I tried to bring to the front the fundamental statements of quantum physics once more to avoid misinterpretation which you come across often in the New Age Movement and esoteric circles.
It is propagated that we all have creative power beyond measure by our very nature. It is said, when we wake up and realize that our actual nightmarish reality is of a collective dream/illusion nature, we can make a change. And when there are enough people to “wake up” from the dream, they will connect in mutual consciousness and arrive on a new level of consciousness.. And it is said that quantum physics provides us with the key to create a new world.
Now is this as simple as that? How long and how often have we heard – and believed – those statements, and even attended workshops of spiritual leaders, joined spiritual groups and the worldwide community, who is devoted to the spiritual evolution of mankind. Have all these good works and efforts of benevolent people made a difference or is our world turning around for the better, so far?
What are we missing? Why aren’t we able to use our potential in true quantum style for the betterment of all humanity?
I think the error for misunderstanding the quantum physics results is from not knowing what “spirit” and “consciousness” are. We could describe it best as “not material”.
Therefore to use the word “spirit” we should be very cautious. When we talk about spirit it often seems as if it was something material, subtle material. In esoteric communities you often hear statements like “all is energy” or “all is vibration”, to explain that all is connected with one another. This sounds beautiful and interesting at first glance, however it is utter nonsense as all statements are which begin with “all is….” You might have heard of tachyons, particles which are supposed to be faster than light and which supposedly are of healing quality. This is nonsense and fraudulent claim. Physics has for some time searched for tachyons and found: they don’t exist. This was the end of it. Linear extrapolation leads to false spirituality, even when the arguments come from nobel prize winners of physics .
To answer the questions which classic physics were not allowed to ask (renounce spirit and meaning question) with methods of natural science or analogous does not bring us forward. It results in false spirituality. And it is no wonder then – it doesn’t work!!! We cannot change matter or our health with the help of quantum physics as false spirituality suggests,
What serves us then to answer the deep questions of life? I think what helps us to approach true spirituality is the insight, that a mere material view of the world is not complete. The natural laws relate exclusively to matter, however they are by themselves not to be understood as material. In fact, we don’t even know, why they are so reliable. The path to the natural laws has to be compared with an act of creativity, which cannot be understood, logically. Wolfgang Pauli said: “Theories come about through an understanding inspired by empirical material”.
Albert Einstein wrote: “The researcher must as it were listen to nature and her general principles, by looking …at certain general features, which can be formulated sharply.”
The necessary incompleteness of the material description of nature points to those questions, which were not allowed to ask so far – (as to spirit and meaning, the question of time, freedom and consciousness ….) Natural science cannot answer those questions, but provide suggestions, to deal with them, however with other means than using the framework of the natural science. This will lead to a spirituality which is not based on natural science but encouraged because of her incompleteness.
We will try to deal now with the very serious question: What is “consciousness”. Together with all scientists, who speak of consciousness, we understand that we refer to human consciousness, the self-knowing consciousness.
Consciousness is first of all the consciousness of an individual and as such “without a window” as Leibniz said. And then you meet another consciousness – also “without a window” – and yet there is something mutual, understanding, communication. Schrödinger insisted there was no problem. He renounced the existence of a number of consciousnesses. He claimed that there is only one consciousness. The diversity of consciousness is an illusion. In truth there is only ONE. The mystical experience of union with God (mystical wedding, “hieros gamos” satori) seems to verify this conception.
The question of consciousness is a very difficult one. I will make two assumptions:
1. everything that is said about consciousness stems from a certain individual consciousness. As logic excludes self statements, it is questionable if you can apply logic when you speak about consciousness.
2. Each statement refers to an object. Subject and object are to be differentiated. If I want to make a statement about a subject, the subject turns into an object. Each statement about consciousness is a statement about consciousness as object. We aren’t able to make a statement about consciousness as subject and also not about that, what was before the separation into subject and object.
How was this difficulty treated in physics. Physical statements come – as all statements – from the consciousness of a subject, however claim objective validity. Therefore natural sciences had to face the subject-object problem. The solution came with Galileo with whom the demand of the experiment was introduced, in which acts aren’t subject to the split into subject-object. They are done and produce facts. And we get inter-subjective statements that suffice. Among different statements we choose those which are valid for all subjects and claim they are objective. The “nuova science”, the new science, which we call natural science however, has only handled the material part of reality. The spiritual aspects were left out.
And this frame of thinking is still true today, 400 years later. If we have to handle a problem, we concentrate on:
Is it reproducible, quantifiable, analytical, clearly, free of contradiction, subject to casual reasoning?
Thereby we construe our reality.
This was the role classic physics played and it had served us well until the beginning of the 20th century. We speak then of a paradigm change by relativity theory and quantum physics and also the theory of heat, that is statistical mechanics and thermodynamics, which we can also describe as information theory.
This new and strange world is a world that does not exist in time and space and does not develop in time. A world made up solely of interacting quantum fields the swarming of which generate – through a dense network of reciprocal interactions – space, time, particles, waves and light.
A world without infinity, where the infinitely small does not exist, because there is a minimum scale to this teeming, beneath which there is nothing.
I have made this digression into what the new physics is about and also what (little) I could say about consciousness to try to find an answer how quantum physics could provide us with a key to co-create a “new world”. I said “co-create” because of all the open questions we cannot answer and accepting the fact that there is a limit to our knowledge.
However, the reality of a quantum universe reconnects what Decartes took apart. Our new understanding of the universe’s mechanics show us that the immaterial mind can affect the physical body. In medicine there are many examples of this interaction.
Why should it not also work in a greater scale? Many people have tried it with positive thinking, meditating on peace and happiness for all people. So far we could say simply thinking positive thoughts doesn’t lead anywhere.
It appears that those positive thinking people haven’t understood that the seemingly “separate” subdivisions” of the mind, the conscious and the unconcious, are interdependent. The conscious mind – which represents the seat of our personal identity – is the creative mind. It can see into the future, review the past or disconnect from the present moment as it solves problems in the head. In its creative capacity, the conscious mind holds our wishes, desires and aspirations for our lives. It is the mind that conjures up our “positive thoughts”. The subconscious mind is fundamentally habitual. It will play the same behavioral response to life’s signals over and over again. (see movie Groundhog Day!)
I believe the greatest problem we face in not progressing to become co-creators is the fact that we think we are running our lives with the wishes, desires, and aspirations created by our conscious mind. However. neuroscience has established that the conscious mind runs the show, at best, only about 5 percent of the time. It turns out that the programs acquired by the subconscious mind shape 95 percent or more of our life experiences. Our lives are essentially a printout of our subconscious programs, behaviors that were fundamentally acquired from others (parents, family, teachers, community) before we were six years old.
As psychologists recognize, a majority of these developmental programs are disempowering and limiting and self-sabotaging. The subconscious mind works only in the “now”. Consequently, programmed misperceptions in our unconscious mind are not “monitored” and will habitually engage us in inappropriate and limiting behaviors.
This is for me the answer why positive thinking doesn’t work. We are living mostly out of the unconscious.
So what can we do to access our true potential of the mind?
We must become aware that we have the capacity to consciously evaluate our responses to environmental stimuli and change old responses any time we desire. The answer: we have to deal with the unconscious – the shadow.
And all the spiritual schools and techniques teach this – mastery of body, feelings and mind. Only after you have progressed on this path will you be able to use the key of quantum mechanics. And as the old adage says:
If you want to change the world, you must first change yourself. But to change yourself, you must know yourself. There is no shortcut. Therefore confront your shadow-world. And as you progress and bring light into your own darkness you might witness that there is more light also in your outer reality.
Part III follows