian view of evolution by natural law. Pre-Darwinian biologists believed that life forms are necessary and not contingent, and they wanted to explain the diversity of life forms by natural law, not by natural selection. As described in a series of recent papers (Lothar Schäfer, Zygon, 41(3), (2006) 505-532; ibid. 573-582; ibid. ; ibid. 593-598.) these views have found new support in the quantum nature of molecules.
To expand on that still very mysterious physical phenomenon...
Question: What is Quantum Entanglement?
The classic example of quantum entanglement is called the EPR paradox. In a simplified version of this case, consider a particle with quantum spin 0 that decays into two new particles, Particle A and Particle B. Particle A and Particle B head off in opposite directions. However, the original particle had a quantum spin of 0. Each of the new particles has a quantum spin of 1/2, but because they have to add up to 0, one is +1/2 and one is -1/2.
This relationship means that the two particles are entangled. When you measure the spin of Particle A, that measurement has an impact on the possible results you could get when measuring the spin of Particle B. And this isn't just an interesting theoretical prediction, but has been verified experimentally through tests of Bell's Theorem.
One important thing to remember is that in quantum physics, the original uncertainty about the particle's quantum state isn't just a lack of knowledge. A fundamental property of quantum theory is that prior to the act of measurement, the particle really doesn't have a definite state, but is in a superposition of all possible states. This is best modeled by the classic quantum physics thought experiment, Schroedinger's Cat, where a quantum mechanics approach results in an unobserved cat that is both alive and dead simultaneously.
One way of interpreting things is to consider the entire universe as one single wavefunction. In this representation, this "wavefunction of the universe" would contain a term that defines the quantum state of each and every particle. It is this approach that leaves open the door for claims that "everything is connected," which often gets manipulated (either intentionally or through honest confusion) to end up with things like the physics errors in The Secret.
Though this interpretation does mean that the quantum state of every particle in the universe affects the wavefunction of every other particle, it does so in a way that is only mathematical. There is really no sort of experiment which could ever - even in principle - discover the effect in one place showing up in another location.
http://physics.about.com/od/quantumphysics/f/QuantumEntanglement.htm
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The EPR Paradox
The EPR Paradox (or the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen Paradox) is a thought experiment intended to demonstrate an inherent paradox in the early formulations of quantum theory. It is among the best-known examples of quantum entanglement. The paradox involves two particles which are entangled with each other according to quantum mechanics. Under the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, each particle is individually in an uncertain state until it is measured, at which point the state of that particle becomes certain. At that exact same moment, the other particle's state also becomes certain.
The reason that this is classified as a paradox is that it seemingly involves communication between the two particles at speeds greater than the speed of light, which is a conflict with Einstein's theory of relativity.
The paradox was the focal point of a heated debate between Albert Einstein and Niels Bohr. Einstein was never comfortable with the quantum mechanics being developed by Bohr and his colleagues (based, ironically, on work started by Einstein). Together with his colleagues Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen, he developed the EPR Paradox as a way of showing that the theory was inconsistent with other known laws of physics. (Boris Podolsky was portrayed by actor Gene Saks as one of Einstein's three comedic sidekicks in the romantic comedy I.Q..) At the time, there was no real way to carry out the experiment, so it was just a thought experiment, or gedankenexperiment.
Several years later, the physicist David Bohm modified the EPR paradox example so that things were a bit clearer. (The original way the paradox was presented was kind of confusing, even to professional physicists.) In the more popular Bohm formulation, an unstable spin 0 particle decays into two different particles, Particle A and Particle B, heading in opposite directions. Because the initial particle had spin 0, the sum of the two new particle spins must equal zero. If Particle A has spin +1/2, then Particle B must have spin -1/2 (and vice versa). Again, according to the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, until a measurement is made, neither particle has a definite state. They are both in a superposition of possible states, with an equal probability (in this case) of having positive or negative spin.
There are two key points at work here which make this troubling.
If you measure Particle A, it seems like Particle A's quantum spin gets "set" by the measurement ... but somehow Particle B also instantly "knows" what spin it is supposed to take on. To Einstein, this was a clear violation of the theory of relativity.
No one ever really questioned point 2; the controversy lay entirely with point 1. David Bohm and Albert Einstein supported an alternative approach called "hidden variables theory," which suggested that quantum mechanics was incomplete. In this viewpoint, there had to be some aspect of quantum mechanics that wasn't immediately obvious, but which needed to be added into the theory to explain this sort of non-local effect.
As an analogy, consider that you have two envelopes that contain money. You have been told that one of them contains a $5 bill and the other contains a $10 bill. If you open one envelope and it contains a $5 bill, then you know for sure that the other envelope contains the $10 bill.
The problem with this analogy is that quantum mechanics definitely doesn't appear to work this way. In the case of the money, each envelope contains a specific bill, even if I never get around to looking in them.
The uncertainty in quantum mechanics doesn't just represent a lack of our knowledge, but a fundamental lack of definite reality. Until the measurement is made, according to the Copenhagen interpretation, the particles are really in a superposition of all possible states (as in the case of the dead/alive cat in the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment). While most physicists would have preferred to have a universe with clearer rules, no one could figure out exactly what these "hidden variables" were or how they could be incorporated into the theory in a meaningful way.
Niels Bohr and others defended the standard Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, which continued to be supported by the experimental evidence. The explanation is that the wavefunction which describes the superposition of possible quantum states exists at all points simultaneously. The spin of Particle A and spin of Particle B are not independent quantities, but are represented by the same term within the quantum physics equations. The instant the measurement on Particle A is made, the entire wavefunction collapses into a single state. In this way, there's no distant communication taking place.
The major nail in the coffin of the hidden variables theory came from the physicist John Stewart Bell, in what is known as Bell's Theorem. He developed a series of inequalities (called Bell inequalities) which represent how measurements of the spin of Particle A and Particle B would distribute if they weren't entangled. In experiment after experiment, the Bell inequalities are violated, meaning that quantum entanglement does seem to take place.
Despite this evidence to the contrary, there are still some proponents of hidden variables theory, though this is mostly among amateur physicists rather than professionals.
http://physics.about.com/od/physicsetoh/g/EPRparadox.htm
>>Also on the quantum theory idea, there is measurable instantaneous
>>interaction with quantum particles in distant locations.
>>It opens the possibility of “another universe” interacting with our consciousness before death.
Lothar Schafer:
“Mind-stuff, in a part of reality behind the mechanistic foreground of the world of space-time energy sensibility, as Sherrington called it, is not restricted to Einstein locality. The existence of non-local physical effects - faster than light phenomena - has now been well established by quantum coherence-type experiments like those related to Bell’s Theorem. If the universe is non-local, something that happens at this moment in its depths may have an instantaneous effect a long distance away, for example right here and right now. By every molecule in our body we are tuned to the mind-stuff of the universe.
In this way the quantum phenomena have forced the opening of a universe that Newton’s mechanism once blinded and closed. Unintended by its creator, Newton’s mechanics defined a machine, without any life or room for human values, the Parmenidian One, forever unchanging and predictable, “eternal matter ruled by eternal laws”, as Sheldrake wrote. In contrast, the quantum phenomena have revealed that the world of mechanism is just the cortex of a deeper and wider, transcendent, reality. The future of the universe is open, because it is unpredictable. Its present is open, because it is subject to non-local influences that are beyond our control. Cracks have formed in the solidity of the material world from which emanations of a different type of reality seep in. In the diffraction experiments of material particles, a window has opened to the world of Platonic ideas.
That the universe should be mind-like and not communicate with the human mind - the one organ to which it is akin - is not very likely. In fact, one of the most fascinating faculties of the human mind is its ability to be inspired by unknown sources - as though it were sensitive to signals of a mysterious origin. ...”
Yes, unless you stipulate God, the Logos, the WORD (thought becoming matter) is the Ultimate Consciousness. That was George Berkeley's resolution.
Spirited: Monism is like a coin. On one side is ancient Greek Atomism--the idea that life and mind mechanically emerged out of physical matter.
The Greek Atomist Epicurus (341–270BC), the father of contemporary 'scientific' materialism and many of its’ modern assumptions (the barbaric view), taught that there was no need of a God or gods, for the Universe came about by a chance movement of atoms. (Evolution: An Ancient Pagan Idea, Paul James Griffith, creation.com)
Greek and Roman philosophers received their ideas from ancient Sumerians (Babylonians), Egyptians and Hindus, whose nature philosophies extended back centuries before Greek and Roman civilization.
For example, one Hindu belief was that Brahman (the Void or Universe) spontaneously generated itself (the modern theories of Big Bang and abiogenesis) as something like a seed or singularity about 4.3 billion years ago and then evolved under its’ own power by which it expanded and formed all that exists:
“These Hindus believed in an eternal Universe that had cycles of rebirth, destruction and dormancy, known as ‘kalpas’, rather like oscillating big bang theories. We also read in the Hindu Bhagavad Gita that the god Krishna says, ‘I am the source from which all creatures evolve.” (ibid, Griffith)
In India the doctrine of evolution/reincarnation/karma was thoroughly established from ancient times. It was expounded first in the Upanishads (c. 1000 BC - AD 4), the philosophical-mystic texts held to be the essence of the Vedas.
Atomism--the barbaric view---is now being supplanted by its' flip side, Advaita (monism)---the idea that life, mind, and souls,
"... are determined by quantum waves, - probability amplitudes which carry numerical relations, but are devoid of mass and energy. As a consequence of the wave-like aspects of reality, atoms do not have any shape - a solid outline in space - but the things do, which they form; and the constituents of matter, the elementary particles, are not in the same sense real as the real things that they constitute."
The Babylonian (Sumerian) Enuma Elish is the most ancient evolutionary cosmogony bespeaking a universe of watery chaos, or primordial matter. It is the post-flood seedbed for all Mystery Religions, Hermetic magic, all nature systems, pantheism, evolutionary thinking, Eastern Advaita (monism), reincarnation, occultism, spiritualism, the esoteric Kabbalah's Doctrine of Emanation and today's so-called "science"---New Physics.
According to the doctrine of emanation, the entire universe, all spirit, life, and even all of the gods, human beings, and everything else, came about by a process of emanation (or unfolding, emergence or evolution) from Ein Soph--the divine one substance or Void.
Just as waves form across the surface of the ocean, so the Void forms upon itself successive waves (emanations) of entities that in turn emanate further entities and so on, with all of these entities interacting within an extraordinary network or great chain of being consisting of downward-descending self-contained planes of existence, a top-down hierarchy of astral plane realities arranged vertically.
Each higher plane of existence emanates the one below it through a process of emanation, thus each plane stands in the position of god to the one below. Therefore creation is not creation ex nihilo, as the Genesis account teaches, but emanation out of the Void.
Each plane of existence has its own specific characteristics, thus there can be a plane where spirit or thought forms exist; where the Gnostic demiurge, the evil Jehovah, god of material creation exists; the realm of the deities, demons, heavens, hells, angels, and so on, realm upon realm, all looking downwards to the physical realm and also looking upwards to the Void or quantum vacuum.
The rebellion against the personal God of creation surfaced during the Renaissance, redoubled during the Enlightenment, exploded in rage and genocide during the 20th century, and is coming to its fullness in time during our own age: Westerners have gone full circle from Atomism to Advaita monism.
The essence of Monism---whether of the Atomistic kind or the Eastern pantheist/Quantum Void kind, is nihilism, meaning there is Nothing There. There is No Ultimate Source for life, soul, meaning, purpose, truth, morality.
Okay, what do you have to replace it with?
Here's Herbert. I remembered reading his book about 15 years ago but forgot his name.
HERBERT: A computer, or some receptacle similar enough to human minds, that a discarnate could inhabit. And since I believe that quantum mechanics is at the basis of our consciousness, that somehow the reason we are conscious is not because we are really good computers -- because actually we're not very good computers at all; our consciousness pretty much impedes in some senses our computational facilities. Consciousness is really a luxury, so for whatever reason, I believe that somehow quantum theory has to do with consciousness. So any quantum system would do, but then it needs to be coupled to a level we can understand. So the metaphase typewriter used a quantum system coupled through a computer to a language-generating device, and it typed out English, and the English came from nowhere. It came from absolute quantum randomness, generated by a radioactive source. We put the metaphase typewriter in very high-energy psychic realms and tried to invoke spirits to come into it and take over its keyboard.
Sounds like Herbert started dabbling in the occult.
Yes. My only point is that most everyone accepts the idea that some things are non-materialistic so long as those things are not “God related” (especially in the Judeo-Christian Tradition).
Essentially, you have 3 choices. Either one of two kinds of monism: the "barbaric" view (mechanistic Atomism) or the Eastern Advaita view of the New Phycisists, occult New Age, Theosophy, Vedanta Hinduism, Buddhism, etc. Or--- the supernatural personal God of creation.
The first two are types of naturalism positing life and mind from either chemicals or psychic energy. As neither kind can account for life and mind from chemicals or energy both are types of nihilism, meaning there is nothing there but delusion.
Only with the 3rd option is there an ultimate source for life and mind.
As you are endowed with will (which options 1 & 2 deny as there is no source for will), the choice is yours to make.
If I am endowed with will, I don't see any reason why I have to choose only the options you give me.
If it were only Spirited ‘giving’ those options then you would be correct. Many of us here at FR ascribe to the belief that it is God Who gives those options and gives you the sovereign right to choose, thus He is Just.
He pinged me to the thread, and replied to the post. How should I address the reply to be appropriately inclusive?
Not sure if this is the right place for it... But here’s my theory.
The Universe teems with life. The physical manifestation we experience is all of that Spirit life taking physical form. If the physical form is damaged, that connection from Spirit to Flesh can get garbled or broken entirely.
Take into consideration modern neuroscience. When our physical selves are damaged, it can lead to everything from aberrant behavior to various types of aphasia, dysarthria, or various types of synesthesia. Remapping those damaged areas, or even bridging them, restores normal function as our “connection” with the flesh is repaired.
It’s like the old saying, “the lights are on, but no ones home.” With damage/mutation to our physical selves, it’s like we’re trying to get in the house, but our keys no longer work.
From what we know of information at the quantum level, it’s to all intents and purposes infinitely dense. More than enough space for us all to experience as “heaven”, or “hell” in all its forms.
Not sure I explained that as elegantly as I could have, but there it is...
If I am endowed with will, I don’t see any reason why I have to choose only the options you give me.
Spirited: Playing the victim is so very obviously your favorite role. Have you awarded yourself an Oscar for it as yet?
Do you really want to start with the personal attacks here?
The impersonal ones should be sufficient.
This entire thread is based on unmeasurables that are also undefinable.
Sufficient for what?
Wonder what the non-materialists do with .........
Scientists talk about it practitioners do it. It is always fun to see “new” discoveries in science, like sub-atomic particles, that were well described centuries ago.
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