Vedanta, Consciousness and quantum physics
Vasavada, Kashyap V
To: Dr. Robert Boyer and other interested readers,
Dear Robert,
Please feel free to call me kashyap. Recently my name was added to this google group. I am a retired physics professor and like you have been interested in physics, Vedanta and consciousness. For consciousness I am in the initial learning stage. I do not have any ‘pet theory’ on consciousness! I have been glancing at your interesting papers. I may have some questions after I read your papers carefully. But here is one question which comes to my mind immediately.
Do you believe from your Vedic model that Bohm’s model about explicate and implicate order is essentially correct?
I should say that purely from physics point of view, Bohm’s interpretation is not doing well. It is true that in spite of 90 years debate about interpretation of quantum physics, there is no consensus on the issue of interpretation. But there have been polls amongst physicists about various interpretations. Usually Copenhagen interpretation gets top votes (not majority though) and Bohm’s theory gets practically zero votes. Admittedly, science should not be done by popularity contests! But the fact remains that Bohm’s theory has serious problems with theory of relativity and its insistence on particle trajectories being real. So overwhelming number of physicists do not agree with the model. This would include recent attempts to restore Bohm’s model.
As I see it, majority of physicists believe in non-real interpretation of quantum physics. This was clear from 1920s when wave-particle duality was accepted. But more recently, experiments based on Bell’s theorem have made it clear that particles do not have any (real) properties before they are measured. In this context, Einstein, the greatest scientist ever born, was most likely wrong! This is mentioned in my recent article “Concepts of Reality in Hinduism and Buddhism from the perspective of a physicist”. I have posted it on this blog, sometime back. I will appreciate your comments on it when you have time to read it. It seems to me that Vedanta (following Adi Shanakaracharya’s concept of Maya or Illusion) would agree more with non-real interpretation of quantum physics than with Bohm’s interpretation! Real interpretation may be ok for the ultimate Brahman but physics is not there yet!
Thanks.
Kashyap Vasavada
Murty Hari
From: "Vasavada, Kashyap V" <vasa...@iupui.edu>
To: "Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com" <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 21, 2017 5:05 PM
Subject: [Sadhu Sanga] Vedanta, Consciousness and quantum physics
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Vasavada, Kashyap V
Dear Shyamala,
Thanks for your interesting comments. Bohm’s comments about consciousness are probably related to his interpretation of quantum mechanics, which is accepted by very very few physicists. As I said before, I spent all my professional life as a physics professor. I am in the process of learning about consciousness. But I already know that science is a long - long way from understanding even rudiments of consciousness. So such discussions are very useful. Let us see what other readers say about this issue.
kashyap
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Asingh2384
JACK SARFATTI
On May 21, 2017, at 8:14 PM, 'Murty Hari' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D. <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com> wrote:Prof.kashyap,Without getting into the pros and cons of Bohm's interpretation of quantum mechanics, Bohm's ideas about consciousness have some major flaws. He confuses the mental and the physical.
It is our common understanding that there is no consciousness/awareness in a purely physical process;
even a word uttered in any language does not know its meaning nor it is identical with its meaning because the same meaning may be conveyed by different words in different languages. We cannot communicate thoughts/feelings/information that is in our brains without using any physical means.Yet, in our daily lives, we mostly ignore the distinction between meaning and its vehicle of delivery; for example, we say “the book has good information about the city” whereas the book only has words whose meanings exist in our heads but not in the book. Bohm overlooks this distinction and confuses the inseparability of meaning/thought with its physical carrier, as the two being identical.
Bohm then extends this confusion and proposes: "the quantum potential is active information that is simultaneously physical and mental in nature …. These two sides are inseparable, in the sense that information contained in thought, which we feel to be on the 'mental' side, is at the same time a related neurophysiological, chemical, and physical activity (which is clearly what is meant by the 'material' side of this thought)". -----This proposal however, does not address the question: there is no mental aspect in any physical process in which the brain (a living being) is not involved. There is no mental aspect in any lifeless quantum system as the dual aspect of its quantum potential. Why should there be a mental activity inseparable from its physical activity in the brain? Why does the brain’s physical activity not require somebody else to assign some meaning to it? because no form of matter or energy outside the brain (or living being) has meaning when it is created. We assign some meaning to it. Even then the meaning does not become a part of the form used to convey the meaning.
In an interview with Weber (1986), Bohm says "It has been commonly accepted, especially in the West, that the mental and physical are quite different but somehow are related but the theory of their relationship has never been satisfactorily developed.
priyedarshi jetli
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Murty Hari
From: "'JACK SARFATTI' via Sadhu-Sanga Under the holy association of Spd. B.M. Puri Maharaja, Ph.D." <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
To: "online_sa...@googlegroups.com" <Online_Sa...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 22, 2017 12:06 PM
Subject: [Sadhu Sanga] In defense of Bohm.
JACK SARFATTi: That (there is no consciousness/awareness in a purely physical process) is a primitive pre-scientific idea. It's completely wrong.
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JACK SARFATTI
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C. S. Morrison
Dear Jack,
I totally agree with you that 'quantum waves are mental waves.'.
What interests me is how some neural structure determining the form of some quantum waves in a brain could evolve by natural selection so that those waves came to feel like a human being. For example, this would at least require the colour aspect of those waves to have a form (in whatever you consider to constitute subjective space) containing patterns that closely resemble the patterns of varying light intensity on the retina. And it would also require the feeling aspect of such waves to be formed into representations of the human body and the surfaces making contact with it.
I have a theory about how this could be done. It is described in my book THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation.
https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Blind-Mindmaker-Explaining-Consciousness-Misrepresentation/dp/1541283953
However, I would be interested to know how your theory proposes to explain these facts.
Best wishes,
Colin
C. S. Morrison - Author of THE BLIND MINDMAKER: Explaining
Consciousness without Magic or Misrepresentation
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jim kowall
We can't explain what consciousness is since it's the primordial or ultimate nature of existence. The only true thing we can ever say about it is that "It Is". In its primordial, ultimate, or undifferentiated state we call it the void or the true vacuum state, which is the nature of nothingness. In its differentiated state we call it individual consciousness. The holographic principle tells us that individual consciousness is only a focal point of consciousness that can only arise in relation to a holographic screen that encodes all the bits of information that describe everything observable in the observer's world, and that the focal point of consciousness is always at the central point of view of the observer's world. The observable things reduce down to bits of information encoded on the holographic screen, which is what quantum theory is all about. Bohm had the right idea about implicate order and a holographic universe since the bits of information encoded on the holographic screen are entangled like the eigenvalues of an SU(n) matrix, where n is the number of bits of information encoded on the screen and is given in terms of the screen area A as n=A/4(Planck area). In the context of modern cosmology and the big bang event, the focal point of consciousness is the point of singularity that arises in relation to a cosmic horizon as dark energy (the accelerated expansion of space) is expended. Although Amanda Gefter is not willing to identify the void as undifferentiated consciousness, the scientific basis for this conclusion is discussed in her recent book (Trespassing on Einstein's Lawn) with logical clarity.
Hope this helps clear up some of the confusion.
Jim Kowall
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Come Carpentier
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jim kowall
From: jim kowall <jkowa...@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 27, 2017 at 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: [Sadhu Sanga] Vedanta, Consciousness and quantum physics
Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am
-Gospel of John
Brahman is the only truth, the world is illusion, and there is ultimately no difference between Brahman and Atman
-Shankara
That which permeates all, which nothing transcends, and which like the universal space around us, fills everything completely from within and without, that Supreme non-dual Brahman-that thou art
-Shankara
Ontology is the study of what exists in reality. I take reality to be ultimate reality. Like Amanda Gefter, I define ultimate reality as what is invariant for all observers. Modern physics tells us that everything in the world is radically observer dependent. All observations of things can change based upon the observer's point of view. The ultimate example of this radical observer dependence is the holographic principle, which tells us all the bits of information that define the configuration states of every observable thing the observer can observe in its world are encoded on a holographic screen. Like a screen output, in some sense the images of these things must be projected from the observer's holographic screen to the observer's point of view. This kind of holographic projection is the nature of a quantum state reduction or an observation. The observer itself can only be identified as a focal point of consciousness at the central point of view of its world that arises in relation to its holographic screen. Modern cosmology tells us the observer's world is only created (as in the big bang creation event) and comes into an apparent existence when dark energy (the accelerated expansion of space that expands relative to the observer's central point of view) is expended. Dark energy is what puts the "bang" in the big bang event and gives rise to a cosmic (de Sitter) horizon that surrounds the observer at the central point of view. This cosmic horizon limits the observer's observation of things in that bounded region of space, and acts as a holographic screen that projects all the images of things in that bounded space to the observer's central point of view. In the language of relativity theory, the observer's cosmic horizon is radically observer-dependent, and so everything the observer can observe in its world is also radically observer-dependent. In other words, nothing is invariant for all observers, and so nothing is ultimately real. At best, there can only be a kind of consensual reality that observers share when their respective cosmic horizons overlap in the sense of a Venn diagram and share information, like the kind of information sharing we see in a network of screens like the internet.
The ultimate example of the radical observer dependence of everything in the observer's world is that from the observer's point of view the observer's world can disappear from existence. The observer's world only appears to come into existence when dark energy is expended, since that is how a cosmic horizon arises with the accelerated expansion of space. When energy is no longer expended, the cosmic horizon no longer arises, and so the observer no longer has a holographic screen that encodes all the bits of information for everything in its world and that projects all the images of things in that world to the observer's central point of view. When energy is no longer expended, the observer's world must disappear from existence from the observer's point of view. In relativity theory, this non-accelerated point of view is called free-fall.
What happens to the consciousness of the observer when its world disappears from existence? Truth-realized beings tell us the observer's focal point of differentiated consciousness dissolves back into the undifferentiated consciousness of the void like a drop of water dissolves into the ocean. This dissolution is described as freely falling into the void. Enlightened beings also tell us truth realization is only possible in the desireless state when the expression of all energy comes to an end. When the expression of energy comes to an end, as it eventually must since all things ultimately come to an end, the observer's world disappears from existence from the observer's point of view, the observer's consciousness returns to the void in a state of dissolution, and nothing ultimately exists.
Words and concepts form a strange kind of logical tautology, sort of like an optical illusion. They can mean different things when looked at from different points of view. The Buddha reportedly stated that "Truly, I have attained nothing from total enlightenment". From one point of view, this seems to say that he didn't attain anything, but from another point of view this says he did attain nothing. In the same way, to say "Nothing ultimately exists" can seem to say that no things exist, but from another point of view can be seen to say that nothing does exist. Nothing is what ultimately exists.
The issue of what ultimately exists or is invariant for all observers is about the nature of being. Ultimately, the undifferentiated consciousness of the void (nothingness) is what exists and so is the ultimate nature of being. We can even say the ultimate nature of existence is "being nothing". As observers, we each carry a fragment of that sense of being with us, which is the sense of being present, or the sense "I am". As a differentiated focal point of consciousness, the observer is a presence of consciousness that carries its own sense of being. It's not necessary to be anything in particular to have that sense of being, which the observer finally realizes when it returns to the void.
Dear Jim,You wrote:"We can't explain what consciousness is since it's the primordial or ultimate nature of existence. The only true thing we can ever say about it is that "It Is". In its primordial, ultimate, or undifferentiated state we call it the void or the true vacuum state, which is the nature of nothingness'Void or true vacuum or nothingness in its true sense means completely devoid of any ontological reality. There is no meaning of the existence of any entity which is completely devoid of any ontological reality. Any entity, if it has some real existence, should have some ontological reality. How primordial or ultimate nature of existence, which is undifferentiated consciousness, from which all the observable and unobservable universe shall take birth can be devoid of any ontological reality.?Yes, we could say that undifferentiated consciousness could be "nothingness" from the sense of our inability to know it. For a person with no sight or any other sense of knowledge, all the world may turn out to be "void" or "nothingness" but for a person with all the senses of knowledge intact, there is all the existence of the world with a variety of objects.Vinod Sehgal
On Sat, May 27, 2017 at 1:57 AM, jim kowall <jkowa...@gmail.com> wrote:
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