“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge in the field of truth and knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the Gods.”
–Albert Einstein
“Do you remember how electrical currents and ‘unseen waves’ were laughed at? The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.”
–Albert Einstein
The general, historical dialogue between religion and science goes back a long way–at least to Plato, Aristotle, and Leibniz. Before the 17th century, the goals of science were wisdom, understanding the natural order, and living in harmony with it.
Ever since the “quantum revolution” of about 70 years ago, various scientists have been finding the intriguing parallels between their results and certain mystical-transcendental religions.
Heisenberg, Bohr, Schroedinger, Eddington, Einstein–all held a mystical, spiritual view of the world. Einstein wrote in a letter to a child who asked if scientists pray: “Everyone who is seriously involved in the pursuit of science becomes convinced that a spirit is manifest in the laws of the Universe–a spirit vastly superior to that of a man….” [1]
A New Description of Reality
About three centuries ago Gottfried Leibniz, the discoverer of integral and differential calculus, noted that a metaphysical reality underlies and generates the material universe. He postulated a universe of monads–units that incorporate the information of the whole. In his “Monadology,” Leibniz writes:
METAPHYSICAL MATHEMATICS: Painting by Bernhard Christoph Francke of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Leibniz, discoverer of integral and differential calculus, noted that a metaphysical reality underlies and generates the material universe. (Painting by Bernhard Christoph Francke, Braunschweig, Herzog-Anton-Ulrich-Museum)“Each portion of matter may be conceived of as a garden full of plants, and as a pond full of fishes. But each branch of the plant, each member of the animal, each drop of its humors, is also such a garden or such a pond.” [2]
Leibniz’s discovery of integral calculus enabled Gabor to invent the hologram 200 years later, a discovery that would later earn him a Nobel Prize, but a demonstration of holography had to await the invention of the laser.
What is a hologram? Its main property is that each of its parts, in some sense, contains the whole. If any part of a hologram is illuminated, the entire image will be reconstructed.
About 30 years ago, Stanford University professor of neuroscience Karl Pribram and University of London professor of theoretical physics David Bohm, who had worked with Einstein, have proposed scientific theories that demonstrate an amazing similarity to the great mystical traditions of East and West.
This breakthrough fulfilled predictions that the long-awaited theory would (1) draw on theoretical mathematics and (2) establish the so called “supernatural” as part of nature.
The theory, in a nutshell: “Our brains mathematically construct ‘concrete’ reality by interpreting frequencies from another dimension, a realm of meaningful, patterned primary reality that transcends time and space. The brain is a hologram, interpreting a holographic universe.” [3]
Dr. Bohm asserts that man’s reality is shaped entirely by ideas. “Natural reality goes beyond any human idea but the extent to which we can bring it in to our world depends on our ideas. So we may completely miss the natural reality because our ideas don’t bring it in.”
DAVID BOHM: University of London professor of Theoretical Physics David Bohm, and Karl Pribram have proposed scientific theories that demonstrate an amazing similarity to the great mystical traditions of East and West. (David Pratt/Theosophical University Press)He further elaborates, that the ideas which we have now to deal with reality are “…sheer chaos. They may allow for some technical progress, but in general they lead to chaos.” [4]
David Bohm’s work in subatomic physics had led him to the conclusion that physical entities which seemed to be separate and discrete in space and time are a ctually unified in an implicit or underlying fashion. In Bohm’s terminology, under an unfolded order of separate things and events is an enfolded order of undivided wholeness, and this whole is simultaneously available to each unfolded part. The enfolded order harbors our reality, much as the DNA in the nucleus of the cell conceals potential life and directs the nature of its unfolding.
So, the universe seems to be a gigantic hologram, with each part being in the whole and the whole being in each part.
Bohm pointed out that ever since Galileo, science has objectified nature by looking at it through lenses. Or, like Pribram put it, “Maybe reality isn’t what we see with our eyes. If we did not have that lens, we might know a world organized in the frequency domain. No space, no time–just events.” [3]
Every cell in our body enfolds the entire cosmos. So does every leaf, every raindrop, and every dust mole, which gives a new meaning to William Blake’s famous poem:
“To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the Palm of your Hand
And Eternity in an Hour.”
[5]
The bootstrap theory of hadrons [strongly interacting microscopic particles–NT], introduced by G. Chew [6], not only denies the existence of fundamental constituents of matter, but accepts no fundamental laws, equations or principles. According to the bootstrap hypothesis, “each particle helps to generate other particles, which in turn generate it.”
There is a fascinating logic in the fact that while the poet sees the world in a grain of sand, the modern physicist sees the world in a hadron.
Dr. Pribram drew attention to extraordinary insights of mystics and early philosophers that preceded scientific verifications by centuries. “How did these ideas arise for millennia before we had the mathematics to understand them?” Pribram asked, “Maybe in the holographic state–in the frequency domain–4,000 years ago is tomorrow.” [3]
A well-known theoretical and high-energy physicist Dr. F. Capra in his famous book “The Tao of Physics” claims that “at present level of science it is already apparent that mysticism, or perennial philosophy, provides the most consistent philosophical background to all scientific theories.” [7]
“Mystical experience,” said K. Pribram, “is no more strange than many other phenomena in nature, such as the selective derepression of DNA to form first one organ, then another.” [3]
“Eastern philosophy has come into Western thought in the past. Every once in a while we have these insights that bring us back to the infinite,” Pribram sai d during the Houston conference, New Dimensions in Health Care. “Whether it will stick this time or we’ll have to go around once more will depend on you. The spirit of the infinite could become part of our culture and not ‘a little far out’.” [3]
Matter—Energy—Consciousness
According to Dr. Bohm, consciousness is a more subtle form of matter, and “dividing the universe up into living and nonliving things has no meaning.” [4]
“Even a rock is in some way alive,” says Bohm, “for life and intelligence are present not only in all of matter, but in energy, space, time, the fabric of the entire universe.” And further, “Everything is alive. What we call dead is an abstraction.” [15]
Ken Wilber, who was called the “Einstein of consciousness,” states in the book “Quantum Questions,” “The material realm, far from being the most fundamental, is the least fundamental: it has less Being than life, which has less Being than mind, which has less Being than spirit. Physics is simply the study of the realm of least Being.” [13]
According to Dr. Bohm, starting from an early age we learn to see the world through a certain structure of ideas, with which we react immediately to each new experience before we even have time to think: “In this way we come to believe that certain ways of conceiving and perceiving the world cannot be otherwise, although in fact they were discovered and built up by us when we were children and have since then become habits.” [4]
In Dr. Bohm’s “Special Theory of Relativity” we further read, “One of the main difficulties in the development of new concepts…in the whole of science – has been the tendency to hold onto old concepts beyond their domain of validity; this tendency is evidently enhanced by our habit of regarding the entities and structures, that we know, as absolutely permanent in their characteristics.” [4]
Bohm insists that truth should be “apprehended in an essentially dynamic way, in the sense that our knowledge of it can undergo fundamentally new developments at any point, developments that contradict the older structure of ideas in unexpected ways and contain unexpected basically new features. So as in the case of relativity and quantum theory… older ideas [Newtonian-NT] are on a completely wrong track when extended beyond their proper domains.” [4]
A couple of years ago Dr. William Tiller, one of the world’s leading scientists on the structure of matter, for the first time in Western history introduced a scientific model of the Unseen in his groundbreaking book “Science and Human Transformation.” His two previous monographs on the Microscopic and the Macroscopic Science of Crystallization (Cambridge Press, 1991) certainly qualify him as one of the world’s most knowledgeable research scientists in the basic structure of material substances.
William A. Tiller, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Stanford University’s Department of Materials Science.(www.whatthebleep.com)Stanford professor for over 30 years in the Department of Material Science, Dr. Tiller takes a giant leap toward a unified theory of matter, energy and consciousness that appears to satisfy Einstein’s attempt to quantify a paradigm of an energetic-field-like universe. Through increasingly more abstract levels of mathematical modeling, Tiller found out that at higher dimensions seemingly disparate equations covering common as well as anomalous phenomena appear to merge. And consciousness radiating in the form of information at an infinite speed could simultaneously be present in an infinite number of places in an infinite expanse of space.
Tiller states that “consciousness will eventually be discovered to be a quality of the universe that has the capabilities of generating radiations that eventually beget matter. In this respect the properties of matter will eventually be found to depend on the local consciousness.” [11]
Structure of the Universe
David Deutsch, one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists, the Recipient of the 2005 Edge of Computation Science Prize. (Photo courtesy of David Deutsch, www.qubit.org/people/david/ David.html)David Deutsch is one of the world’s leading theoretical physicists and a distinguished fellow of the British Computer Society. He created the theoretical fr amework for an entirely new discipline called quantum computation, which makes possible the construction of a fundamentally new type of computer with powers almost beyond imagination.
Deutsch insists that in perfect accord with the laws of quantum theory, there exist innumerable parallel universes and that there must be many versions of us, Earths and entire universes.
“All possible events, all conceivable variations on our lives must exist,” says Deutsch. “We live not in a single universe, but in a vast and rich “multiverse.” [14]
Deutsch is not the originator of the concept. It was Hugh Everett, whose 1957 Princeton doctoral thesis first presented what was called later the “many worlds” interpretation of quantum mechanics. “I don’t think there are any interpretations of quantum theory other than many worlds,” Dr.Deutsch says, “the others deny reality.” [14]
David Deutsch in one of his interviews said, “I’m sure that quantum theory will be proved false one day, because it seems inconceivable that we have stumbled across the final theory of physics. But I would bet my bottom dollar that the new theory will either retain the parallel universe feature of quantum physics or it will contain something even weirder.” [14]
‘Corruption of Mankind’ and the Way Out of It
The question that David Bohm asked so many times was, “Has humanity taken a wrong turn somewhere in the past, which has brought about endless division, conflict and destruction?”
He confirms this when he talks about “the corruption of mankind,” which was caused by “the pollution which has accumulated over the ages… in the nonmanifested consciousness of mankind, which we could call the sorrow of mankind because it leads to all this violence, corruption, disorder, self-deception…” [12]
The nonmanifest, according to Bohm, is n-dimensional and not temporal, and cannot be handled in any way by 3-dimensional thought.
“And I think, ” Bohm continues, “that this present (pragmatic) view of science has contributed considerably to the disorder in the brain. The origin of the chaos in human relationships is in our fragmented, atomistic… untruthful way of thinking.” [12]
We can only comprehend truth to the extent to which it resonates with some portion of already perceived reality. However, we are capable of raising our level of awareness, enlarging our consciousness.
According to Dr. Tiller, “By the entity’s thoughts, attitudes and actions, transformational changes occur in the dense and subtle matter, which can produce a refined structure in the matter.” [11]
As a result of his life’s work, Dr.Tiller arrived at an amazing – for a modern scientist – conclusion, “We have come from advanced societies whose special technologies suited the great mental capacities of the inhabitants and we are heading back in that direction. We have come from societies where the inhabitants reliably sensed deeper dimensions of the universe than we presently do, so that they readily manipulated space, time and matter, and we are heading back in the same direction.” [11]
“…To Ignite The Whole Consciousness of Humankind…”
The Virgin of Compassion. The Russian icon of XVIII century. (Photo courtesy of George Mitrevski, Auburn University)“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is, in itself, a part of the liberation, and a foundation for inner security,” wrote Albert Einstein in 1950.
According to Dr. Tiller, “We need to realize that what we dislike in our society cannot be effectively changed from the outside because it is only symptomatic of that which is inside of us. The only real change takes place within us. We must change there first and then the outer consistent materializations will naturally occur. “[11]
Dr.Tiller insists that it is very important “to pay attention to inner world self – development… and, by example, radiate our highest qualities to enrich those around us. ” [11]
As Tiller postulates, “the higher is one’s consciousness, the more there are … energy types and energy band correlations that function at higher d imensional levels… Thus, a person who is very enlightened… manifests fantastically large energy densities”. [11]
Being a physicist, Dr. Bohm uses the analogy of an atom with thought, and with a thinker who authors the thought. When the binding energy of the physical atom is released in an accelerator, the resultant energy, staggeringly huge, becomes freed. Analogously, huge amounts of cosmic energy are required to create and sustain the thinker, to maintain his illusion that he is a stable entity.
According to Bohm, “consciousness functioning as thought (as opposed to insight) cannot know truth and compassion at first hand and herein lies the root of its failure to embody these energies in its daily life.”
“Dissolution of the thinker is the highest priority the seeker for truth can undertake,” asserts Dr. Bohm, “The dismantling of the thinker yields energy that is qualitatively charged, not neutral or value-free. It is energy unbound and flowing, characterized by wholeness, n-dimensionality and the force of compassion.”
Dr.Tiller is reasoning in a very similar way. He insists that there is an inherent capacity of every organism, gland or cell to resonate to the frequency of love, which would occur automatically in a system without free will, which presents resistance. Isn’t this similar to Bohm’s “killing the thinker”? Such emptiness brings the cessation of thoughts and transforms us into an instrument “capable of stepping down the staggering cosmic energy in ways that permit us to focus it on the microcosmic level…” [16]
Professor of Philosophy Rene Weber in her article “Field Consciousness and Field Ethics” further elaborates: “The rare individual who functions as such a channel seems to those who come in contact with him to belong to a new species of man. Such a human being radiates clarity, intelligence, order and love by his mere presence. He seems capable of transmuting our chaotic interpersonal world into an ethical realm by his very atmosphere, which unmistakably is charged with energies for which we have neither names nor concepts.” [16]
According to Dr. Bohm, it is through individual that the general consciousness has to get cleared up. “It’s something like the transformation of the atom. In the early days they transformed a few atoms, we could call that the transformation in germ… and then it spread like a flame and became… a power and chain reaction.
The individual who sees the principles may be like the one who has discovered the transformation of the atom. In principle, he has already transformed mankind, but it has not yet come about…”
[12]
However, according to Bohm’s considerations, it still needs a higher energy to reach the whole of the consciousness of mankind.
Speculating on where this more intense energy may come from, Bohm affirms: “… it is possible now for a number of individuals who are in close relation s and who can trust each other to establish a one-mind of that whole set of individuals. In other words, that that consciousness is one, acting as one. If you had a s many as ten people, or a hundred people, who could really be that way, they would have a power immensely beyond one… that would begin to ignite this whole consciousness of mankind… This is absolutely what has to be done.” [12]
References:
1. A. Einstein, Letter to a child who asked if scientists pray, January 24, 1936; Einstein Archive 42-601.
2. N. Rescher,”G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology,” University of Pittsburgh Press, 1991.
3. M. Ferguson, “Karl Pribram’s changing reality” in “The Holographic Paradigm,” New Science Library, Shambala/ Boston & London/1985.
4. D. Bohm, “The Special Theory of Relativity,” Routledge Publishers, 1996.
5. M. Talbot, “The Holographic Universe,” HarperCollins Library, 1991.
6. G. F. Chew, M. Gell-Mann and A. H. Rosenfeld, ‘Strongly Interacting Particles,” Scientific American, vol.210 (February 1964), p.93.
7. F. Capra, “The Tao of Physics,” Shambala, Boston, 2000.
8. H. Spencer, “The Principles of Sociology,” Greenwood Publishing Group, 1985.
9. T. E. Phipps, Jr., “Axis Calibration: The Thing Einstein Forgot,” Infinite Energy, issue 38, 2001.
10. Pais, A. “Subtle is the Lord: The Science and Life of Albert Einstein,” Oxford Univ. Press, 1982.
11. W. A. Tiller, Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness, Pavior Publishing, 1997.
12. R. Weber, “The enfolding – unfolding universe: a conversation with David Bohm” in “The Holographic Paradigm,” New Science Library, 1985.
13. Quantum questions: Mystical Writings of the World’s Great Physicists, edited by Ken Wilber, 2001.
14. T. Folger, “Quantum Shmantum,” Discover, September 2001.
15. R. Weber, “The Physicist and the mystic – is the dialogue between them possible? A conversation with David Bohm,” New Science Library, 1985.
16. R. Weber, “Field Consciousness and Field Ethics” in “The Holographic Paradigm,” New Science Library, 1985.
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