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Quantum Mechanics

Does QM, in effect, devolve to a study of consciousness?

 

 

return to "Quantum Mechanics" main-page

 

 

Editor's prefatory comment:

During my initial studies of QM and consciousness, I was somewhat amazed to find a plethora of quotations by the "quantum fathers" plainly putting forth the importance of consciousness. Why isn't this acknowledged by modern science?

Here is a sampling:

 

 

Max Planck:

“I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”

“As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

Nikola Tesla:

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

Dr. Konstantin Korotkov:

“We are developing the idea that our consciousness is part of the material world and that with our consciousness we can directly influence our world.”

Erwin Schrodinger:

“The task is not to see what has never been seen before, but to think what has never been thought before about what you see every day.”

“Multiplicity is only apparent, in truth, there is only one mind.”

“Quantum physics thus reveals a basic oneness of the universe.”

“The total number of minds in the universe is one.”

"What we observe as material bodies and forces are nothing but shapes and variations in the structure of space. Particles are just schaumkommen (appearances). ... The world is given to me only once, not one existing and one perceived. Subject and object are only one. The barrier between them cannot be said to have broken down as a result of recent experience in the physical sciences, for this barrier does not exist."

“Our perceiving self is nowhere to be found in the world-picture, because it itself is the world-picture.”

“There is no kind of framework within which we can find consciousness in the plural; this is simply something we construct because of the temporal plurality of individuals, but it is a false construction... The only solution to this conflict insofar as any is available to us at all lies in the ancient wisdom of the Upanishad.”

“Every man's world picture is and always remains a construct of his mind and cannot be proved to have any other existence.”

“Vedanta teaches that consciousness is singular, all happenings are played out in one universal consciousness and there is no multiplicity of selves.”

“For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end.”

“Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else.”

“Consciousness is a singular for which there is no plural.”

“What is this ‘I’? You will, on close inspection, find that what you really mean by ‘I’ is the ground stuff upon which all experiences and memories are collected.”

Max Born:

“It is true that many scientists are not philosophically minded and have hitherto shown much skill and ingenuity but little wisdom.”

“We have sought for firm ground and found none.”

“The deeper we penetrate, the more restless becomes the universe; all is rushing about and vibrating in a wild dance.”

 

 

Editor's note:

The above quotations are but representative of a much larger cache to be found on the “Evolution” page. I must stop offering more here lest I reproduce the entire earlier writing; however, you will be well profited by reviewing the original article.

 

 

On the QM homepage, the following inset-box was presented featuring a view of the primacy of consciousness:

 

'the substratum of everything is of mental character'

Sir James Jeans (1877-1946)
Cambridge professor of mathematics and physics

"The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine… If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creation must have been an act of thought.”

 

Sir Arthur Eddington (1882-1944), FRS
Cambridge astronomer, physicist, and mathematician
 

He popularized relativity theory, with Einstein
suggesting his discourses to be "the finest
presentation of the subject in any language."

"Physics is the study of the structure of consciousness. The 'stuff' of the world is mindstuff."

“The universe is of the nature of a thought or sensation in a universal Mind… It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character.”

Editor’s note: Why do they say that the universe is of “mental character”? This inference is drawn from the results of the Double Slit Delayed-Choice Eraser experiments. These reveal that knowledge of data, its availability in terms of preserving a “consistent stable rule set,” determines outcome.  

 

 

These comments by Jeans and Eddington were attacked by materialists of the day. It’s interesting that these physicists were vilified for promoting consciousness-over-matter though many of the “quantum fathers” said the same thing, and even more vigorously.

It seems that the materialist “snipers” were intimidated by the august stature of ones such as Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, Schrodinger, Planck, and others, but felt more free to castigate lesser lights.

These “science wars,” in effect, are wars of philosophy and metaparadigm; even, a form of secular-religious war, to which Wolfgang Pauli jokingly alluded.

In this world, the forces of dark egocentrism will not give up. Too much is at stake for them, with needy little egos so craving and bereft. This is why Planck lamented that science progresses “one funeral at a time.”

 

 

It’s all very unfortunate.

Scientific progress is being held up by a clinging to outdated Newtonian views, largely, an insistence that matter is fundamental to reality. This is why there’s been a dearth of truly new inventions in the last decades, but merely a tweaking of former successes. A refusal to elevate consciousness as primary element of reality has held us back.

Nikola Tesla:

“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade than in all the previous centuries of its existence.”

"All the previous centuries"! - wow. Why aren't we in starships by now?

It’s hard to say, but Tesla just might have been the greatest scientist of history. He was dematerializing battleships in the 1940s.

And I think he was absolutely correct in asserting that modern materialistic science is suppressing new advances by its bigoted stance toward “non-physical phenomena”; that is, consciousness studies - which lies at the heart of QM.

 

 

Editor's last word: