Demystifying Quantum Physics

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Mark 5:9

What made you choose a biblical verse?

For most of my life I had two mottos, both written on my ceiling (one in Anglo-Saxon and the other in Scottish Gaelic):
Live by the sword, die by the sword (now tattooed on my back)
&
Greater lover hath no man than he that would give up his life for a friend.

Both are paraphrases from scripture. The university system is a product of the Catholic church. Our concept of "religion" comes mainly from dynamics in Judaism that pre-dated Christianity but were especially wrought after it (and in particular by the origins of Islam). If you acquire a book like the Oxford Book of Quotations you will find that a majority of quotes are from the bible or Shakespeare. I am a speaker of English raised in the US by one parent raised Catholic in what was largely farmland who went on to major in English and receive her master's in communication. My father was raised in various places across the world as a child of a former O.S.S. officer turned C.I.A. Jewish intellectual (who published scholarship on subjects like comparative linguistics for fun in his spare time until he retired from government service to become a professor a Cornell). He (my father) majored in physics at one Ivy League university and received his degree in law from another.


I am an alien to all lands, to all peoples, to all cultures, to all thoughts. I am defined only to the extent that I am capable of knowing what I am not.

And just for extra giggles, the fact that this is so about me was actually published in peer-reviewed journal (despite my displeasure at the thought and at the inaccurate ways in which my paper was published).

 

[Runewolf1973]

For most of my life I had two mottos, both written on my ceiling (one in Anglo-Saxon and the other in Scottish Gaelic):
Live by the sword, die by the sword
&
Greater lover hath no man than he that would give up his life for a friend.

Both are paraphrases from scripture. The university system is a product of the Catholic church. Our concept of "religion" comes mainly from dynamics in Judaism that pre-dated Christianity but were especially wrought after it (and in particular by the origins of Islam). If you acquire a book like the Oxford Book of Quotations you will find that a majority of quotes are from the bible or Shakespeare. I am a speaker of English raised in the US by one parent raised Catholic in what was largely farmland who went on to major in English and receive a master's in communication and another who was raised in various places across the world as a child of a O.S.S. turned C.I.A. Jewish intellectual (who published scholarship on subjects like comparative linguistics for fun in his spare time) who majored in physics at one Ivy League university and received is degree in law from another.


I am an alien to all lands, to all peoples, to all cultures, to all thoughts. I am defined only to the extent that I am capable of knowing what I am not.

And just for extra giggles, the fact that this is so about me was actually published in peer-reviewed journal (despite my displeasure at the thought and at the inaccurate ways in which my paper was published).

Interesting. Actually, I kinda changed that post of mine... What I really wanted to say is that that would make a really cool tattoo.

BTW, I appologize that this thread got outta hand. Sorry if I insulted or disrespected you.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Sorry if I insulted or disrespected you.

No apology necessary. I'm the worst when it comes to unnecessarily responding to posts with unwarranted criticisms, unnecessary criticisms, and incorrect and unjustified insults.

 

[Runewolf1973]

No apology necessary. I'm the worst when it comes to unnecessarily responding to posts with unwarranted criticisms, unnecessary criticisms, and incorrect and unjustified insults.

No worries. I think I'll pour myself a scotch whisky now. Happy New Year!
:drunk:

 

[godnotgod]

What is the reasoning behind your assertion that consciousness does not discriminate and is somehow non-dual?

Because it is what is already in place prior to discrimination or duality, both of which are properties of the mind.

Consciousness is a property of our brain. The complexity is not something we fully understand even today. I don't have to "know" exactly how it works and neither does science, to assume that it is still a property of the physical world without having to jump to any unsupported conclusions about alternative states of reality.

Except that you DON"T know that! You ASSUME that because you probe the brain and it elicits certain responses. To assume consciousness to be a property of the brain is no different than a Neanderthal seeing TV images for the first time and assuming they are inside the TV. The problem is further exascerbated by the presence of the illusory "I", which deems itself the thinker, who is the agent of thinking via the brain.

Mystics knew nothing about the science that is being discovered today. That is a blatant lie to assume so.

No one is saying that. What I DID say was:

"But the fact of the matter is that, what you call the 'physical' turns out to be not so 'physical' or 'material' after all, and that according to science itself, especially via Quantum Mechanics.

But we mystics already knew that."

The physical world is all we know of. There is no reason to assume knowledge of anything else. QM is a very advanced form of science and you don't seem to know the first thing about it.

Well, apparently you are completely ignoring what your own science DOES tell you about what you call 'the physical world', which is, basically, that it is almost totally not 'physical' in the material sense, nor, as QM demonstrates, does it behave in a manner peculiar to what ordinary logic tells us about 'physicality'.

When you stop putting labels over reality, such as 'physical', while failing to realize the relative nature of it's value, you may at last get a glimpse into the nature of the phenomenal world, and what it points to.

So how can you claim that mystics know all this prior without even knowing what QM is claiming?

That is not what I claimed at all. All I am saying is that mystics already knew what the true nature of the 'physical' world is long before science came up with it's ideas about it.

 

[George-ananda]

Perhaps. What do you know about the brain? Have you ever seen any imaging of its processes? Do you have any idea at all about any model of neuronal activity? Can you begin to comprehend the cellular functioning of a single neuron, let alone neural circuit?

You seem to be extremely learned and have a fine logical mind. It just seems to show the mind is limited and can't really tell us anything we're eager to know about our existence. It results in agnosticism; which would not be wrong if there were not transcendental experiences to consider.

It seems to know the nature of reality we have to TRANSCEND the mind. Actually to still that mind and tell it to shut-up; the mind is an impediment to a higher knowledge of reality.

Now, the egoic mind does not really like the idea that it can be TRANSCENDED so it can argue the notion of TRANSCENDNESS to a stalemate against other minds.

I happen to believe consciousness is not an emergent property of the physical brain from my acquaintance with so-called 'paranormal' phenomenon and mystical experiences and the teachings of eastern masters who I have come to revere as knowing more than the mind can reach. I know, I know you can argue each of these things to a stalemate with your mind.

 

[Straw Dog]

It seems upon observation that the brain and the mind are different. It's like the former is the hardware and the latter is the software. Could the latter become more capable of re-programming itself? What are the limitations on symbolic consciousness?

 

[Monk Of Reason]

The unchanging absolute infinite nothingness within which they exist.

Except its not. One has the properties we deem blue and the other has the properties we deem red. Simple as that.

Heh...heh...heh....The concept of what you would be left with after 'throwing out all absolutes' is an absolute in and of itself. How novel: 'Absolute Relativity'...ha ha ha...

If you just think about what 'Everything' is, that is the Absolute, because there is no other 'thing' to which it can be compared, relatively speaking. And if it is Everything, it is the Universe, which is none other than the Absolute itself. All things 'relative' are still completely part of 'everything', and that is the Absolute. 'Relative' is just a convenient concept used by the rational mind in its attempt to 'explain' the One True Reality.

Come, now, monk. It's not too far from where you are to come to your senses.

Nope. Relativity talks not that we have to "throw out all absolutes" but rather that absolutes are a matter of perspective. There are no universal absolutes for any given perspective because once your perspective changes as does everything else. There are several laws that still must be adhered to and light is one of them. But its hardly what your referencing.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

Because it is what is already in place prior to discrimination or duality, both of which are properties of the mind.

How do you know this? What is the evidence that points you in this direction? It isn't simply because you say it is.

Except that you DON"T know that! You ASSUME that because you probe the brain and it elicits certain responses. To assume consciousness to be a property of the brain is no different than a Neanderthal seeing TV images for the first time and assuming they are inside the TV. The problem is further exascerbated by the presence of the illusory "I", which deems itself the thinker, who is the agent of thinking via the brain.

Actually its the conclusion based off of research and further understanding of the brain. Its based in evidence and reason. If you have alternative beliefs about such things then go on and have them. However don't tote them around as if they were facts or if they somehow trumped science. I don't let creationists do this with evolution in threads and I won't let you do that here.

No one is saying that. What I DID say was:

"But the fact of the matter is that, what you call the 'physical' turns out to be not so 'physical' or 'material' after all, and that according to science itself, especially via Quantum Mechanics.

But we mystics already knew that."

Except they don't. What exactly did mystics say that science only later found out? Very specifically?

Well, apparently you are completely ignoring what your own science DOES tell you about what you call 'the physical world', which is, basically, that it is almost totally not 'physical' in the material sense, nor, as QM demonstrates, does it behave in a manner peculiar to what ordinary logic tells us about 'physicality'.

When you stop putting labels over reality, such as 'physical', while failing to realize the relative nature of it's value, you may at last get a glimpse into the nature of the phenomenal world, and what it points to.

What? You start saying one thing and then you end in a contradictory statement.
Yes most of our physical world is empty space if you look at it atomically. The vast majority of the "space" it takes up is "empty". However this is a far cry from anything your saying. At all. I also agree that QM throws out much of our "every day logic" or "Newtonian logic" because it doesn't work there in the same way it wouldn't work in the center of a black hole. But its all still physical. Your idea of removing the labels is simply false and your simply wrong in thinking that QM supports your beliefs.

That is not what I claimed at all. All I am saying is that mystics already knew what the true nature of the 'physical' world is long before science came up with it's ideas about it.

Well its weird how mystics think one thing and then science discovered something very different and somehow your trying to claim this as evidence that mysticism is correct.

 

[godnotgod]

I don't let creationists do this with evolution in threads and I won't let you do that here.

I'm not asking for your permission. You seem to think you have the authentically correct view of authority and that it allows you some kind of power over what others can say or not say? poopycock!

 

[godnotgod]

Except its not. One has the properties we deem blue and the other has the properties we deem red. Simple as that.

You still haven't answered the question: what allows you to know that one is red and the other blue? You're completely and arbitrarily ignoring the field within which red and blue objects, as well as the observer, exist.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

You still haven't answered the question: what allows you to know that one is red and the other blue? You're completely and arbitrarily ignoring the field within which red and blue objects, as well as the observer, exist.

You observe the properties. They are innate. Red is red because our eyes can see the specific wavelength of the visible light that is reflected off of it. Blue is the same way with blue. There is no extreme or absolute that must be true for there to be a difference between red and blue.

Likewise I can be in front of my computer if the Universe is the size of my room or infinite. Nothing about my relative position to anything else requires an absolute or infinity.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

I'm not asking for your permission. You seem to think you have the authentically correct view of authority and that it allows you some kind of power over what others can say or not say? poopycock!

I do have the ability to correct you when you state your views are fact when they are not so. I don't have the ability to provide my views as facts any more than you. I can freely quote fact and you are welcome to as well. I mean by all means go around and say your views are fact but I will be right here to tell you that its a load of barnacles

 

[godnotgod]

I do have the ability to correct you when you state your views are fact when they are not so. I don't have the ability to provide my views as facts any more than you. I can freely quote fact and you are welcome to as well. I mean by all means go around and say your views are fact but I will be right here to tell you that its a load of barnacles

What the escaped prisoner in Plato's Cave sees when he goes topside is not fact provable via evidence, but it is fact of an even greater reality than the limited reality of the shadows cast on the walls of the cave's interior. It is totally demonstrable but entails that the other prisoners would necessarily have to go see for themselves. It means having to temporarily put their opinions and ideas gained from their prior experience aside.

 

[godnotgod]

You observe the properties. They are innate. Red is red because our eyes can see the specific wavelength of the visible light that is reflected off of it. Blue is the same way with blue. There is no extreme or absolute that must be true for there to be a difference between red and blue.

Likewise I can be in front of my computer if the Universe is the size of my room or infinite. Nothing about my relative position to anything else requires an absolute or infinity.

Yes, they do. You are creating an artificial, arbitrary scenario that ultimately is within the absolute, because, taken as a whole, all relativity is actually the absolute. You're just dissecting it and looking at what you think is a piece of it; it's not. It is always connected to the whole, to the absolute.

Again, when we talk about Everything, that means there is nothing else to which it can be compared. That is the Absolute. We don't need fact or evidence to prove that. We can see that via Logic.

 

[godnotgod]

Nope. Relativity talks not that we have to "throw out all absolutes" but rather that absolutes are a matter of perspective. There are no universal absolutes for any given perspective because once your perspective changes as does everything else. There are several laws that still must be adhered to and light is one of them. But its hardly what your referencing.

Now you change your story.

If absolutes are a matter of perspective, then they are still relative, but Everything is not a matter of perspective; it is the way things ultimately are perse, and so absolute.

 

[idav]

What the escaped prisoner in Plato's Cave sees when he goes topside is not fact provable via evidence, but it is fact of an even greater reality than the limited reality of the shadows cast on the walls of the cave's interior. It is totally demonstrable but entails that the other prisoners would necessarily have to go see for themselves. It means having to temporarily put their opinions and ideas gained from their prior experience aside.

Even a child knows the signicance of everything coming via the same building blocks of atomic particles. However we dont know what atomic particles are made of, we cant assume they dont really exists since we do detect them. The question is if what we are detecting is a substance of sorts or just some spirit like frequency. Regardless, the frequencies do interact as if it were a substance often times with mass as well as momentum. The material world is due to a sort of condensing of the micro world. There is no non-material, they are forces due to elementary particles and even space acts as a fabric. Not sure how material can come from nonmaterial but I can not fathom the opposite, though the condensing idea may be valid, we dont know that energy is or isnt a substance, it certainly is something.

 

[godnotgod]

How do you know this? What is the evidence that points you in this direction? It isn't simply because you say it is.

Discrimination and duality are not possible without mind, and mind is not possible without consciousness. Because a self requires thought to exist ('I think, therefore I exist') it is not present in consciousness, as consciousness is a condition prior to thought. Therefore, consciousness is non-local, just as TV signals are non-local. They are present before and after the TV is turned on. How else do you suppose a baby already knows the game of peek-a-boo without ever having been taught? Hide and Seek is the basic game of the universe, and babies come fresh from the conscious universe. But as we become more exposed to social indoctrination and mental conditioning, we lose touch with universal consciousness, which is actually our true nature.

Actually its the conclusion based off of research and further understanding of the brain. Its based in evidence and reason. If you have alternative beliefs about such things then go on and have them. However don't tote them around as if they were facts or if they somehow trumped science. I don't let creationists do this with evolution in threads and I won't let you do that here.

Again, you have no proof that emergent theory is fact. At this point, it is still hypothesis and conjecture. It is detecting a TV signal and assuming it's source is the TV set. It's wrong.

Except they don't. What exactly did mystics say that science only later found out? Very specifically?

That the nature of the physical world is not very physical.

What? You start saying one thing and then you end in a contradictory statement.
Yes most of our physical world is empty space if you look at it atomically. The vast majority of the "space" it takes up is "empty". However this is a far cry from anything your saying. At all. I also agree that QM throws out much of our "every day logic" or "Newtonian logic" because it doesn't work there in the same way it wouldn't work in the center of a black hole. But its all still physical. Your idea of removing the labels is simply false and your simply wrong in thinking that QM supports your beliefs.

You're again misinterpreting what I've said; I never said QM supports my beliefs.

What you call 'physical' is just energy that is changing all the time. All 'physical' phenomena is temporal. It only appears static. There is no such thing as an ocean wave; it is energy-form, as all physicality is energy-form.

Remove your labels; then you might see things a bit more clearly. Reality is not it's description.

Well its weird how mystics think one thing and then science discovered something very different and somehow your trying to claim this as evidence that mysticism is correct.

Not sure which mysticism you are referring to. The fact of the matter is that, throughout history and in completely different parts of the world, mystics have consistently come to realize the same thing: that the world we think is real via ordinary consciousness, is not what we think it is. QM has just found that same fact out.

 

[idav]

Discrimination and duality are not possible without mind, and mind is not possible without consciousness. Because a self requires thought to exist ('I think, therefore I exist') it is not present in consciousness, as consciousness is a condition prior to thought. Therefore, consciousness is non-local, just as TV signals are non-local. They are present before and after the TV is turned on. How else do you suppose a baby already knows the game of peek-a-boo without ever having been taught? Hide and Seek is the basic game of the universe, and babies come fresh from the conscious universe. But as we become more exposed to social indoctrination and mental conditioning, we lose touch with universal consciousness, which is actually our true nature.




Again, you have no proof that emergent theory is fact. At this point, it is still hypothesis and conjecture. It is detecting a TV signal and assuming it's source is the TV set. It's wrong.




That the nature of the physical world is not very physical.









Not sure which mysticism you are referring to. The fact of the matter is that, throughout history and in completely different parts of the world, mystics have consistently come to realize the same thing: that the world we think is real via ordinary consciousness, is not what we think it is. QM has just found that same fact out.

On the contrary, science has confirmed that the elementary particles they thought existed actually do exist. They have found no reason to account for some mystical transcendent element that doesnt exist. They have confirmed the standard model and found the god particle (higgs boson). Confirming those elements exist puts a huge big dent in the idea that some unaccounted for nonmaterial elements exist.

 

[godnotgod]

On the contrary, science has confirmed that the elementary particles they thought existed actually do exist. They have found no reason to account for some mystical transcendent element that doesnt exist. They have confirmed the standard model and found the god particle (higgs boson). Confirming those elements exist puts a huge big dent in the idea that some unaccounted for nonmaterial elements exist.

Mmmmm....not really. Discovery of the Standard Model doesn't really tell us anything. What does physics say about a layer existing underneath the Standard Model? IOW, what is it's basis, or origin?

I stated that the nature of the physical world is that it is not very physical at all, meaning that an atom is over 99.9% empty space. So if we were to define the world in any one term, it should be that it is virtually non-physical, and that what we see and think of as real form is mostly illusory. Buddhism has told us as much for centuries. Look up 'aggregates' in Buddhism.