The Library – Stephen Davis
―There are three other doors in the back of the theatre I haven‘t mentioned.
One has a sign saying, ‗Men‘s Room;‘ another says ‗Ladies Room;‘ and above the third door is a sign saying, ‗Library‘ and that door is never closed.
In between groups (or as I began to realise the particular group I belonged to at the time wasn‘t going to produce what they were offering and my membership was coming to an end), I would go into this library and read, looking for new inspiration and hope.
I‘ve mentioned in passing some of the titles and authors I spent time with, and I had the chance to study many of the texts written by the founders and leaders of various groups, saving me the trouble of actually joining that group in order to discover its inconsistencies and contradictions.
Most of the books in the library aren‘t worth mentioning, at least in this discussion. But there is some very important information I discovered while reading you should know about (if you don‘t already), information absolutely critical to anyone wishing to change their reality. So I‘m going to make a big jump right now from philosophy and religion to science, from ‗Metaphors‘ (1)
and analogies to cold, hard scientific experiments.
The subject is Quantum Physics and what has become known (and widely misunderstood) as the ‗Holographic Universe‘ (2) (monumental discoveries made in the last few decades which literally change everything we have believed about our physical universe).
Don‘t worry. I‘m not going to get all ‗scientifically technical‘ or say something any human adult couldn‘t understand. But if you are still not satisfied with any of the groups you‘ve joined (if you‘re looking around trying to find out why none of the groups have produced anything close to what you want to experience and what you think is possible to experience), then you should spend the next few chapters in the library with me; and bring your computer.
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I want to say at the outset I am not an expert in quantum physics, so I have invited the real experts – Ph.D.‘s in physics, professors of quantum physics at major universities worldwide, authors of many books – to speak to you directly by using a lot of their written quotes and video interviews.
Basically, I want to ensure you - what you will be reading - will not be my opinions; but those of the people who really know what they‘re talking about in regard to quantum physics.
I‘ve included a number of references to ‗YouTube‘ videos to watch, and I strongly suggest you visit those links and watch those videos as you read. Okay.
Here we go………
We‘ve known for a long time (at least, I was taught in school more than fifty years ago), the physical world around us is not as solid as it looks and feels. In fact, the universe is made up of mostly empty space. This becomes very clear when we take a ride on a rocket into outer space and see so much nothing between a few particles of matter called stars and galaxies. As the technology has improved and we have gone deeper and deeper into inner space as well, we find the same thing in the atomic and sub-atomic worlds – mostly nothing. The very best and most fun way to experience this for yourself is to watch a nine minute video called ‗Powers of Ten,‘ from the office of ‗Charles and Ray Eames,‘ (3) which they produced for IBM in 1977.
There have been other videos made along the same lines: ‗Cosmic Voyage‘
(1996, produced for IMAX and narrated by Morgan Freeman), and ‗Cosmic Zoom‘ (1968, produced by the National Film Board of Canada.)The most important thing to see in these videos is that outer space and inner space looks very much alike, there‘s hardly anything there except empty space.
For example, if you took the nucleus of a hydrogen atom and blew it up to the size of a basketball, the electron that defines the outermost edge of that atom would be twenty miles away from the nucleus. And in between? – Nothing –
Nada – Zilch……… Just empty space!
Within all the atoms and molecules – all the space within them – the particles take up an insignificant amount of the volume of an atom. In fact, the universe is mostly empty.
So……… the first thing we have to understand is that matter is not solid, even though it looks and feels that way to us. ‗Matter‘ (4) is not what we have long thought it to be.
Matter is, in fact, full of empty space.
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☼☼☼
The ‗Powers of Ten‘ video ends at the limit of our understanding at that time (1977), looking at a single proton in the nucleus of a carbon atom. But as the technology improved over the years, and scientists were able to dive deeper and deeper into inner space, they discovered the very small particles they found did not behave as they were supposed to, at least not according to all the laws of physics we had believed for hundreds of years.
The most famous experiment that caused a real commotion is called the ‗Double Slit Experiment.‘ (5) It was actually first done with light in 1801 by an English scientist, ‗Thomas Young.‘ (6) Young demonstrated that light was not actually a particle, as had been believed up until that time, but acted like a wave instead.
Then in 1961, this same experiment was performed with electrons rather than light, and finally in 1974 with just one electron at a time. Since then it has been repeated and refined and repeated again, over and over, with the same result every time.
In September 2002, this ‗Double Slit‘ experiment was voted the most beautiful experiment by readers of Physics World, and noted quantum physicist ‗Richard Feynman‘ (7) has said ‗all of quantum mechanics can be gleaned from carefully thinking through the implications of this single experiment.‘
That‘s how important this experiment is, and how much it has changed everyone‘s thinking of how the world works. So let‘s take a look at how this experiment is done and why its results are so startling.
We‘re going to start by taking small pieces of matter, like little BB‘s (ball bearings), and shooting a stream of them out of a gun against a barrier that has a single slit in it. Behind the barrier is a sensitive screen, so when a BB‘s hit it, it makes a mark. Most of the BB‘s hit the barrier, but the ones that go through the slit hit the screen and make a pattern just like the shape of the slit (all that makes perfect sense). So now we‘ll add a second slit in the barrier and shoot the BB‘s at it again; and we get what we‘d expect to get: a pattern of two slits on the screen.
Okay, so far so good. Now, what would happen if we sent waves of water toward the screen instead of firing BB‘s at it? With just one slit in the barrier, part of the wave goes through the slit and forms a pattern on the screen that looks a lot like the BB‘s pattern with only one slit. The most intensity on the screen is where the top of the wave hits, directly in line with the slit. But if we put a barrier with two slits in it between the waves and the screen, a completely different thing happens.
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When the water goes through both slits, the new waves created by the slits on the other side of the barrier hit each other on the way to the screen. When the top of one wave hits the bottom of another wave, they cancel each other out.
This is called ‗Destructive Interference.‘ You can easily see this when you drop two pebbles in a pond some distance apart and watch what happens when the ripples meet. So when we send waves through a barrier with two slits, we get what is called an ‗Interference Pattern‘ on the screen.
So, when we send ‗Particles of Matter‘ (like the BB‘s) through two slits, we get two definite patterns on the screen that look like the slits they came through.
When we send waves through two slits, we get an interference pattern on the screen. Simple enough?
Now let‘s try this experiment with electrons instead of BB‘s. We have always thought about an electron as a really, really small BB whirling around the nucleus of an atom (a very small particle of matter and solid, like a BB). So we would expect to see the same pattern on the screen we got when we shot BB‘s; and we do when there is one slit in the barrier and when we shoot a beam of electrons through two slits in the barrier, we would expect to get a pattern of two slits on the screen just like the BB‘s.
BUT WE DON‟T!
Instead, we get the same interference pattern we got when we sent waves through two slits.
WAVES - ELECTRONS
Originally, scientists thought this might be because they were firing a lot of electrons toward the screen at one time, and maybe some of the electrons were crashing into each other on the other side of the barrier, cancelling each other out and not making it to the screen. By 1974 they were finally able to develop a way to fire one electron at a time at the screen, so there was no way possible for them to interfere with each other. But they still got an interference pattern.
How is that possible? How is it possible to send one tiny particle of matter at a time through two slits and have it form a wave interference pattern? There was only one explanation that made any sense: An electron is a wave rather than a particle; it is not a solid piece of matter as we have always thought! More recent experiments have discovered the same thing holds true for the nucleus of an atom, not just the electrons!
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Matter is not what we have long thought it to be. To the scientist, matter has always been thought of as sort of the ultimate in that which is static and predictable……… We like to think of space as empty and matter as solid. But in fact, there is essentially nothing to matter whatsoever; it‘s completely insubstantial. Take a look at an atom. We think of it as a kind of hard ball. Then we say, ‗Oh, well no, not really………it‘s this little tiny point of really dense matter right at the center……...‘ But then it turns out that that‘s not even right.
Even the nucleus, which we think of as so dense, pops in and out of existence just as readily as the electrons do.
So the very building blocks of what we call our ‗Physical Universe‘ (the nucleus and electrons of atoms) are not just particles of matter, but in fact exist as waves. In quantum physics this is called ‗Wave-Particle Duality.‘(8)
That blew everybody‟s mind; but it‟s not the end of the story….
☼☼☼
My Impression On Above Chapter: „The Key‟
Even though most of us are probably far from ‗advanced states of consciousness,‘ it is important that we do not become seduced by our daily experience into false beliefs about the true nature of things . We may still see the sun going down, but we know reality is different, and take this into account in our considerations of the universe.
The difference with the ‗Kantian Revolution‘ (9) (let's follow tradition and name it after one its founding fathers) is that the shift in ‗Metaparadigm‘ (10) is not yet complete.
All the pieces are in place (just as all the relevant pieces of the ‗Copernican Revolution‘ (11) were in place by the early seventeenth century) but they have not yet been put together into a coherent model, and the implications have still to sink in.
The foundation stone of the emerging metaparadigm is the distinction between the observable facts, the reality generated in the mind (brain) and the unknowable reality, or un-observable facts, which underlies it.
When this distinction is clear, many peculiarities and apparently complex problems across a broad spectrum of human endeavour either dissolve or take on an entirely different nature.
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The foremost problem is that when we look at the world, we do not see consciousness out there. All we see are the various forms and qualities that consciousness has taken on. To us the material world appears to be devoid of consciousness. The reason we do not find consciousness in the world we observe is because consciousness is not part of the picture generated in our minds (brains). It is the canvas on which the picture is painted. But when we mistakenly assume that the picture of reality painted in our mind, is the underlying reality, we find ourselves presented with a very difficult question regarding consciousness: How does conscious experience arise or emerge from matter? This is the so-called ‗Hard Question‘ to which many scientists and philosophers are currently devoting considerable time and attention.
The hard question that these people think they are asking is: ―How do the Noumena (12) give rise to consciousness?‖ But knowing very little of the noumena, we are not really in any position even to ask this question.
The question these people are actually asking has more to do with our image of reality than the fundamental reality. They are asking how it is that a complex network of ‗Neurons‘ (13) can give rise to conscious experience. How does something as immaterial as consciousness arise from something as unconscious as the material world? Is it a result of the complex patterning of data across the
‗Neural Network?‘(14) Is it due to ‗Quantum Coherence‘ (15) effects in
‗Microtubules‘ ( 16) within the neurons? Or is it something else?
What all these approaches have in common is that they are trying to explain consciousness in terms of phenomena that belong to ‗our image of reality,‘
which is itself a manifestation within consciousness.
The so-called hard question is actually a mistaken question. When we distinguish between the two realities, the question disappears to be replaced by its opposite: How is it that matter, space, time, colour, sound, form, and all the other qualities we experience emerge in consciousness? What is the process of manifestation within the mind? The question that is actually being asked is
―where is consciousness located in our image of reality?”
There are two possible answers to this question……..
On the one hand, consciousness is not located anywhere within the world; the whole world (our entire image of reality, including our bodies and brains) is itself a manifestation within consciousness. Consciousness is the container of our world; it is not contained within it.
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On the other hand, we do clearly experience ourselves to be located somewhere within that image. We have created this image of reality and have quite naturally put ourselves at the center of this image. The whole world we have constructed is constructed around a central point, the center of our perception.
The central point of most of our sensory experience appears to be somewhere in the middle of the head. We see ourselves to be „somewhere‟ behind the eyes,
and hear ourselves to be „somewhere‟ between the ears. This is where we quite naturally place ourselves within our image of reality . Since the brain is also located in the middle of the head, it is easy to ‗assume‘ that consciousness is somehow located in the brain. But this need not necessarily be so at all.
I have come to a personal conclusion that consciousness is not located anywhere within the world, it is that within which the world is located. But we create a sense of location for ourselves within our image of the world by placing ourselves at the center of our perceived world.
This distinction throws new light on ‗Einstein's Theory of Relativity‘ (17) and the ‗Wave-Particle Paradox‘ (18) in quantum mechanics when we recognise that in the real world light does not travel across space or time (a difficult conundrum in quantum physics); it becomes much easier to understand. In our image of reality we observe energy travelling from one end of a light ray to the other. It is only natural to ask how the energy travels: Is it a wave? Or is it a particle? – Two models both drawn from our image of reality.
The answer, as it appears to me, is both. In some situations light behaves as a continuous wave spreading out in space (but a wave without a medium). In other situations it behaves as a particle travelling through space (but a particle without mass). Physicists have accommodated these two strange and seemingly paradoxical conclusion, by deciding that light is a wave-particle. In certain circumstances it appears as a wave; in others as a particle.
But if we look at things from light's point of view, it is neither. Since it did not travel through space and time, it needed no vehicle or mechanism of travel (it has no need to be either a wave or a particle). As far as light itself is concerned, there is no duality, no paradox.
The physicist's conundrum appears only when we mistake our image of reality with the thing in itself , and try to visualise light in concepts and terms appropriate to our image of reality - i.e., waves and particles.
It also offers a new perspective on many spiritual teachings. Religion and science may not be as oppositely opposed as many believe; the ‗2011 Model‘
suggests an alternative, and far more enlightening, meaning to God (Infinite I).
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We are now in a better position to understand two recurrent themes in spiritual experience . Throughout human history there have been mystics of one kind or another who have proclaimed that ―I am God‖ (or words to that effect). To the ears of established religion this has often sounded like heresy; ―How can this lowly individual claim that he (or sometimes she) is the almighty, eternal creator?‖ Heresy enough to get one imprisoned, tortured, or even burned at the stake.
Such people are not necessarily deluded believers; they are usually people who have spent considerable time exploring the depths of human consciousness, and their realisations are not to be lightly dismissed.
If we look more closely at their statements, what they seem to be saying is that the ‗I‘ (that innermost essence of ourselves, that pure consciousness that resides at our core), is a ‗universal essence‘ (Infinite I). Whatever we may be conscious of, the sense of consciousness is something we all share. This consciousness is the one truth we cannot deny. It is the absolute certainty of our existence. It is eternal in that it is always there whatever the contents of our experience. It is the essence of everything we know. It is the creator of our world. This is the ‗God‘
(19)(Infinite I) that we intuitively knew existed, but never quite found.
FOOTNOTES
1. Wikipedia – Metaphors;
2. Wikipedia – Holographic Universe;
3. Wikipedia – Charles and Ray Eames;
4. Wikipedia – Matter;
5. Wikipedia – Double Slit;
6. Wikipedia – Thomas Young;
7. Wikipedia – Richard Feynman;
8. Wikipedia – Wave-Particle Duality; 9. Wikipedia – Kantian Revolution; 10. Wikipedia – Metaparadigm;