Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Capt. Anand Kumar on February 1, 2013 at 8:18pm

Thank You John. It is very interesting. More so because it reinforces my own beliefs.

The first belief being that universe is only a range of possibilities. Not a definite existence governed by a fixed set of laws as it appears to us. That includes mathematics as is currently understood by us.

The second belief being that the cause and effect principle as handed down to us through the ages in all thought systems is a misrepresentation. Both are either one or only possibilities.

But the third belief is ditto with QM. It is that observation from outside will seldom yield correct results. One needs to get inside the particle to explore all the possible possibilities. When we read our ancient texts, we usually take the view which looks at the universe from outside. Could it be that when the ancient sages prescribe meditation and the UNITY principle they are referring to what QM is hinting at today. That said, "inside" and "outside" are also only possibilities.

Permalink Reply by Hari Menon on February 1, 2013 at 11:15pm

Dear Captain ,

          You are correct in what you write , because in higher meditations there is no Inside or outside - It stands to reason because if a thing is so subtle as to be able to pervade everything (Space is the most immediate example) then that would be the outer limit of all physical properties . They use the analogy of a pot repeatedly to illustrate the fact that there is no Inside or Outside . When we see a pot it has space within it but we see the shape or form forgetting space . And it further goes on to say that even when water is there in the pot - there are actually two things water and space within the pot . And when the pot is broken the so called pot space merges directly in Space . And it further goes on to illustrate how the ''pot space'' is an illusion and no changes in space have actually taken place but rather our powers of physical perception and inference are inadequate to see and understand things of a subtlety beyond a certain limit . Due to the basic given functions of the physical organs. 

I came across a very fascinating thing recently when I was grappling with the question of unbroken consciousness and knowledge - (ie what I was aiming at was , whether there was a particular way in which an idea could be verbally expressed to another person in such a way as NOT to leave any pictorial impressions in his mind but rather directly transmit information by addressing his cognition of sounds (ie. familiar sounds representing words , concepts and ideas already known to him ) . What I was shown was that it was not very difficult to do so wherein a person would understand you EXACTLY the way you meant to be understood - despite his particularized knowledge ! . I will write a separate blog on the inside outside thing as otherwise it will be an inapproriate thread within Johns original thread .It Includes an understanding of Vedic Logic, Cause and Effect , Subtlety  and the way Consciousness and Knowledge work .

ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on February 2, 2013 at 8:56pm

"It Includes an understanding of Vedic Logic, Cause and Effect , Subtlety  and the way Consciousness and Knowledge work."

Hari -- feel free to add/start the discussion within "Science Group" if you choose. I would like to see it here because it sounds appropriate. I consider any serious work in this would be of interest.

Dr. Mermin (a very distinguished Doctor of Physics in the USA; retired) focused attention on the entire Physics Community with the "great embarrassment in Physics", i.e. that no one knows what QM is. (It was an article in The American Journal of Physics).

He had come to the conclusion that QM says nothing about what is real, exists or that which forms interactions with matter (undefined). He views QM as only a Science about Correlations between events. What causes the events (particle/wave whatever) is not what QM speaks about. QM is just a Science of Information, Relations and Correlations.  i.e. it speaks Epistemology and says little to nothing about Ontology. Scientists just need to grow-up and learn to live with it. Then they will have time and energy to go after the bigger physics problems like Consciousness, which is a long-standing recognized major problem that is incredibly hard to grapple with. 

In the 70's I had two things hit me on QM.

1) I listened to Dr. John Clauser discuss his experiments on a Bell-like relation between photons. It showed QM was correct and Bell-like relationships do occur. That pulls the whole foundation of reality out from under a person (or, to me it did). It is like waking up to finding out you are in a dream.

2) A (incredibly brilliant) Physicist just flat-out told me that if I don't like QM and its interpretations I should shake the "words" out of the books, the Mathematics is totally correct regardless of interpretation. I can put in any words I like. It changes nothing.

Both of those moments were very much a religious experience. Strange, yes.

I might add that a common complaint by Physics students was that QM "felt" like a religion one had to learn (the initial exposure to the subject was more mysticism, not physics).

I strayed off topic. sorry. <G>

Permalink Reply by Hari Menon on February 3, 2013 at 3:30am

(this comment from Hari has been moved to the separate discussion "Vedic Knowledge and Quantum Knowledge" (in Science Group)