Friday, March 30, 2012
The Cult of Quantum Physics
Dr. Goswami grew up in India as the son of a brahmán priest. He turned his back on pursuing the traditional priesthood, instead choosing the path of science. Yet eventually that scientific path would render him to be a priest of a different kind.
I stumbled upon Dr. Goswami through a couple documentaries, "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" (which was part very quirky film/part documentary, and contained reference to a few disputed scientific studies) and "The Quantum Activist" (which was mostly compiled clips of Dr. Goswani speaking).
(I'm essentially a n00b to quantum physics, so I apologize in advance for errors in the following discussion.)
There is a curious phenomenon in quantum physics known as the observer effect, or as they sometimes put it: "consciousness causes collapse." It works like this: unobserved matter is potentially in X number of possible states, but when there is a conscious observer, the matter gets locked into one particular state. Such a situation is quite a paradox for materialists. How can mere observation change matter?
Dr. Goswami, who literally wrote the textbook on Quantum Mechanics which is widely used in colleges, has come up with an interesting solution to that paradox: "Consciousness is the ground of Being." Or to put it another way, we live in a consciousness-based reality, not a material-based reality. The material manifestations around us are simply "collapsed consciousness;" conscious possibilities which have been locked into a particular state by an observing consciousness.
Dr. Goswani's position is not without its skeptics, some predating the doctor himself. One of the most famous objections (if anything within quantum physics can be considered "famous!") is Schrödinger's cat. In 1935, Erwin Schrödinger proposed a thought experiment in which a cat in a box would live or die based off of the unobserved radioactive decay of an element, thereby implying that the requirement of an observer to lock in a state of matter (in this case, the spontaneous decay of one particular atom) is in some cases, if not all cases, illusory.
Yet Dr. Goswani sidesteps such criticisms by appealing to the cosmic consciousness, non-localized consciousness, or quantum consciousness. This, he identifies as being one and the same with the mystic concept of God; that God is everything, although he suggests that you don't have to consider such a non-localized, quantum consciousness as God. Certainly, this God is not a rule-giving, judgement making, and salvation-providing deity. No, this God is the supple undercurrent of consciousness which provides the basis for all forms of collapsed consciousness, and maintains the interconnectedness of all things outside of space and time.
At least one reproducible experiment seems to support this interconnected, non-localized consciousness. The set up is this: Two people meditate in the same room with the intent of trying to connect with one another through their mediation. After twenty minutes, these two people are then moved into two different rooms, each inside their own Faraday cages to shield electromagnetic communications. The two people are rigged up to EEG processors to measure brain activity, and then told to mediate again. Then, one of the test subjects is stimulated with light pulses, which evokes a reaction on the EEG. The freaky thing is that the other test subject, who was not subjected to the light pulse, exhibited a very similar EEG evocation in both amplitude and phase to the one exhibited by the person who did receive the light pulse. Control subjects who didn't meditate on each other didn't experience this sympathetic evocation.
So how is it possible that two people meditating on one another could transmit signals to each other, despite being in different locations and being shielded from one another? Well, Faraday cages can't block out all electromagnetic influences, and there is always the chance that the EEG's themselves, combined with the electrical wiring, served as antenna, of sorts, to transmit that signal. Yet that does not fully explain everything. After all, why did meditation make the difference versus the control subjects? Something connected these two people who had meditated. Dr. Goswami posits that it is the quantum consciousness which has linked them together.
If we can influence this non-localized consciousness with our own thoughts, then it would seem that we could potentially seize the possibilities, and make manifest any reality we choose. However, Dr. Goswami suggests that a little humility may be in order. This quantum consciousness is larger than any of our single consciousnesses, and is subject to the influence of everyone else around. In most of life, you will have to yield to the quantum consciousness more than it will yield to you. Yet if groups of people begin to intently focus their consciousness from the level of meditation, as opposed to doing so at the level of ego or rational desires, it may be possible to tap into that quantum consciousness to really make the world a better place.
I have many issues with some of Dr. Goswami's quantum philosophy, including my own prejudices, but I reserve final judgement for now. Even though the concept of quantum mechanics has been around for well over a century, it is still a burgeoning field, in my opinion. In no small part, the difficulty lies in dealing with a scale which is only on the fringes of observability. I compare it to trying to fully develop the Germ Theory of Disease without a microscope. It's not that it is impossible to make meaningful discoveries or theories based on the observations, but I think that we must temper them as conjectures based on incomplete data. Beyond that, at least at my present understanding, it seems that the doctor makes several quantum leaps of faith in connecting the dots to develop his philosophy.
Yet I can't deny that Dr. Goswami theories are enticing to ponder, and they do provide some interesting solutions to problems, such as the mind-brain interface. Dr. Goswani's "cult" following may, in time, prove to be completely justified. It would be fascinating to discover that science confirms the ideas which mystics have been telling us for several millenniums. Truth is often stranger than fiction.
For additional information besides the Wikipedia link above, check out Dr. Goswami's website.
6 comments:
@SabioReply
Indeed! On one hand, it is encouraging that people incline towards science. But the problem is exactly that it is a "jump" at science; impulsive, without full measure of contemplation or understanding. It's so tempting to do, too. Obviously, given that such a jump solicits a yawn. ;-)
I saw those DVD titles on netflix and almost watched them. I may do so now. So, do the observations have to be conscious or can the unconscious observations of recording instruments work just as well?Reply- @DoOrDoNotReply
I watched them on NetFlix. :-) "What the Bleep Do We Know!?" is so quirky, and now that I know some of the studies they reference are disputed, I have a hard time recommending it. Of course, with your psychology background, that might make it all the more interesting! It wasn't bad. It was just weird, but kind of in a good way. "The Quantum Activist" was pretty good overall.
Anyway, to answer your question, it turns out that unconscious observations affect reality too. In a double-slit experiment, where a single photon of light is shot at two very tiny and close-together slits, a diffraction pattern emerges on the other side of those slits (thus, light behaved wave-like). When they put a momentum measuring device on the other side of the slits, the diffraction pattern vanished (thus light behaved particle-like) if the device was turned on. It a little odd, like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_slit 
It sounds like Dr. Goswami is having a lot of fun. His site seems a little light, doesn't go into things too deep. I kind of like the idea that god can be stripped of the usual dressings, including authority and agency. It still sounds like you can make gods into whatever you feel.Reply
Other than being a minor, whimsical threat to standard materialism, is there anything new here for spirituality besides a rehashed justification? I do like some of his phrases.
I tried to find out if there was any radical change in ethics or behaviour because of this and found little (I admit, it was not a rigorous search). How do Goswami's ideas change things really?- @AndrewReply
I think you hit the nail on the head, that, for the most part, this is a rehashed justification; now with "scientific backing!" :-) It is a blending of old mysticism and the new age mysticism (where you make your own reality).
The "change" is a focus shift. In watching "The Quantum Activist", he seems to promote two ideas:
1) Take time to let the quantum consciousness speak to you. In other words, don't do, do, do, do. When you are doing, you bring a select thought into reality, but your ideas are more limited. Instead, alternate periods of doing and just simply "being," and during that time of being more options will present themselves from the quantum consciousness.
2) As hinted at above, we do create reality in a way, but we all need to work together at it, to work for the common good, not the selfish good. (Very old-school philosophy, but with his scientific twist on the backing of influencing the quantum consciousness at a collective and sub-ego level.)
Yawn.