QUANTUM.TXT 110896

REVOLUTION IN COMMON SENSE

QUANTUM METAPHYSICS

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ABSTRACT

This paper postulates a multidimensional model of the universe,

based on recent developments in physics and biology. We cannot

see the multidimensional reality because our senses are limited

to three dimensions, yet the higher-dimensional environment has

a more substantial reality than our world. This is so because

our three-dimensional world is only a subset of the

multidimensional system. An interrelated set of holistic

principles is developed. The multidimensional world is

then explored with this holistic logic system. This leads to

common-sense interpretations of quantum physics effects and

provides plausible answers to many unresolved questions, such

as the whole versus parts problem, mind-body interaction, the

inner structure of the human psyche, the beginning of life, and

the creative nature of evolution. Other logical conclusions

lead naturally to key tenets of world religions.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

1. INTRODUCTION . . . 1

2. LIMITATIONS OF COMMON SENSE. . 1

SPACE-TIME . . . 1

ENERGY-MASS . . . 3

WAVE-PARTICLE . . . 3

TWIN PARTICLES . . . 3

MIND-BODY . . . 4

THE THRESHOLD . . . 4

3. THE KEY CONCEPTS . . . 5

MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS . . 5

THE WHOLE AND ITS PARTS: THE HOLON 8

HOLON EXAMPLES . . . 11

4. THE HOLISTIC UNIVERSE . . 13

GROUP ENTITIES . . . 13

THE TOTAL SYSTEM . . 17

Multidimensional Pyramid 17

Multiple Holons . . 17

All-Entity . . 19

The Nature of Time . 22

The Human Psyche . 23

Multiple Worlds . . 28

Causality . . 31

5. PRACTICAL IMPACT . . . 32

IMPACT ON THE INDIVIDUAL . 32

IMPACT ON SOCIETY . . 34

6. CONCLUSION . . . . 36

GLOSSARY . . . . 37

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . 37

FOOTNOTES . . . . 39

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1. INTRODUCTION

Our common sense is not a reliable basis for correct judgements.

There is no common sense on which all people agree. With time,

major shifts occur in what people believe to be true, resulting

in revolutionary changes in society. Such a shift is now under

way. Scientists are talking about an impending "paradigm shift"

(1)(2)(3), and free thinkers are anticipating a "New Age".

While most scientific people tend to spurn New Age ideas, it can

be shown that both developments are aspects of the same basic

change in human perception of reality.

This paper examines the basis for this revolution, a revolution

that will change our lives profoundly. When we understand its

underlying cause, we can reduce the growing pains involved and

enjoy a better life. One does not have to be a scientist to

understand the issues involved. What is required, is an open

mind, to let go of deeply seated prejudices about the nature of

reality. In this regard, a person steeped in contemporary

scientific thought may even have a disadvantage, since he or she

has spent a lifetime working in a cultural environment where

certain unorthodox thoughts tend to be greeted with derision.

We are not talking about disputing true scientific facts, it is

the interpretation of these facts that is up for discussion.

Through habitual repetition, interpretations are often accepted

as if they were facts, and it is difficult to detect the

difference.

Perhaps the most pervasive unproven scientific belief is that

our minds are the crowning outgrowth of physical matter, that

material came first, and that mind evolved out of it. The

dramatic successes of physical sciences, and the resulting

technology, can easily mislead us to this conclusion. However,

physical sciences are by definition aimed at the physical world,

and to generalize their views beyond physical reality is

scientifically not justified.

This paper attempts to interpret the findings of quantum physics

and other relevant scientific information. The logical

conclusion is that mind is the basis of our reality, and matter

evolves from it, not the other way around. A holistic logic

system is postulated that unifies seemingly disparate concepts

of physical science, psychology, philosophy, and religion.

2. LIMITATIONS OF COMMON SENSE

SPACE-TIME

In our three-dimensional (3-D) space, we have three "degrees of

freedom" to move. We see objects that occupy space exclusive of

each other. We also experience time, as a stream of sequential

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events, only one of which is real in the present. According to

Albert Einstein's theory of relativity, our concepts of space

and time do not agree with actual reality. Our

three-dimensional space and our one-dimensional time are

actually two aspects of a four-dimensional "superspace", mostly

called "space-time". Our senses do not perceive space-time

directly (4), but its existence is well verified through decades

of experiments. In addition to Einstein's relativity theory,

modern physics is based on quantum theory, developed by famous

physicists such as Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Bohr, and Dirac.

Relativity theory focuses mainly on the macro world of outer

space, quantum theory on the micro world of the atom and its

subatomic particles. As relativity theory, quantum physics also

assumes a four-dimensional space in which our 3-D space and time

are blended together (5)(6).

David Bohm, the prominent theoretical physicist at the

University of London, and an associate of Einstein, thinks of

space and time as projections from a higher-dimensional reality

(7). In this more fundamental type of reality, the distinction

that we make between our 3-D space and time is meaningless (8).

Professor Stephen W. Hawking, one of the most prominent

physicists of our age, states: "We must accept that time is not

completely separate from and independent of space, but is

combined with it to form an object called space-time." Also: "In

reality, there is no real distinction between the space and time

coordinates, just as there is no real difference between any two

space coordinates" (9). Fritjof Capra describes the difficulty

faced by us to form an intuitive picture of the four-dimensional

space-time. This applies also to the physicists who have worked

with it for decades and are thoroughly familiar with its

mathematical formalism (10). To our common sense, such a

superspace seems impossible to visualize. Yet we have to get

used to the idea that it exists, and that we are living in it,

here and now.

The German philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) devoted much of

his life to the study of epistemology. He concluded that our

way of seeing the world in 3-D space and time is only a human

characteristic, not a characteristic of true reality. We

interpret the true "thing-in-itself" in terms of space and time,

but we do not perceive it directly. "Space and time are not

realities or things existing for themselves, nor are they

qualities or relations belonging to things as such. They are

ways our sensibility has of apprehending objects . . ."

(11)(12). Kant's writings are difficult to follow, but the

message is clear: don't think that your common sense of space

and time gives you a true picture of reality. The German

philosopher Gottfried W. Leibniz made similar observations

earlier (13).

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ENERGY-MASS

Another one of Albert Einstein's conclusions is his famous E=mc2

formula. It states that the mass 'm' of a physical body can be

converted into energy 'E' and vice versa. Mass, to our common

sense, has inertia. It is characteristic of bodies that occupy

space, such as billiard balls. In contrast, energy is

invisible. We sense it only by its effects on physical objects,

such as acceleration, heat, and sound. The fact that energy and

mass are really different versions of the same thing is

difficult for us to visualize, although by now we have become

used to the idea.

WAVE-PARTICLE

Physicists have established without any doubt that light

manifests itself as two different forms in our world. Depending

on the circumstances, it appears either as electromagnetic

waves, similar to radio waves, or as a stream of physical

particles, like microscopic buck shot, called "quanta" or

"photons" (14). The photons have masses, specific locations and

mutually exclusive expansions in 3-D space. On the other hand,

electromagnetic waves are a form of energy, extending in space

and time as fields that can penetrate each other.

For decades, even centuries, physicists have debated how these

two seemingly contradictory forms of light can be reconciled.

Now both views are accepted as valid, and scientists use either

one or the other, depending on the situation (15). The two

disparate, seemingly irreconcilable forms of light represent the

same thing. In fact, this dual nature is not just a

characteristic of electromagnetic radiation, but also of

subatomic particles, the building blocks of matter, such as

electrons and protons (16). Again, our common sense tells us

that one and the same thing cannot have so diametrically

opposite natures, yet there is no doubt about it.

TWIN PARTICLES

The most dramatic and ultimate proof of quantum theory is the

Aspect experiment, named after the French quantum physicist

Alain Aspect. In 1982, he and his research team implemented

successfully the test that had been long in the making, starting

with a thought experiment suggested by Einstein (17)(18)(19).

Very simplified, Aspect and his colleagues created two photons

from the same quantum event and observed them as they speeded

into opposite directions. After they had travelled some

distance with the speed of light, the researchers changed the

polarization for only one of them. (Polarization is the

orientation of the wave that corresponds to each photon.) As a

result, the other photon instantaneously adopted the same

polarization, even though the two were far apart. Relativity

theory tells us that nothing can travel faster than light. So

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nothing could have caught up with the photons after they had

departed. Yet, there is this instantaneous mysterious

communication between them. They are somehow connected in a

realm that is beyond our common sense, although they appear

separated in our world.

MIND-BODY

In addition to the physics examples, we are all familiar with

the Mind-Body dual. It is known as the "psychophysical" problem

and has been concisely formulated by the French philosopher and

mathematician Rene Descartes in his "Meditations", published in

1641 (20). Descartes observed that the world consists of two

basically different substances: mind and matter. Matter

occupies 3-D space, mind does not. He could not explain

satisfactorily how these two substances, mind and matter,

interact, other than through God's intercession. To this day,

scientists are debating this problem. We know that each one of

us is one individual. Yet our common sense cannot tell us how

our two different constituent parts, mind and body, function

together. This is similar to our inability to visualize the 4-D

whole of space and time.

The resolution of this problem was already suggested by Benedict

Spinoza (1632-1677) (21). He saw mind and body as two

attributes of the same substance, "processes of one and the same

thing expressed in two different ways" (22). Still it is

difficult to understand why he thought that "these attributes

are absolutely independent of one another and cannot influence

each other: mind cannot produce changes in body nor the body

changes in mind," as stated in F. Thilly's History of Philosophy

(23).

THE THRESHOLD

The five examples mentioned above mark a line between what is

included in our common sense and what is not. Our common sense

can visualize each of the five pairs. But we cannot visualize

their wholes that combine them. George W.F. Hegel (1770-1831)

explained how for each pair of thesis and antithesis there

exists a synthesis, a whole that transcends the two opposing

parts (24). Our problem is that our common sense cannot see or

visualize the wholes that transcend our 3-D world. The reason

is that our five senses are three-dimensional in nature and thus

are limited to perceiving 3-D reality.

Our scientists have discovered a reality that transcends our

physical existence. It is not that reality is divided into two

realms. It is that human consciousness is able to grasp only so

much of the total reality, the rest exceeds our capacity to

comprehend. As a result, we experience our reality as a

multitude of phenomena, like not seeing the forest for the

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trees. The threshold of our common sense, really of our

conscious mind, is therefore not a hard and fast limitation, it

is subject to evolution. Accepting this is a necessary

evolutionary step. The present situation is similar to the one

in the 17th century when mankind realized that the earth is not

the center of the universe. Today it is a matter of common

sense that the earth rotates around the sun, and that even the

sun is only a speck in a vast cosmos of an untold number of

galaxies. We are now facing again a new dramatic paradigm

shift. This time, the entire physical 3-D cosmos will be

delegated to the outskirts of a far vaster invisible

multidimensional universe with an untold number of worlds.

3. THE KEY CONCEPTS

MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS

We can overcome the threshold of common sense outlined above

with two interrelated concepts. One is that true reality has

more dimensions than three. The other is a full understanding

of the relationship between a whole and its constituent parts.

In this section we will discuss the first point,

multidimensional space, which we shall call "M-D space". We

have only mentioned 4-D space so far, but once one accepts the

idea that reality is not limited to three dimensions, then there

is no logical reason to assume that it is limited to four or any

other number. Also, physicists are reaching to ever higher

dimensional spaces to consolidate existing theories into a

"unified physics" (25)(26). For decades physicists have

predicted accurately quantum physics events using mathematics

with hundreds of dimensions. They have become used to the

successful application of M-D calculations without seeing any

significance beyond that. This, incidentally, was exactly what

Copernicus told his Church superiors about his mathematical

description of the solar system that delegated the earth away

from the center of the universe.

Although we can not experience M-D environments directly, the

great enlightened religious leaders and mystics must have been

able to do so (27). For Buddhism and Hinduism, specifically

Yoga, the primary goal is to attain an ever more transcendent

state of mind, and to perceive directly higher dimensional

realities. In contrast, the Western World has pursued the

development of rational thought. It allows us to understand the

laws that govern reality, without perceiving the reality

directly. So we understand for instance that the earth rotates

around the sun, although we cannot see this directly. In the

same manner it is possible to penetrate M-D reality. We can

learn to understand it, though we cannot perceive it directly.

The following sections of this paper will provide an

introduction to this understanding.

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At the beginning of the 20th century a little book titled

"Flatland" was published by Edwin Abbott Abbott. It may have

been the first attempt to visualize transitions between spaces

with different numbers of dimensions. Abbott described in

humorous detail a world of creatures who live in 2-D space.

They have no third dimension, as we do. Their world is confined

to a two-dimensional surface, such as a sheet of paper without

any thickness. For our discussion we shall modify Abbott's

story. We shall assume that these creatures have the shape of

circular discs with zero thickness, and with a "nose", so that

we know which way they are facing (Fig.1). Let us name them

"2Ds". Being totally flat, and sensing only 2-D objects, our

2Ds don't believe in the existence of a third dimension. Any 2D

oddball who would express such thought would be ridiculed,

because everybody knows of course, that 2-D space is the only

reality there is. If any of us 3-D people would touch their

surface world with our fingers, the 2Ds would see another disc.

They would interpret it as a fellow occupant of their world.

They may call it elephant, or whatever. If they see it the

first time, they think that they have discovered a new species.

The 2Ds do not see the fingerprint pattern, because to them it

would resemble the inner organs of the elephant. If we touch

the 2-D world with the five fingers of one hand, the 2Ds would

see five animals, perhaps they would call our thumb print

Rhinoceros.

Graphics are available under file MULTIX.GIF

(X = 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5).

Figure 1. 2-D world.

Figure 2. Sphere penetrating 2-D world.

If we penetrate the plane with a billiard ball, moving it

through the plane until it leaves on the other side, the 2Ds

would experience the birth, growth, declination, and death of

some phenomenon that constantly changes its size (Fig.2). The

2D population has some philosophers who believe that this

phenomenon did not really die, that it continues to exist in

some mysterious realm that they call 'spiritual', without having

any visible evidence of this in their 2-D world. But most 2Ds

follow the prevailing paradigm of scientific materialism and

ignore such unscientific notions.

Now let us cut a nail into small pieces. We get little

cylinders that we throw on the 2-D plane (Fig.3). Some

cylinders land on their side, the others on their ends. This

event creates great excitement among the 2D scientists. They

investigate this matter and observe that two different kinds of

bodies have appeared in their world, some are circles, the

others are rods. This is, of course, because the cylinder ends

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show up in their plane as circles, and the cylinder sides as

rods. Further research by the 2D scientists leads to their

discovery that it is possible to convert circles into rods and

vice versa, by colliding them against each other. From our 3-D

world we see that some cylinders are being tipped over on their

sides and vice versa. The 2D scientists are agonizing about

this puzzle for decades. Finally they are forced to assume that

the circles and rods are really the same thing that exists in

some 'nonmaterial' form, meaning their wholes do not exist in

their 2-D space. The 2Ds postulate that there must be a 3-D

reality that transcends their world. Sound familiar?

Figure 3. 3-D cylinders seen from the 2-D world.

David Bohm has suggested another analogy that describes the

quan-tum physics duals (28)(29). Supposed one observes a fish

tank with two TV cameras. One camera views the tank from the

front, the other from the side. Two TV monitors placed side by

side display the two images. A fish facing the front appears

different on one monitor compared with the other. A child too

young to understand the setup, will not even realize that the

two images come from the same fish. In this analogy, as in the

previous one, two separate 2-D aspects of a 3-D object are

observed, and the observer is challenged to form a mental image

of the 3-D object. In the same manner we are challenged to

imag-ine M-D objects of which we see 3-D aspects in our world.

Plato in his famous cave allegory (30) compared the appearances

of our world with shadows that are thrown on a cave wall by the

real things. We as cave dwellers cannot see the real objects

because we cannot look in their direction. We see only the 2-D

shadows of the invisible 3-D bodies, creating the illusion that

the shadows are the real thing.

In our attempt to understand M-D space, it is probably

misleading to assume that the additional dimensions must be

geometrically perpendicular to our three space dimensions. Our

3-D space is probably meaningless in an M-D environment, and

geometric right angles between dimensions have only symbolic

meaning. The term "degrees of freedom" describes the situation

better, meaning possible directions of development that do not

coincide with existing directions. Perhaps it is better to

imagine how our thoughts can take off in directions that have

nothing to do with space and time. We are talking about

expanding our consciousness, so thoughts are a suitable subject

to contemplate.

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