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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
 Posted - Oct 09 2013 : 09:41:58 AM
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Unamended Quantum Mechanics Rigorously Implies
Awareness Is Not Based in the Physical Brain
"The most straightforward way to picture this result is to suppose we each have a nonphysical “Mind” that “looks in” from outside physical reality and focuses on just one version of the quantum state of our brain (sec. 3)."
By Casey Blood, PhD, Professor Emeritus of Physics, Rutgers University
www.theassc.org/files/assc/ASSC12_Poster.pdf#8206;
Interesting article.
Casey Blood proposes that Quantum Mechanics implies Awareness/Consciousness (noumenon) exists beyond/outside of physical reality & outside of the physical brain.
I feel there is some obvious correlation with this and with what Advaita, Zen, Dzogchen etc point to realizing via direct experience: That Awareness itself (not a body-mind complex) is Aware, Awareness is formless (outside of and not subject to physical reality), Awareness is impersonal, etcetera.
“You are awareness. Awareness is another name for you. Since you are awareness there is no need to attain or cultivate it. All that you have to do is to give up being aware of other things, that is of the not-Self. If one gives up being aware of them then pure awareness alone remains, and that is the Self.” - Ramana Maharshi |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Oct 09 2013 09:44:51 AM |
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Anima
484 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2013 : 11:56:00 AM
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Rigor and implication... Can we grasp the truth of creation with the tools of destruction? Can the sharp angles of the Mechanism ever lie upon a hill's gentle Curve?
The aim of science, or knowing, is not understanding: it is conquest. Our current systems of inquiry and verbal politics will flicker out as Kant's genius did in his intellectual quest for the noumena: God, freedom, and immortality. |
Edited by - Anima on Oct 09 2013 4:18:56 PM |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2013 : 12:46:13 PM
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Hi Anima,
Thanks for your comments. 
quote:
The aim of science, or knowing, is not understanding: it is conquest.
Please could you elucidate this statement a little further? Do you consider that statement to be a factually truthful assessment of what science is about, or do you consider it just your personal opinion?
I'm curious to understand your point of view.
Also, in using "knowing" as a synonym for science, I'm not sure I exactly understand your meaning. Knowing typically is defined as "the state of being aware". Please could you explain?
Best wishes,
Josh
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Edited by - mr_anderson on Oct 09 2013 12:59:23 PM |
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Anima
484 Posts |
Posted - Oct 09 2013 : 2:24:03 PM
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Namaste, Josh. Thank you for your interest. The scientific mind fascinates me in many ways. It was my prison for a long time.
What I've written is just an expression. I tend to look at it all as shorthand. That's pretty much what I do these days. The threads don't even all have to fit together. It's great to allow myself some liberty.
My rant was arrogant enough, so I apologize for that. I don't want to exaccerbate that with explanation. But here are some further thoughts:
Why illuminate truth at the price of obfuscating fiction? Is one more valuable than the other? Why are we inclined to demand an answer to a demanded question? Could it be we are just used to making demands?
Fact and fiction are manufactured. We are the factory. Who runs it?
Can we limit awareness to knowledge? Is one infinite and the other finite? Only its refelctions glimmer in our mind. Plato called these "images of images." Why do we imagine a distinction?
I don't know.
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 10 2013 : 07:44:24 AM
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Hi Anima,
No need to apologize for anything here
Thanks for your input. Your questions are food for inquiry.
Best wishes,
Josh |
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Oct 10 2013 : 5:38:36 PM
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Hi Mr. Anderson & All,
Very interesting topic, as always.
I agree fully with your statement "I feel there is some obvious correlation with this and with what Advaita, Zen, Dzogchen etc point to realizing via direct experience".
What is quite possibly more interesting, though, is: so did Erwin Schrodinger.
(Schrodinger, for anyone who doesn't know, was one of the founding scientists of the discipline of Quantum physics, and the man who discovered the equation that provides the basis for Quantum Mechanics. I think he also had a cat.  )
"The multiplicity is only apparent. This is the doctrine of the Upanishads. And not of the Upanishads only. The mystical experience of the union with God regularly leads to this view, unless strong prejudices stand in the way."
(Hence the value of consistent practices. ~KM)
"We do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture."
"The observing mind is not a physical system, it cannot interact with any physical system."
And one of my favorites, because confusion on this point is essentially the source of all confusion, and (experiential) clarity on this point the source of all clarity:
"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."
The source for those quotes, along with many more excellent Schrodinger quotes is this Wikiquote page.
One of the more interesting single overviews I've read on this topic -- awareness and science, including quantum physics -- is this ebook by Kashmir Shaivism (aka Shaiva Advaita) centric teacher, Peter Wilberg:
Beyond The Religion Of Objective Science
I'll leave it at that for now; thanks for starting this topic!
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apatride
New Caledonia
94 Posts |
Posted - Oct 11 2013 : 12:37:57 AM
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| Thanks for these excellent reading, mr anderson and Kirtanman. |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Oct 11 2013 : 07:52:32 AM
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Thanks for sharing that Kirtanman! I had no idea Schrodinger had this interpretation of his own experiments.
I like Peter Wilberg's work very much, I will look into it. |
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Oct 11 2013 : 08:08:05 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by mr_anderson
Thanks for sharing that Kirtanman! I had no idea Schrodinger had this interpretation of his own experiments.
I like Peter Wilberg's work very much, I will look into it.
You're very welcome, Mr. Anderson!
Schrodinger was quite the master at stating things simply and clearly, whether via mathematics (i.e. the Schrodinger Equation) or via language.
Lest anyone wonder as to the source of much of the guidance for Schrodinger's worldview and his contribution to science, not to mention the results of those contributions (which include, not to put too fine a point on it, this whole Internet thing, along with all modern electronics ), here's Schrodinger with what kind of amounts to the ultimate clarification, in terms of this discussion, anyway:
"The unity and continuity of Vedanta are reflected in the unity and continuity of wave mechanics."
~Erwin Schrodinger
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Oct 11 2013 : 08:08:55 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by apatride
Thanks for these excellent reading, mr anderson and Kirtanman.
Hi apatride - you're very welcome.
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Kirtanman
USA
1651 Posts |
Posted - Oct 11 2013 : 09:45:18 AM
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Hi Mr. Anderson and All,
quote:
Originally posted by mr_anderson
Thanks for sharing that Kirtanman! I had no idea Schrodinger had this interpretation of his own experiments.
What's fascinating to me is:
It wasn't just Schrodinger - by a long shot. Many of the great minds of quantum physics had similar things to say:
"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."
~Max Planck
"I go into the Upanishads to ask questions."
~Niels Bohr
"After the conversations about Indian philosophy, some of the ideas of Quantum Physics that had seemed so crazy suddenly made much more sense."
~Werner Heisenberg
"The general notions about human understanding which are illustrated by discoveries in atomic physics are not in the nature of things wholly unfamiliar, wholly unheard of or new. Even in our own culture they have a history, and in Buddhist and Hindu thought a more considerable and central place. What we shall find [in modern physics] is an exemplification, an encouragement, and a refinement of old wisdom."
~Robert Oppenheimer
"I would say that in my scientific and philosophical work, my main concern has been with understanding the nature of reality in general and of consciousness in particular as a coherent whole, which is never static or complete but which is an unending process of movement and unfoldment."
~David Bohm
"Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it."
~Pascual Jordan
"When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again. It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness."
~Eugene Wigner
Quantum Physics and Nonduality: One reality, different angles.
Quantum Physics delves into the deepest levels of current understanding and measurement ability in relation to the so-called objective universe, with, per the quotes above, acknowledgement of the inherent non-separation of the physical / energetic with the so-called subjective (aka consciousness).
Consciousness (aka spiritual, aka yogic) related practices bring this same reality into direct experience, from the side of experience -- aka consciousness.
Which, as Yogani has pointed out, becomes natural in experience, and can be referred to (by just one of many possible terms) as oneness.
Oneness in experience isn't a "woo-hoo unity thing" (such experiences, if we have them, are precursors to oneness in ongoing experience) -- it's just what's natural in the absence of the distorting filters of conditioned mind -- which is why, as Patanjali said so long ago, "Yoga (Oneness) is the non-attachment to mental modifications" (aka to the filters of conditioned mind) -- per Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, 1.2
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Edited by - Kirtanman on Oct 11 2013 09:46:33 AM |
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Quantum Mechanics Implies Awareness not Physical
