THE HEART OF MATTERIn the early years of the nineteenth century,....Thomas Young demonstrated that light behaves like a wave. After shining a beam of light through two slits, he observed interference patterns forming on a screen placed behind them. Wave crests met wave crests to form bigger crests; wave troughs met wave troughs to former deeper troughs; and when crests and troughs were not meeting companionably, they interfered with one another in order to extinguish themselves.
What could be simpler? Light is like a wave.
Ah, but on the other hand, Einstein demonstrated in 1905 that in order to explain the photoelectric effect, it was necessary (or at least convenient) to assume that light comprises particles. Send a beam of light toward a metal surface, and electrons pop out. Plainly they pop out because they have been knocked off. To accommodate both popping and knocking off, Einstein found it necessary to think of light as if it were composed of discrete packets of energy.
What could be simpler? Light is like a particle.
It was not entirely clear how in the matter of Young v. Einstein, both men could have been right.
The consortium of physicists who created quantum mechanics in the third decade of the twentieth century--Neils Bohr, Werner Heisenberg, Erwin Schrodinger, Max Born--finessed this problem by declaring Young v. Einstein a draw. Light, they argued, is both like a wave and like a particle, and what is more, it is like a wave and like a particle on the level of individual photons themselves. Photons, physicists came to understand, interfere with themselves, and if deep down no one had the slightest idea how to picture auto interference, what physicists were willing to give up was the picture and not the interference.
The finessing required, as one might imagine, a good deal of finessing.
A quantum particle--an electron or photon, say--is here, and somewhat later, it is there. The old here-and -there, Schrodinger specified in terms of the properties of a wave. It is here where the wave mounts and there where it dips. Passing through two slits, the wave peaks at the left and peaks as well at the right, flowing, as waves tend to do, through both slits at once.
But a wave is intended to track the moving position of a single particle, and it is here that the formalism of quantum mechanics commits the physicist to a form of legerdemain that has to this day resisted all attempts at explication (emphasis mine). It is one thing to say that a wave may pass through two slits; it is quite another thing to say that a single particle may divide its allegiance in just the same way. Nonetheless, this is just what physicists were forced to say. By now, they say it without a second thought. The particle that could be here or there they represent by a wave that is here and there. If that is where the wave is, the particle enjoys a doubling of its position in space, with each position corresponding to a distinct physical state. Somehow both physical states are real and they are real at the same time. They are, as physicists say, superimposed. They exist together. There is no getting rid of them. Superimposed states are themselves described by the undulation of a wave, which is generally described as a wave packet to signify the extent to which it embodies a variety of different states and so a variety of different waves. It is Schrodinger's equation that describes the wave packets' undulations.
The formalism of quantum mechanics, physicists at once realized, defeated all efforts to picture the quantum world. If no pictures were available, neither was there a link to common sense. Light is both a wave and a particle, and it is both a wave and a particle at the same time. This conclusion embodies a mystery, one that no subsequent analytic efforts have dissolved (emphasis mine).
....In 1926, Max Born...suggested...that quantum mechanical waves.....might be understood in terms of the probabilities that they reveal. Thus the amplitude of a wave is a sign that quite likely there is a particle there and so a clue to its position, and the distance between wave peaks is again a sign that the particle is quite likely traveling with a particular momentum......
Under Born's interpretation of quantum mechanics, the identity of a particle undergoes further deconstruction. The old here-or-there has long since passed to the new here-and-there, but what is here and there is now a matter of chance. Having impossibly divided itself between two slits, a single photon undergoes further demotion to appear in quantum mechanics as the ghost of its position. It could be here, it could be there, and somehow it could be at both places at once.
These divided allegiances come to an end abruptly when an observer, padding in from outside the quantum system, undertakes a measurement. So long as no one is looking, the electron is all things to all men. But let the physicist have a look, and boom! the particle that could be here and there becomes here or there all over again. The wave packet collapses into just one of its possibilities. The other quantum states that it embodies vanishes, and they vanish instantaneously.
No one knows why (emphasis mine).
Niels Bohr........embraced this interpretation of quantum mechanics, whence it's designation as the Copenhagen interpretation. It has become canonical.
It has not, however, explained the connection between the quantum realm and the classical realm. "So long as the packet reduction is an essential component [of quantum mechanics], the physicist John Bell observed, "and so long as we do not know when and how it takes over from the Schrodinger equation, we do not have an exact and unambiguous formulation of our most fundamental physical theory."
If this is so, why is our most fundamental physical theory fundamental?
I'm just asking.
I must include one more section of the Devil's Disciple to give a full response. Here it is:
Now when Schrodinger first came to appreciate the mysteries of quantum theory, he devised a thought experiment to explain his own perplexity. Imagine that a cat has been placed in a sealed container, together with a device that if it goes off will kill it-a revolver, say, or some sort of radioactive pellet. Whether the device goes off is a matter of chance (emphasis mine). So long as no one is looking, the cat exists in a superposition of quantum states, at once half dead (the gun might fire) and half alive (it might not). As soon as an observer peeks into the box, that interposition gives way. That cat is either dead or alive and there are no two ways about it.....
Schrodinger's cat is a part of the mythology of quantum theory, and according to the Copenhagen interpretation, it is there for the count, because no one can imagine how to get rid of the poor creature (emphasis mine).
Before we move on, a few words about the author, himself, David Berlinski. You may be able to tell from the above excerpt that Berlinski is sarcastically amused by the pretensions of science. In fact the subtitle of the Devil's Delusion is "Atheism and It's Scientific Pretensions." A scientist and a philosopher, Berlinski takes great joy in revealing that when it comes to the basic questions of life, 'Who are we?' 'Why are we here?' and 'How did we get here?' scientists are really just as confused as we are. Better, from Berlinski's perspective, to have faith in a God that provides the comfort of looking like ourselves and being responsive to our prayers. To the extent that he revels in unmasking the assumptions and pretensions of science, we are compadres and I really enjoy reading and watching him (videos of Berlinski are available on the internet). To the extent that he believes in a God that he assumes looks like him and answers his prayers, a God who must be believed in rather than known, or experienced, that is where we differ. I'll discuss this more at the end of the post.
The parts of the above quote that I emphasized in bold letters all refer to the unsolvable mystery of both the wave/particle duality and the superposition of quantum states, as in Schrodinger's cat who is both dead and alive at the same time until someone opens the box and observes that cat. That observation determines which of the two states the cat is actually in. It also elevates to an extraordinary degree the power of human observation, while completely eradicating the power of the cat, who, at least to my understanding, is also an observer; one who may not be able to make the intellectual distinctions that a human observer can make, but can certainly make simple observations about its immediate environment, including whether it remains within a functional organism, or has moved elsewhere. But we'll get back to that a little later.
So here is an explanation of the particle/wave duality. This explanation is not original to me. It comes directly from a spiritual understanding that was prevalent around the world prior to our industrial age. The thing I find most pretentious about Western scientists is that they, including Berlinski, ignore this ancient wisdom that still remains as the foundational understanding of acupuncture, palm healing, aryuvedic medicine, yoga and other spiritual and healing approaches.
There are no particles. What appears to us as particles are stable, or fairly stable, configurations of two forces that I will call yin and yang (although they are referred to by many other names in different cultures, including the North African/Middle Eastern cultures where they were referred to as Heaven and Earth ("In the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth," and mind you two days, or two epochs, before, according to the Judeo-Christian Bible, He created the actual planet earth and three epochs before He created the sun and stars.) I have mentioned in several earlier posts the horribly frustrating search for 'solid' particles, for any matter, what-so-ever, that has been conducted by Western scientists ever since the time of Democritus and now at gigantic particle colliders such as CERN. The further we peer into the infinitesimally small reaches of the universe, the more we discover not matter, but spaciousness, not solidity, but the interplay of forces (yin and yang).
The center of every naturally formed particle, from electrons and quarks, to protons and atoms, to planets and stars and whole galaxies, is yang and the periphery is yin. Yang is an inward force that pulls everything in it's vicinity toward it. It is what Western scientists refer to as mass, when they are talking about the object (the yin/yang configuration) itself and what Western scientists refer to as gravity when they are talking about the inward pull of the yang force as it extends beyond the periphery of the object. The dimensions of an object, it's length, width and depth, are created by yin. The contours, the boundaries of an object are created by yang. Picture this: a few very strong men are standing at the center of a circle with their backs to each other. Each of them holds a rope in his hand and each rope is attached to a wild horse. The horses are dying to break free and they gallop around in a circle, all the while straining to break away (with centrifugal force) but being restrained by the centripedal force being exerted by the men holding the ropes. Put this in three dimensions and you have the spherical form of what is called a particle. Now for the sake of this example, each man is accompanied by his young child, who is also pulling on the rope as best as the child can. One of the horses gives an extra effort to break loose at a moment when the man holding that particular rope is inattentive. The horse breaks free and takes off away from the man, curving this way and that, as fast as he can, but being restrained a bit by the child who is still holding on to the rope. This is a wave.
The particle is a yang dominated formation with the yin periphery being held back from expanding out into the universe, and the wave is a yin dominated formation, spiralling away from the yang center that it split off from, but still being restrained somewhat by the tiny yang force at it's center. Everything is both yin and yang. Pure yang and pure yin exist but are not part of the physical universe until they combine. They do not attract each other so much as they entrap each other. The real attraction is between smaller yang and larger yang. So the yang center of the moon is attracted to the yang center of the earth, which is attracted to the yang center of the sun, which is attracted to the black hole at the yang center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is attracted to the black hole at the center of the universe around which all the galaxies revolve.
Pure yin moves at infinite speed, which means that it is impossibly fast and absolutely still at the same time, since it can traverse the entire universe and return to it's original spot in no time. If this is too hard to imagine, think of your own consciousness. The speed of light is the fastest speed that a thing can travel; pure yin is not a thing. Within the light wave (yin) is a tiny stream of yang, the smallest accumulation of yang that we know of. We know there is yang there because the light wave has a certain contour and wave length. Without any yang, it would just disperse at infinite speed into the universe. The tiny stream of yang at the center of the wave is not a photon. When a measuring instrument, or an electron encounters the path of a light wave, the stream is attracted to the measuring instrument and as it continues to move forward, it piles up until the stream has enough yang force to stop the forward momentum of the wave, and the wave circles around it. This momentarily stable configuration is what we call a photon. This is what was knocking the electrons off the metal in Einstein's photoelectric experiments, and this is what registers at the measuring device on either the right or the left slit of the two slit experiment. When the light wave passes through both slits, the yang stream is either closer to the slit on the right, or the slit on the left. It changes from moment to moment as the wave undulates. At the moment it passes the measuring device, the stream will pool up at whichever slit is closest, the forward momentum of the wave will be confined to a circle (or a sphere in three dimensions) and a 'photon' will be registered on either the right or the left.*
So all this nonsense about ghost particles and superpositions, and the particle traveling all through the universe and eliminating all paths but one, or the creation of an entirely different universe where the 'particle' lands on the left while in our universe it lands on the right, all of that stuff is just rubbish. And this simple, straightforward explanation comes from a 'mystic,' someone who doesn't have their feet on the ground like the no nonsense materialist physicists with their cockamamy theories based on a complete misunderstanding of the physical universe.
This guy I know, William of Ockam, was kind enough to lend me his razor. Anyone need a shave?*
And then there is Schrodinger's cat, and super positions and the awesome power of human observation determining life or death, and other universes where the dead cat is alive or where the live cat is dead. Wow! The clue to this great mystery is in the phrase "Whether the device goes off is a matter of chance." Guess what? There is no such thing as a matter of chance. No where, no how, never. Every event is caused by forces. If there are too many forces at work to calculate, then an event may not be predictable because of our limited powers of measurement. But that doesn't mean it happens by chance. The ball on a roulette wheel falls into a particular slot, not because of chance, but because the force exerted from the wrist of the person who drops the ball, the speed at which the wheel is turning at the time of the drop, the angle of the table, the amount of oil in the turning mechanism, the tiny imperfections in the spherical shape of the ball, the exact spot where the ball is gripped when it is dropped, the temperature and the humidity in the room; all of these factors plus others, effect the forces impinging on that ball and that wheel and determine where exactly the ball will drop. Impossible to predict, but always a product of a combination of forces, never by chance. The same, of course, is true of any hair trigger device or radioactive material in a Shrodinger box. Whether the gun goes off or there is a radioactive release is purely the result of the interplay of forces, not observations made after the fact.
I am not, by the way, eliminating free will. Will is a force. Every living creature is attached to a metabolic organism that creates energy that can be used to accomplish things. The force that beings use is will. The force that God uses is will. So natural forces, whether they are created passively from previous interactions or intentionally through the use of will, are at the cause of every event. There is no such thing as chance.
And lest you think that I am straying from the duality of yin and yang, let me explain. Will is yang. If one is too yin, they lack the will to realize their dreams and their conscious life consists of a lot of restless, circular thought. One can be too yang, and too assertive in reaching their goals. The ideal is balance. Without yin, their is no expansiveness, no imagination. You push toward your goals (really, since yang is the inward force, you pull your goals to you) but your goals are too short term and selfish and you alienate others in the process. With a balance of strong yin and strong yang, you have the imagination and the sensitivity to others to have goals that have a broader vision and that include the happiness of others, and the flexibility to achieve them by listening to others and adapting your approaches along the way.
So the interplay of yin and yang create both the stable configurations that we call things, and the energetic things that display movement and power, that we call waves. This, of course, is true in the quantum world as well as the visible world that we are familiar with. In fact, there is no real separation between the quantum world and the visible world. It is a world of waves that appear as solid particles when we focus on them. When we explore the subatomic world of the quantum, the illusion of solid and stable particles is impossible to maintain.
Our observation alone does not create events, although it does shape how we perceive events. We live in a world of waves. Our observations collapse waves into particles, and each of us living beings, humans and otherwise, have our own particular way of creating particles from waves. So the parasites in my intestine sense a world that is very different than the one that I sense. An infinite number of ways of perceiving the world, ways specific to each species, and specific to each individual within each species. But it is one world of waves, made up of configuring forces, that we particularize in an infinite number of ways to create our own personal world of things. Not an infinite number of worlds perceived, if we are really being scientific, in the same, objective way.
Elsewhere in 'The Devil's Delusion,' after a discussion of Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, Berlinski writes,
"On December 6, 1273, Aquinas, while attending mass, fell into a prolonged and rapturous mystical state. Thereafter, he ceased to write. When urged by officials of the Catholic Church to continue his work on the Summa, which he had left unfinished, he replied, "I can do no more. Such secrets have been revealed to me that all I have written now appears to be of little value."
So beyond atheism and faith, there is a third option that Berlinski mentions but does not really consider. A God that can be experienced does not have to be deduced; thus Aquinas' reluctance to continue with the 'Summa.' The mystical tradition of every religion, in fact, is a tradition of actual experience. It is not a question of logic or faith. Faith is future oriented. I could ask you why you are going to a certain movie, and you can say, "because I heard it was good," or "because I believe that I will enjoy it." But after you've seen the movie, you no longer have to believe anything regarding it. You have already experienced it. It was either, for you, good or bad. No belief required.
When you experience God, you discover that God is not a physical being who lives somewhere, who is here but not there, or there but not here. God is the subtlest essence of everything. God is found within. That is why all religions have traditions of repetitive prayers, or repetitive movements, or mantras, or breathing exercises. The purpose of all of these is to slow down the mind. The closer you get to your center, the closer you get to God. But most of us, scientists and even clergy, have never been relaxed enough, indwelling enough, have never slowed our minds down enough, to experience the Divine essence within. We are too busy battling each other over who believes in the 'right' God, who is doing the 'right' thing, etc. All our desires, including the desire to win arguments, moves our attention toward the physical world around us and away from the spiritual world within us. Not that there is anything wrong with that. We all are here to accomplish something. But imagine a world where people were able to pursue their goals, but also, to, on a regular bases, go within to reaffirm the understanding that the Divine essence is within all of us. If that were the case, there would be no need for endless discussions about right and wrong, about how to treat our children, our friends, our competitors. It would all become automatically clear when we realize the true preciousness of every life including our own.
*A more thorough explanation of this quantum phenomena can be found in my post "Understanding the Quantum" 2017.
*William of Ockam, an early fourteenth century British philosopher, was famous for 'Ockam's Razor' a principle by which scientific explanations which explain facts more simply and require fewer assumptions are probably more accurate than wildly elaborate ones that require many assumptions.
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