Quantum flapdoodle
Ken Wilber comes out against quantum flapdoodle:
The central question of this dialogue has to do directly with the relation of modern quantum physics and spirituality. In effect, does physics prove God? Does the Tao find proof in quantum realities?
Answer: “Categorically not. I don’t know more confusion in the last thirty years than has come from quantum physics….”
Heh! Take that, fans of the What the Bleep movie.
There seems to be a very powerful desire among some proponents of spiritual thinking to use the mysterious and baffling nature of quantum physics to validate spiritual phenomena. This is a bad idea which ends up diminishing both quantum physics and spirituality.
Thorbs Said,
May 22, 2006 @ 10:00 pm
My friend I think you are getting Kens article wrong. He is talking about Vedanta, which is the “philosohy of enlightenment”. In Vedanta it is often stated that the truth can not been experienced by looking into that which is not truth (not permanent) but only by direct experience of that which is permanent. In other words truth is that which is beyond the mind as mind is not permanent. It is this he is talking about when he says “The content of physics is the understanding of the movement of form within time, i.e. that which is constantly changing. And if you hook Buddha’s enlightenment to a theory of physics that gets disproved tomorrow, does that mean Buddha loses his enlightenment?”. This is not however the same as saying that physics is not validating spiritual matter. On the contrary he is in the interview taken in to account for following in the end of the interview, “Ken goes on to suggest that what might be influencing quantum realities is not Suchness per se, but bio-energy or prana, which may be the source of the crackling, buzzing, electric creativity that so many theorists have tried to explain at the quantum level.” In other words what he is being said is that lifeenergy (wich is another word for prana) can be registered by quantum physics. Prana which among other is directed by intention. So he is not concluding that quantum physics do not validate spiritual phenomena. He is just stating than in the search of truth or that which is unlimited one should not examine that which is limited. What I am saying here is that truth is beoyond phenomena whether you categorise this as spiritual or not =)
But all this is not that saying that modern science is not leading towards truth or mysticism. The interesting part of modern science is not what it is able to show or proove but what it is not able to prove. It is the glitches, gaps and the holes that are interesting. It is not pointing us towards truth, nothing created by the mind can, but it is showing us what is not truth. I am pesonally not a scholar in quantum physics my era is the mind and its perception of the world, so I will use examples from this field. The ineresting thing in this field is that when you go deep you find out that our words, our minds, our thoughts, our perception is not able to objectively describe the world. The world is beyond our mind. If you go deep enough the words, the concepts fall of the world and you realise that the world, the truth is beyond the mind. You can either except this limit or go beyond. If you choose to go beyond mysticicm starts. And interesting fact one should note here is that modern linguistics is generally acknowledged to derive from sanscrit scholar. From wikipedia “In ancient India, the Sanskrit grammarian P?ṇini (c. 520–460 BC) is the earliest known linguist and is often acknowledged as the founder of linguistics. He is most famous for formulating the 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology in the text Aṣṭ?dhy?yī, which is still in use today. P?ṇini’s grammar of Sanskrit is highly systematised and technical. Inherent in its analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme and the root, only recognized by Western linguists some two millennia later. His rules fully describe Sanskrit morphology without any redundance. A consequence of his grammar’s focus on brevity is its highly unintuitive structure, reminiscent of contemporary “machine language” (as opposed to “human readable” programming languages). His sophisticated logical rules and technique have been widely influential in ancient and modern linguistics.”. And the father of modern linguistics Ferdinand de Saussure was a scholar of sanskrit. Wikipedia writes, “The work of P?ṇini, and the later Indian linguist Bhartrihari, had a significant influence on many of the foundational ideas proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure, professor of Sanskrit, who is widely considered the father of modern structural linguistics.”. The point I am driving at is that the core of Sanskrit philosophy is Vedantic. Sanskrit is the liturgical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. It is the language of spiritual mysticism. And at the same time it is the language of modern science. Without having proved anything here I would suggest that there is a reason that so many of the bleeding edge modern scientist are mystics. This being that in the quest to know phenomena, spiritual or not spiritual, you come to the limits of phenomena. And being on the limits off phenomena any adventures person would jump. But what I believe Ken Wilber is leading our attention to here is that this can not be known by any superficial approach. Only by personal direct perception of both the limited and the unlimited can one get any knowledge worth having. If nothing else both spirituality and science is sharing that they are personal adventures that one needs to experience one self. So with the famous words of the compasionate Buddha. Dont believe my words, go and make your own experiences only they are valid for you. Please note that like the Buddha I am not talking about God or not God here. Truth is radically subjective and not something one can have through others….
mike3 Said,
August 9, 2008 @ 10:16 pm
“Truth is radically subjective and not something one can have through others….”
Then we should not criticize anyone’s claim of truth, as we are then essentially claiming then that our equally radically subjective view of it somehow better or less subjective than theirs. Oops…
mike3 Said,
August 9, 2008 @ 10:36 pm
Also, I’m not sure if one really can “perceive” God (or whatever you wish to call the ultimate ground of reality) directly. God is eternally hidden, He/She/It/whatever you want to use is not “directly perceptible” by man. Also, the essence of things — even limited things — is impossible to know or perceive. At least that is my viewpoint on the matter (I could tell you where it comes from if you want, Thorbs.). But then again, if all the “truth” really is so subjective then this is no more/less right than your own, so…
As for that, I’d say that absolute truths are impossible to know. Essences of things are such absolute truths — so “direct perception” of them is impossible. (I’m guessing you are referring to essence, since perception of non-essential (phenomenal) parts is not “direct”, is it?)
glen Said,
January 11, 2009 @ 2:50 am
One may “perceive” directly. God (One or more unifying forces) is eternally/momentarily revealed, as “directly perceptible” . Essence of things are possible to know or perceive. All “truth” really is objective/subjective/abjective.
Absolute truths are possible to know. Essences of things are absolute truths — so “direct perception” of them is possible.
My complaint is this, (You were complaining weren’t you?) all perceptions will not agree and these perceptions are parted,
but the all holy but has always stated that, ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’. So, no one ever gets asked to be convinced or is charged to convince, ever. I guess that willingness alone can not be faulted
and only doubt remains, which each determines to be an ability.
mike3 Said,
January 11, 2009 @ 11:26 am
“One may “perceive” directly. God (One or more unifying forces) is eternally/momentarily revealed, as “directly perceptible” . Essence of things are possible to know or perceive. All “truth” really is objective/subjective/abjective.
Absolute truths are possible to know. Essences of things are absolute truths — so “direct perception” of them is possible.”
How would that be possible to “know” essences, to “know” absolute truths? How can you *know* if a given perceived “truth” is truly absolute?
You even say:
“My complaint is this, (You were complaining weren’t you?) all perceptions will not agree and these perceptions are parted,
but the all holy but has always stated that, ‘parting is such sweet sorrow’. ”
This seems to evidence *my* point, actually. Which is that our perceptions are relative, not absolute. If they were absolute, they would all be in agreement, as truth is one. If they are relative, they may not necessarily be, and each one describes some “bit” of the truth in its own way, although the truth “in and of itself” cannot be directly known outside of that perceptual framework.