Sunday, April 19, 2009

Life!

These have been the days of days for contemplation and meditation. Days when I found myself drowned in the materialistic pleasures that this civilization can throw onto us and yet I found myself asking some deeper inner questions amidst this state of plenty.

Most of us sleep walk through life.

Now some people may take offense at this statement, but if we look closely, then one does realize that most of our responses to life’s deeper questions have been “automatic”. We plan for business outcomes, projects and even money making schemes. We plan for annual priorities or goals at office, in essence we plan for everything - yet how many of us plan for life?

During younger days, the thirst for newer experiences takes us places and when we get a little older the fascination towards nature decreases in intensity and we turn towards the very real and practical problems of getting by both financially and otherwise – through the quagmire that is life…

I often remember the fascination I held for the celestial bodies (naw… I am not referring to those originating in Bollywood or Hollywood) – often looking at them through home made telescopes and wondering if there is anyone out there. Flights of imagination, fancy produced fantastic creatures which lived in oceans of Venus and of exotic creatures from Mars… Alas the illusion is broken when one gets older. The world of elders is much more practical

There are more practical things to worry about – the EMI for the house, buying things which we don’t need to impress people we don’t know or even if knew – wouldn’t like to be associated with… and the innocence is lost. We no longer question whether anyone lives on the moon or planets or if there is life “elsewhere”. We even stop planning long term.

I remember during my childhood – of dreams of becoming a scientist, an astronaut, explorer, writer – all at the same time. And now that 20 years have gone by… the dreams are no longer so vivid.

But as we age, our focus shifts. Planning for life is a tough thing. Have you ever asked yourself some really deep questions?

For example, I have tried to enumerate some of them…

  • What is your deepest desire
  • What would one like to accomplish in one’s life?
  • What would one like to accomplish this year?
  • Where would one like to be in 5 years?
  • Where would one like to be in 20 years?
  • What is one really good at?

Obviously there are deeper questions still, such as:

  • What would one do if one had enough money not to work ever again?
  • What were one’s dreams when one was younger?
  • What does one think is impossible for one to do?
  • What would one do if one won a million dollars?
  • What would one do if this was the last day of one’s life?
  • What would one do if one couldn't fail?
  • What are one’s strengths and talents?
  • Does one has a wish but doesn’t know how to fulfill it?
  • What does one admire most about others?
  • What would one’s ideal lifestyle look like?
  • What does success mean for one?
  • What makes one really happy?
  • Is there anything that needs to be invented?
  • What does a perfect day look like for one?
  • What would one do if there were no restrictions?
  • What really excites one?
  • What would one be honored and recognized for?
  • Where does one see one’s life in ten years?
  • If one were immortal, what would one do with one’s life?
  • What needs to change to make this a better world?
  • What would one do if one were Superman?
  • What is one proud of?
  • What would one do if one were the President?
  • What would one like to accomplish this year?
  • What would one do differently if one could start over again?

To be able to answer such questions, one needs to do a lot more than spend an evening with oneself… it is a journey to one’s inner self… of self-discovery…

How many have undertaken it?

Monday, April 13, 2009

Quantum physics and consciousness

Today was the day of connecting with inner self. So I spent the afternoon going through some books on consciousness and its connection with quantum physics.

For more than two hundred years Newton’s ideas dictated our world view. Newton declared that everything operates mechanically and can be predicted like clockwork. Science in Newton’s view, being nothing more than the act of observing, meant that this world view was easily perpetuated by independent observers all over the world.

In the late 19th century, science entered into the era of subatomic physics, which changed everything. Scientists discovered that the so-called ‘subatomic particles’ were not particles at all. They behaved like particles when they were measured but they traveled like waves. Quantum theory has changed everything, because what was once a mechanical, external universe has now become a web of intelligence. Science finally admits that the simple act of observing changes the result of any experiment and by extension, that the observer and the observed are not separate.

Quantum physics started in the late nineteenth century and is associated with the work of German physicist Max Planck. In the 1890's Planck set out to explain the phenomenon of blackbody radiation; the observation that the color of light emitted from an object did not change in a linear fashion to its temperature. Planck provided an explanation for the phenomenon in 1900 by postulating that light is emitted or absorbed in packets of definite size, which he called a quanta. Thus light, once considered a wave, was now being described as a particle (photon) in order to solve the riddle of blackbody radiation.

Quantum theory is also generally regarded as one of the most successful scientific theories ever formulated. But while the mathematical description of the quantum world allows the probabilities of experimental results to be calculated with a high degree of accuracy, there is no consensus on what it means in conceptual terms. The issues involved with this apparent conceptual conundrum are discussed in this article by David Pratt - Consciousness, Causality, and Quantum Physics.

According to physicist Leon Lederman there are three qualities we know about quantum theory.

1. It is counterintuitive,
2. It works,
3. It has problems.

Lederman goes on to write, "In spite of the great practical and intellectual success of quantum theory, we cannot be sure we know what the theory means." It is this ambiguity within the "hard" science of physics that has helped initiate a crisis unlike science has ever encountered. Once concerned with the motion and trajectory of particles, physics is now considering questions which would have been labeled as blasphemy throughout academic circles a hundred years ago. Now, numerous physicists are speculating about the nature of reality, the existence of consciousness, even the existence of God.

According to Pratt - According to the conventional interpretation of quantum physics not only is it impossible for us to measure a particle's position and momentum simultaneously with equal precision, a particle does not possess well-defined properties when it is not interacting with a measuring instrument. Furthermore, the uncertainty principle implies that a particle can never be at rest, but is subject to constant fluctuations even when no measurement is taking place, and these fluctuations are assumed to have no causes at all.

Simply speaking, the quantum world is believed to be characterized by absolute indeterminism, intrinsic ambiguity, and irreducible lawlessness. Most physicists are content to accept the assumption of absolute chance. This has important implications in connection with free will.

As the late physicist David Bohm (1984, p. 87) put it: "it is assumed that in any particular experiment, the precise result that will be obtained is completely arbitrary in the sense that it has no relationship whatever to anything else that exists in the world or that ever has existed."

It is widely accepted that consciousness or, more generally, mental activity is in some way correlated to the behavior of the material brain. Since quantum theory is the most fundamental theory of matter that is currently available, it is a legitimate question to ask whether quantum theory can help us to understand consciousness. Several approaches answering this question affirmatively, proposed in recent decades, have been surveyed in this excellent article - Quantum Approaches to Consciousness.

According to Mark Bancroft in Quantum Physics & Consciousness - "Quantum physics has directly challenged the meaning of matter for more than fifty years. Being defined as, "Something that occupies space and can be perceived by one or more senses; a physical body, a physical substance, or the universe as a whole.” Thus, matter may also mean the entire universe; including "'not-real' stuff". The atom was considered to be the indivisible building block of the universe up until the discovery of the electron. Now, particle physicists postulate that there are sixty-one elementary particles which make up all matter in the universe."

On a side track - Professor of Mathematical Physics, Frank Tipler, confidently proclaims that physics can and will lead to the immortality of humankind. He shares on page three of his book - The Physics of Immortality.

According to Dream Manifesto - Reality is never experienced on an exclusively personal level. The 21st century has witnessed the introduction of new ideas about how we fundamentally view reality. However, all we can know of the world in an absolute sense comes from our own sensory perceptions and the mental constructions we build around them. Behind these perceptions lies pure consciousness. Quantum physicists have shown that consciousness itself - something you have in infinite supply - is the basic stuff of the entire universe.

Quantum physics is a branch of physics which concerns itself with the study (observation) of the subatomic realm. Physics is defined as, "The science of matter and energy and of interactions between the two. Physical properties, interactions, processes, or laws. The study of the natural or material world and phenomenon." Being a scientific endeavor the above definition appears to fit with the somewhat vague definition of science.

A rather beautiful representation of quantum mechanics and consciousness is given on this website

And before I close this entry, I must mention Fred Alan Wolf who is a physicist, writer, and lecturer who earned his Ph.D. in theoretical physics at UCLA in 1963. He continues to write, lecture throughout the world, and conduct research on the relationship of quantum physics to consciousness. He is the National Book Award Winning author of taking the Quantum Leap. He is a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Collegium of Scholars. More can be found about him on this blog… of course he also has his own blog site J there are a thousand questions which clamor my mind and one day, I intend to ask Dr. Quantum…