More Richard Conn Henry

Richard Conn Henry has another delightfully irreverent essay on the implications of Quantum Mechanics, this time commenting on a recent experiment testing "realism" interpretations of QM:

Alain Aspect is the physicist who performed the key experiment that established that if you want a real universe, it must be non-local (Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance”). Aspect comments on new work by his successor in conducting such experiments, Anton Zeilinger and his colleagues, who have now performed an experiment that suggests that “giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned.”
Be clear what is going on here. Quantum mechanics itself is not crying out for such experiments! Quantum mechanics is doing just fine, thank you, having performed flawlessly since inception. No, it is people whose cherished philosophical beliefs are being threatened that cry out for such experiments, exactly as Einstein used to do, and with exactly the same hope (we think in vain): that quantum mechanics can be refined to the point where it requires (or at least allows) belief in the independent reality of the natural world it describes.

Quantum mechanics makes no mention of reality (Figure 1). Indeed, quantum mechanics proclaims, “We have no need of that hypothesis.” Now we are beginning to see that quantum mechanics might actually exclude any possibility of mind-independent reality and already does exclude any reality that resembles our usual concept of such (Aspect: “it implies renouncing the kind of realism I would have liked”). Non-local causality is a concept that had never played any role in physics, other than in rejection (“action-at-a-distance”), until Aspect showed in 1981 that the alternative would be the abandonment of the cherished belief in mind-independent reality; suddenly, spooky-action-at-a-distance became the lesser of two evils, in the minds of the materialists.

Why do people cling with such ferocity to belief in a mind-independent reality? It is surely because if there is no such reality, then ultimately (as far as we can know) mind alone exists. And if mind is not a product of real matter, but rather is the creator of the illusion of material reality (which has, in fact, despite the materialists, been known to be the case, since the discovery of quantum mechanics in 1925), then a theistic view of our existence becomes the only rational alternative to solipsism.

Hat tip: Alex.

Prescott on quantum mechanics. . .

Michael Prescott has written a great post on quantum mechanics. Go read it. . .

Great new blog to read

In addition to his fascinating website, Ulrich Mohrhoff also writes a blog called koantum matters that I have been enjoying immensely. Mohrhoff covers a wide variety of topics, such as observations in other branches of science, essays about his own work in quantum mechanics, and more personal and philosophical matters.

Here's part of a recent post about John Horgan's book I liked:

On p. 261 of The End of Science, John Horgan describes a mystical episode that he considers “the most important experience of my life” (p. 281):

“Years ago, before I became a science writer, I had what I suppose could be called a mystical experience. A psychiatrist would probably call it a psychotic episode. Whatever. For what it’s worth, here is what happened. Objectively, I was lying spread-eagled on a suburban lawn, insensible to my surroundings. Subjectively, I was hurtling through a dazzling, dark limbo toward what I was sure was the ultimate secret of life. Wave after wave of acute astonishment at the miraculousness of existence washed over me. At the same time, I was gripped by an overwhelming solipsism. I became convinced — or rather, I knew — that I was the only conscious being in the universe. There was no future, no past, no present other than what I imagined them to be. I was filled, initially, with a sense of limitless joy and power. Then, abruptly, I became convinced that if I abandoned myself further to this ecstasy, it might consume me. If I alone existed, who could bring me back from oblivion? Who could save me? With this realization my bliss turned into horror; I fled the same revelation I had so eagerly sought. I felt myself falling through a great darkness, and as I fell I dissolved into what seemed to be an infinity of selves.”

This was written a decade ago, but it’s such a fine demonstration of the little self’s fear of the big Self — the self of all selves — that it merits comment. For once John is lifted out of the confines of his little self, its bottomless aggressive ignorance and its petty self-confident knowledge (which we all share), merges with the conscious substance that constitutes and contains the world, with the ecstasy that creates the world by expressing itself… and shrinks back in horror. Oh ye faint of heart! What need is there to bring you back to your little self, to save it? You missed your chance! You think the big Self can’t do much better everything you did, and much more? You fell back into the habitual darkness of your little self — you hadn’t realized before how dark it was — but still you noticed, at least in reverse, that we all — this infinity of selves — are fragments of the big Self.

Now go add koantum matters to your bookmarks!

Quantum Mechanics, actually explained

I've read over most of Ulrich Mohrhoff's website over the past few days, and pored through his papers on quantum mechanics.

For the first time, I think I am actually beginning to understand *why* quantum mechanics is the way it is. Not in great depth or detail, because this is not my domain of expertise. However, enough so that it actually makes sense why the quantum world appears the way it does, and something about its relationship with the more ordinary world we experience as human beings.

I outlined this understanding in a comment on Michael Prescott's blog (who is also on a QM tear the last couple weeks). Here is what I wrote there about what I believe Mohrhoff is pointing out:

What [the Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics] is saying, essentially, is that the quantum universe represents the "edge" of the classical world. Quantum behavior is necessary to create the apparent [material] world of separate particles and evolution through time that we live in out the actual inherent oneness and wholeness of Reality.

It is not that the quantum rules are bizarre. It's that in order to create a classic[al] world out of what is essentially an undivided whole, you need the quantum world in order to do it.

The quantum world is the boundary condition where ultimate Oneness manifests itself as the apparent many, the divided, the dualistic. It is an instrument for the creation of our apparent world of space and time. The purpose of the quantum world is to create the structure needed in order to manifest the ordinary material world of space and time and the possibility of evolution.

I think Mohrhoff is absolutely dead-right about this. A true vision of genius, IMO.

Ulrich, you're very welcome to comment here, especially if you see something off-base with my personal understanding of the PIQM. A confusing topic, but one I feel is very important and relevant to scientific approaches that go beyond reductionistic materialism.

Interview with a quantum physicist. . .

Here is a fascinating interview where a parapsychologist interviews a quantum physicist. Here are a few excerpts:

MISHLOVE: It's a pleasure to have you here. You know, as a parapsychologist I find it fascinating that of the various academic disciplines that are interested in psychic phenomena, there seems to be the most interest from quantum physicists such as yourself.I wonder if we can begin the program tonight by having you explain to our viewers just what is quantum physics, and why would you find the phenomenon of consciousness to be so interesting?

HERBERT: Well, quantum physics started out in the twenties to explain the interaction of light with atoms. It focused on that, but now it's extended to explain the interaction of anything with anything. It's basically the physicists' theory of the world these days, and it's been very successful. So there are two reasons, I think,why quantum physics and consciousness have some connection. One is that quantum theory, as most people know by now, is very strange. It has very weird properties. . .

MISHLOVE: Subatomic particles. Typically we hear that this sort of stuff [knocking on furniture] is no longer solid; it's mostly a vacuum in quantum physics.

HERBERT: Not only is it not solid, is it mostly empty space, but it's also probabilities -- just fuzzy, not even totally real.

MISHLOVE: In other words, particles aren't even particles anymore.

HERBERT: Particles aren't even particles anymore. That's one of the connections with consciousness -- that the solidity of matter is dissolving away in light of these theories, and becoming more and more like the fuzziness that's inside our heads.

MISHLOVE: And that's the basic, most fundamental theory in all of physics.

HERBERT: Yes, that's the basis of everything that we do in physics anyway, in quantum physics.

MISHLOVE: And physics is in fact the basic science of all the sciences. So the most fundamental theory of all of science is that the basis of reality is fuzzy.

HERBERT: Is fuzzy, is crumbling, and it is ambiguous -- that's a word I like to use. Somehow there's a basic ambiguity at the center of the world -- the center of the inanimate world, the unconscious world. . .

MISHLOVE: A term that I keep hearing is quantum interconnectedness, and the notion that separability doesn't exist -- that somehow all is one, the way the mystics used to say it.

HERBERT: Yes. There is a peculiar feature in quantum theory called quantum interconnectedness, and it was discovered right when quantum theory was discovered. It was found that in the quantum description of two objects, when two objects briefly interact and then you pull them apart, in the description at least they never come apart; there's a kind of stickiness that connects them together, so they're bound together forever in the theory. They never separate, even though they're not interacting anymore. It was thought that this was just a theoretical artifact; it was nothing that existed in the real world. Physicists noted it, said this is very strange, and then they promptly forgot about it for about fifty years. But recently, due to something called Bell's theorem, new interest has been rekindled in this interconnectedness. Bell's theorem proves that this connection is not a theoretical artifact, but actually exists in the real world.

MISHLOVE: I should mention for the benefit of our viewers, Nick, that you are probably one of the world's foremost authorities on Bell's theorem; that's what you specialized in. Bell's theorem seems like the crack in the cosmic egg, in a way; it's the one part of quantum physics that's almost turned everything upside down.

HERBERT: One of my claims to fame is that I have produced the shortest proof of Bell's theorem in existence. It's about three lines.

MISHLOVE: Now, Bell's theorem, as I understand it, goes back even prior to Bell -- to Einstein, and Einstein's disagreement with quantum physics, back in the early days. He made his classic statement, "God doesn't play dice with the universe," at a time when Einstein himself felt he disagreed with quantum physics, as I understand it. He felt that if quantum physics were true, it would have these horrendous implications which it now turns out are true.

HERBERT: Yes, Einstein was never comfortable with quantum theory, and he basically had three gripes with it. The one gripe was that quantum theory is a probabilistic theory. It just describes things like the world is essentially random and governed only by general laws that give the odds for things to happen, but within these odds anything can happen -- that God plays dice. Einstein didn't like that, but he could have lived with that. The second aspect that Einstein didn't like was the thinglessness, this fuzzy ambiguity -- that the world isn't made of things, it's not made of objects. It was put by Paul Davies -- the notion that somehow big things are made of little things. Quantum theory doesn't describe the world that way. Big things aren't made of little things; they're made of entities whose attributes aren't there when you don't look, but become there when you do look. Now, that sounds very, very strange.

MISHLOVE: Like an illusion.

HERBERT: Like an illusion, yes.

MISHLOVE: Or the Hindu concept of Maya, something like that.

HERBERT: That's right. The world exists when we don't look at it in some strange state that is indescribable. Then when we look at it, it becomes absolutely ordinary, as though someone were trying to pull something over our eyes -- the world is an illusion. Einstein didn't like that. He felt that the big things were made of little things, as the classical physicists thought.

MISHLOVE: The Newtonian view of billiard-ball-like particles -- that if you could only understand the momentum and position of each one, you could predict everything in the universe.

HERBERT: Everything in the universe, yes, a comfortable sort of view.

MISHLOVE: You mentioned three things that Einstein objected to; then there must be one more.

HERBERT: Well, the third thing is this interconnectedness. Einstein said the world cannot be like this, because this interconnectedness goes faster than light. With this quantum interconnectedness, two objects could come together, meet, and then each go into the universe, and they would still be connected. Instantaneously one would know what the fate of the other one was. Einstein said, now that can never be; that's like voodoo -- in fact, he used the word -- it's like telepathy, he said; he said it's spooky, it's ghostlike. Almost his last words in his biography were, "On this I absolutely stand firm. The world is not like this." He died in '55, and ten years later Bell showed that the world must be like this. It's kind of ironic. Bell himself said, "My theorem answers some of Einstein's questions in a way that Einstein would have liked the least."

MISHLOVE: And Einstein created a very strange picture of the universe as it is, almost time travel, in his theory of relativity.

HERBERT: Yes, but even Einstein's mind wouldn't go this far, to accept these instant connections, which now we believe really must exist in the universe.

MISHLOVE: The notion of instant connections almost implies that space itself is an illusion.

HERBERT: Yes, that distance is an illusion.

MISHLOVE: That distance is an illusion -- that you and I and our viewers and the chair are all somehow intimately connected with the most distant part of the galaxy.

HERBERT: Yes, that we're all in one place, that there aren't any places.

MISHLOVE: And the notion the mystics sometimes say, that you and I, we're not really separate individuals, but at a deeper level we're like fingers; we're all connected. Or we're like islands connected. There's that sense of connectedness as well. . .

MISHLOVE: Well, you mentioned earlier that you believe quantum physics is at the basis of consciousness. I wonder if you would come back to that point and elaborate on it.

HERBERT: Yes. Right now there are two main approaches to consciousness, I believe. They are studying the brain, looking at how the brain does it -- the one machine in the world that we know is conscious for sure -- and then trying to simulate cognitive things on computers. I think this is where the smart money is placed these days. I think these are a good place to do research.

MISHLOVE: Trying to simulate brain functioning on the computer.

HERBERT: On computers, and looking at brains. And I think we learn a lot about brains and computers there, but not very much about consciousness.

More quantum mechanics. . .

Ulrich Mohrhoff, author of the Pondicherry interpretation of quantum mechanics has written a fascinating essay describing his interpretation of what quantum theory tells us about reality. I've excerpted from his essay below:

[M]atter, which we can now define only as that which satisfies the laws of physics, may be spirit insofar as... the spirit conforms to the mental operations of distinguishing and objectifying. We can explain causally... precisely to the degree to which spiritual reality can be objectified; in this objectified form it is called... matter.

[I]n the history of philosophy this identity has been variously expressed by asserting that the final reality is spiritual; what... we call matter is the mode in which this final reality is perceived by itself as alienated from itself.

--C.F. von Weizsäcker

In the 1999 Hollywood blockbuster film The Matrix, an enigmatic character called Morpheus tells Neo, a computer programmer and night-time hacker: "The world has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth." Adi Shankara could have said that. To bring home his point, Morpheus asks Neo: "Have you ever had a dream that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream. How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?"


How indeed would we know that this world is not a virtual reality created by something or someone beyond it, by whatever means, for whatever purpose? There are two ways to find out. One is a spiritual awakening to "That which being known all is known", yasmin vijñāte sarvam vijñātam. The other is to take a close look at this dream world, this world that has been pulled over our eyes.

Mohrhoff goes on to describe the findings of quantum mechanics and why he believes they indicate that reality is an indivisible whole. Certainly some will disagree with his interpretations, but it's interesting reading nonetheless. Go check it out.

Those interested in the non-dual implications of Mohrhoff's interpretation of quantum mechanics (or who enjoy landscape photography) might enjoy my other blog. . .

The Mental Universe

Richard Conn Henry, a physicist at John Hopkins University, penned a delightful essay for the journal Nature titled "The Mental Universe". I've excerpted parts of the essay below:

Historically, we have looked to our religious leaders to understand the meaning of our lives; the nature of our world. With Galileo Galilei, this changed. In establishing that the Earth goes around the Sun, Galileo not only succeeded in believing the unbelievable himself, but also convinced almost everyone else to do the same. This was a stunning accomplishment in ‘physics outreach’ and, with the subsequent work of Isaac Newton, physics joined religion in seeking to explain our place in the Universe.

The more recent physics revolution of the past 80 years has yet to transform general public understanding in a similar way. And yet a correct understanding of physics was accessible even to Pythagoras. According to Pythagoras, “number is all things”, and numbers are mental, not mechanical. Likewise, Newton called light “particles”, knowing the concept to be an ‘effective theory’ — useful, not true. . .

The 1925 discovery of quantum mechanics solved the problem of the Universe’s nature. Bright physicists were again led to believe the unbelievable — this time, that the Universe is mental. According to Sir James Jeans: “the stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter... we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.” But physicists have not yet followed Galileo’s example, and convinced everyone of the wonders of quantum mechanics. As Sir Arthur Eddington explained: “It is difficult for the matter-of-fact physicist to accept the view that the substratum of everything is of mental character.”

In his play Copenhagen, which brings quantum mechanics to a wider audience, Michael Frayn gives these word to Niels Bohr: “we discover that... the Universe exists... only through the understanding lodged inside the human head.” . . .

Discussing the play, John H. Marburger III, President George W. Bush’s science adviser, observes that “in the Copenhagen interpretation of microscopic nature, there are neither waves nor particles”, but then frames his remarks in terms of a non-existent “underlying stuff ”. He points out that it is not true that matter “sometimes behaves like a wave and sometimes like a particle... The wave is not in the underlying stuff; it is in the spatial pattern of detector clicks... We cannot help but think of the clicks as caused by little localized pieces of stuff that we might as well call particles. This is where the particle language comes from. It does not come from the underlying stuff, but from our psychological predisposition to associate localized phenomena with particles.”

In place of “underlying stuff ” there have been serious attempts to preserve a material world — but they produce no new physics, and serve only to preserve an illusion. . .

Physicists shy from the truth because the truth is so alien to everyday physics. A common way to evade the mental Universe is to invoke ‘decoherence’ — the notion that ‘the physical environment’ is sufficient to create reality, independent of the human mind. Yet the idea that any irreversible act of amplification is necessary to collapse the wave function is known to be wrong: in ‘Renninger-type’ experiments, the wave function is collapsed simply by your human mind seeing nothing. The Universe is entirely mental.

In the tenth century, Ibn al-Haytham initiated the view that light proceeds from a source, enters the eye, and is perceived. This picture is incorrect but is still what most people think occurs, including, unless pressed, most physicists. To come to terms with the Universe, we must abandon such views. The world is quantum mechanical: we must learn to perceive it as such. One benefit of switching humanity to a correct perception of the world is the resulting joy of discovering the mental nature of the Universe. We have no idea what this mental nature implies, but — the great thing is — it is true. Beyond the acquisition of this perception, physics can no longer help. You may descend into solipsism, expand to deism, or something else if you can justify it — just don’t ask physics for help.

There is another benefit of seeing the world as quantum mechanical: someone who has learned to accept that nothing exists but observations is far ahead of peers who stumble through physics hoping to find out ‘what things are’. If we can ‘pull a Galileo,’ and get people believing the truth, they will find physics a breeze.

The Universe is immaterial — mental and spiritual. Live, and enjoy.