Big Bang and Bell - Quareness Series 106th "Lecture".
With all the many "strange" changes (cognitive, environmental, societal, spiritual, etc.) seemingly manifesting across the world at this time, could we now be on the cusp of a "coming home" for humanity? Are we being readied for a significant quantum leap in consciousness? Did a "maverick" English astronomer/mathematician
/physicist James Hopwood Jeans (1877-1946) nail it in pointing out that the stream of human knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality with the universe beginning to look more like a great thought than a great machine? It does indeed appear that the science of physics may now be prepared to proceed far beyond its initial dismissing of spiritual ideas as little more than ignorant leftovers of a superstitious past and toward a conceptual worldview somewhat more accepting of spirituality.
“Classical physics began in the seventeenth century when pioneers such as Italian mathematician Galileo Galilei, French philosopher Rene Decartes, German astronomer Johannes Kepler, and English mathematician (and alchemist) Isaac Newton advanced a new idea. The idea was that through experiments one could learn about Nature, and with mathematics, describe and predict it. Thus rational empiricism was born. Classical physics was extended and substantially refined in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by luminaries like James Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein, and hundreds of other scientists.” - Dr. Dean Radin (Laboratory Director at the Institute of Noetic Sciences in Petaluma, California). And this material/Newtonian physics has indeed contributed hugely to our understanding of the universe we inhabit, as well of course as having been a boon for us in terms of our human development, as a result of scientific applications made available through analysis and testing.
However, despite all the advances, trying to establish the true nature of light (= a fundamental) remained an elusive matter which increasingly drew more attention. For instance in 1900 the German theoretical physicist Max Planck demonstrated that light appeared to exist as distinct bursts/packets of matter, which he labelled "quanta" after the Latin quantus (= "how much")...and his "discovery" proved to be the birth of what we now call quantum physics (= study of that group of infinitely small particles that ultimately comprise all matter). Albert Einstein in 1905 clearly demonstrated the validity of Planck's quanta but this proof also pointed to light having both wave and particle characteristics. After that our quantum understanding rapidly evolved...per Dean Radin again - “Danish physicist Niels Bohr showed how the quantum concept could explain the structure of the atom (1922 Nobel Prize). In 1924, Louis de Broglie proposed that matter also has wavelike properties (1929 Nobel Prize). In 1926, Erwin Schrodinger developed a wave-equation formulation of quantum theory (1933 Nobel Prize).” And yet no one could say for definite whether light was comprised of particles or waves.
In the meantime much additional progress was being made in the opposite direction...
by looking far out into the depths of the universe. In 1929 the American astronomer Edwin Hubble demonstrated that our universe was expanding, contrary to the "steady state theory" of one that was essentially constant and eternal. And an expanding universe suggested that it must have had a beginning or a moment when all that matter had been consolidated in a single point before it started to expand. Over time this "beginning" morphed into what we call the Big Bang i.e. a moment when the material universe emerged from a background of utter nothingness in an enormous burst of heat and light...and matter. This now generally accepted theory postulates that it all emerged from a "singularity" (which we still cannot explain) some 13.8 billion years ago as an incredibly small and hot point of matter - once described by the English humourist Terry Pratchett as "in the beginning there was nothing, which exploded" - that first inflated and then expanded before later cooling which allowed for the formation of light elements like hydrogen and helium. And then, because of the somewhat uneven distribution of matter throughout the universe, gravitational attraction began to consolidate these elements into clouds which in turn eventually formed the stars, planets and galaxies.
Much evidence accumulated in support of this Big Bang theory, including the discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation (predicted as a residual product from the heat of the initial inflation) as well as more recent red shift observations of distant supernovae indicating the expansion of the universe to be accelerating (and suggesting the existence of dark matter in substantial quantities as the driving force for this). And none of this evidence altered the assumption, central to more modern science ever since Galileo's time, that the universe was fundamentally a material phenomenon (albeit a more complex one than had been conceived earlier) i.e. little more than a vast mechanical machine driven by physical forces, supporting the notion of a deterministic universe effectively devoid of either free will or any real human consciousness. Physics had brought humanity to the point of considering our universe to be a true functioning reality having been put in motion by a natural (although inexplicable) occurrence with all events formed and driven forward by random particle collisions alone. And no force or field or matter could ever travel faster than the speed of light. And yet the wave/particle nature of light remained an intellectual conundrum threatening to subvert this entire structure of physics if not sensibly accounted for.
Nevertheless quantum theory continued to make great strides. Per the American physicist Nick Herbert - “By the late [nineteen] twenties physicists had constructed a quantum theory adequate to their needs: they possessed,thanks to the work of Heisenberg, Schrodinger, and Dirac, rough mathematical tools that organised their quantum facts to a remarkably accurate degree. At this point Hungarian-born world-class mathematician John von Neumann entered the picture. Von Neumann put physicists’ crude theory into more rigorous form, settling quantum theory into an elegant mathematical home called ‘Hilbert space’, where it resides to this day, and awarded the mathematician’s seal of approval to the physicists brand-new theory of matter.” But the enigma of light continued and eventually began to undermine the older physics of determinism and cause and effect.
The year 1927 saw the debut of the German physicist Werner Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle. In his attempting at the time to measure the precise speed and position of a particle in order to predict its future position (= a process that should have been fully within the accepted parameters of Newtonian physics) he discovered this could not be done. As pointed out by Stephen Hawking (the English physicist)...
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle indicated unequivocally that “the more accurately you try to measure the position of the particle, the less accurately you can measure its speed, and vice versa. Moreover this limit does not depend on the way in which one tries to measure the position or velocity of the particle, or on the type of particle: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is a fundamental, inescapable property of the world.”
This German discovery/finding sent shock waves rippling through physics because if the precise state of the universe was impossible to measure at any given moment, then any state either before or after was also impossible to calculate. Many of the underlying presumptions (determinism, material cause and effect, forward moving arrow of time, etc.) upon which classical physics rested were shaken to the core. The implications of Heisenberg's finding were very disturbing...what did it actually mean?
...how could it be that aspects of the material universe had always been and would always be utterly beyond our ability to measure? If particles could not be clearly defined in terms of their position and movement, they could hardly be defined as material objects anymore. Unable to describe their position and movement with precision suggested that these could only be described with imprecision (= a mathematical approximation) e.g. a photon could no longer be considered a discrete particle, but rather a combination of part particle and part wave (= a wave function in mathematics) and if the manner by which a particle was "measured" altered the resultant observation, it followed that observation itself had to be a fundamental aspect of reality!
Inevitably then some physicists (to the dismay of many) began to interpret the wave part of the particle/wave aspect of light as meaning that particles became particles only when observed, and remained waves in a state of material potential when not observed. In effect they suggested that the unseen world of quantum mechanics was
not a material one at all, but rather a realm of pure potential. As Nick Herbert (again) explained - “If we take quantum theory seriously, it seems to demand that the world before an observation is made up of pure possibility. But if everything around us is only possible not actual, then out of what solid stuff do we construct the device that will make our first observation? Either there are some physical systems whose operations unaccountably evade the quantum rules or there are nonphysical systems not made of multivalued possibility, but of single-valued actuality – systems that exist in definite states capable of interacting in an observational capacity on indefinite quantum-style matter.” Now it was clear from repeated testing and verification experiments that all material systems consisted of particles which always obeyed the rules of quantum mechanics in statistical aggregates. However, as Herbert noted, “we are aware of at least one nonphysical system that not only can make observations but actually does so as part of its function in the world – the psychological system we call human consciousness.”
This mathematically sound and entirely logical assertion had a traumatic impact on classical physics which had accepted as utterly valid the notion of a universe solely constructed of, and driven by, material particle movement. “The general idea of von Neumann and his followers is that the material world by itself is hardly material, consisting of nothing but relentlessly unrealised vibratory possibilities. From outside this purely possible world, mind steps in to render some of these possibilities actual and to confer on the resultant phenomenal world those properties of solidity, single-valuedness, and dependability traditionally associated with matter. This kind of general explanation may be enough for philosophers, but physicists want more. They want to know exactly how it all works, in every detail.” - Nick Herbert. As even Einstein himself saw it, a universe constructed of little more than the whims of human observation sounded totally crazy - “God does not play dice with the universe.” In 1935 he, along with two colleagues - the Russian-American Boris Podolsky and the American-Israeli Nathan Rosen - issued a challenge paper (EPR) insisting that the position and momentum of any given particle had to be able to be measured far more accurately than Heisenberg’s principle allowed for, or else information between certain “entangled” particles (Erwin Schrodinger had previously demonstrated that when quantum systems interact their wave functions become entangled, and they will remain entangled even when no longer interacting) would be theoretically transferred faster than the speed of light, instantaneously in fact, which was a fundamental violation of Einstein’s theory of relativity. For them hybrid particles like wave functions, and instantaneous transmissions (Albert's “spooky action at a distance”) were inelegant solutions clearly out of line with relativity theory.
And then along came the Irish physicist John Stewart Bell in 1964 with his theorem demonstrating that although the EPR analysis had been correct, it's conclusions were wrong, and that superluminal (faster than light) entanglements were not only possible, but required if quantum theory was to make sense. Prior to this, physics had always assumed the universe to be local in nature i.e. interactions between physical systems had of necessity to involve a signal transferred by force at a rate below the speed of light. And Bell’s theorem (subsequently and repeatedly confirmed in laboratory tests) had now demonstrated that the universe is in fact nonlocal with such an effect being an interaction that does not involve force or the transfer of signals, and that happens instantaneously regardless of the distance between objects.
Soon afterwards Philippe Eberhard, another physicist then working at Berkeley, demonstrated that “no quantum calculation will ever result in an observable superluminal connection between the patterns of individual quantum events.” Nonlocal interactions are thus built into the fabric of the universe but in such a way that we can never actually observe them which, however, does not mean we cannot observe their effects. Like our man Herbert once more explained - “The present situation seems to be as follows: quantum theory is superluminal [faster than the speed of light], quantum reality is superluminal, but quantum appearances are not… Since quantum theories of consciousness assume that the cause of individual quantum events lies in the mental world and Bell’s theorem proves that the causes of some quantum events must be superluminally connected, then we should expect to find some mental events that behave like the Bell connection, that is, human experiences that are unmediated, unmitigated, et cetera.”
Over the short span of just about 75 years the conceptual understanding of our universe (of which we are all material manifestations) had changed from one of a vast/relentless/grinding particle machine, to one that seemed almost magical (in that nobody could really fully understand it). Nevertheless there are still many today who continue to scoff at any understanding of physics beyond the material boundaries of the classical interpretation, as if all the advancements in quantum theory had never really taken place. Rather ironically, however, it's really these "deniers" who appear now to be the ones trafficking in blind faith through clinging to material dogmas that physics has left behind.
Here's a thought - what if the seemingly limitless world of the observatory and the minute world of quantum mechanics, as well as the colossal universe of so many spinning galaxies and the world of the particle/wave function, were not as intellectually incompatible or as alien as they might seem? If the Big Bang began with a singularity that was infinitely dense, then every particle that has ever emerged must initially have been contained within this extraordinary first one of infinite density i.e. merged or forged or crushed in some "magical" way into this one tiny something. With the seeds of our entire universe fused into that original one (all was once one) we might perhaps reasonably conclude that everything has remained entangled since and will continue to do so. And from this perspective the "spiritual" idea of the reality of our universe as a vast masterpiece of infinite and instantaneous communication and of instant knowing, can seem quite plausible.
Sean.
Dean of Quareness.
June, 2019.
Footnote: - Given the somewhat "scientific/technical" nature of the content here, it may help in broadening understanding to read in conjunction with my earlier "Unity And Diversity" and "What If?" accessible via the navigation panels above and below.