Quantum flapdoodle

EyeKen 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.

5 thoughts on “Quantum flapdoodle”

  1. 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

  2. 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?)

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