Quantum Physics & the Mind: A Crash Course

Preface

To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.

Nicolaus Copernicus

To know, is to know that you know nothing. That is the meaning of true knowledge.

Socrates

My first book on quantum physics and the mind – Quantum Physics is NOT Weird – was aimed at physics students and laymen with a good understanding of physics principles. There is a lot of confusion in the world, and especially on the internet, regarding the meaning of quantum physics. This book is meant for the more spiritually engaged curious persons who would like to understand the message that quantum physics has for us, that consciousness is primary, that the there-is-only-matter stance does not work anymore and hampers us severely in understanding our being in the world. For those people the message of quantum physics will give them ample arguments to explain their position. I have avoided as much as possible the cryptic language physicists use to explain their work.

A great part of this book consists of a thematically ordered selection of my essays on quantum physics and the mind, which were published on my website in the years 2020 to 2023. After having finished the crash course chapter you should be able to read them with enough understanding and in any order and time you like.

Introduction

I think we are only at the beginning of science. We are at the beginning of studying the complexity of Nature. The classics universe was a simple, quiet universe. And now we see, we only conceive the extraordinary complexity of nature, like for example the complexity of the gene expression. We still don't understand completely the structure of the gene. Yet I don't think that once we understand the structure of the gene we shall see the meaning of man, because the genetic content of a mouse and a man are very similar. Therefore, the non-genetic part of biology is very important. But we know little about it . . . In addition I would say there is no fundamental science . . . why do we have so many elementary particles? Nobody knows . . . we still don't know the origin of the Universe. The theory of the Big Bang is the most widely accepted theory, but what is the Big Bang?. .. We are at the beginning. I always say that we are at the beginning of a new, not at the end of science.

Ilya Prigogine – Nobel Laureate - 2003

Richard Feynman, a quantum physicist who has made immensely important contributions to quantum mechanics, once said: "Anyone who thinks he has understood quantum theory has not understood it." With this statement he actually blocked any attempt by his students – including himself – to really understand quantum physics in a profound way. Which is very unfortunate and actually the reason that, in the 125 years that this branch of physics has existed, no real progress has been made in the way we understand reality and that the layman – for whom the underlying message of observer dependency is in fact quite important – is thoroughly confused by the reports about quantum physical experiments. He therefore gives up any hope to understand something of quantum physics. Examples of confusing messages are:

entangled particles that should be instantaneously connected despite their galactic distances,

real particles that follow all possible paths through space and time to their destination,

particles that are also waves at the same time,

light waves that are also consisting of particles at the same time,

particles that didn’t exist before measurement,

and so on.

Well, giving up hope to understand this weird behavior of reality is absolutely unnecessary. Quantum physics has an important – and I think quite understandable – message for those who use their critical mind and are willing to relinquish the – there is only matter and energy – vision on reality and dare to open up to new ideas about reality.

That’s not as challenging as it may seem to you. First start is to become aware that many phenomena that are considered as fully understood are only described in a mathematical way, so that we can use this mathematics for accurate predictions. However, being able to make accurate predictions is not the same thing as understanding what you are talking about. Simply said, it is the difference between quantity and quality. To give you an excellent example of holding quantity for quality: you have probably already accepted the idea of oscillating fields of electromagnetic energy as a phenomenon that is nowadays fully understood. It’s considered everyday stuff. Light, radio waves, GPS. However, did you ever ask yourself what a field of energy really is? If you really muse a little more on that, it should become clear to you that an electromagnetic field is a purely abstract concept, just a label, for something that we don’t understand at all.

Yes, we physicists can do mathematics on EM-fields successfully. But that’s quantity, it's not the same as understanding the quality. Yet we apply oscillating electromagnetic fields everywhere, radio, mobile phones, GPS, fMRI, Wi-Fi, laser, etc. We have somehow accepted as an everyday fact that EM forces can reach and act through empty space. But I ask you, do spend a little bit more time thinking about it. How does it do that? What is it? Even Einstein had no answer. So anyway, become aware that you took the label for an explanation of a lot of everyday experiences, like taking radio waves for granted when listening to your car radio.

In my opinion, a real explanation for quantum phenomena should not be about quantitative predictions resulting from pure mathema-tics. First start is to see what is not really explained but just only labeled, such as happened the idea of a field of electromagnetic energy. That’s the first step. Next step is to accept as a possibility that there exists something beyond matter and energy that informs and creates our reality at every moment in close collaboration with the contents of your mind. An ubiquitous quantum-field. That’s a good start. You will see that quantum phenomena like wave-particle duality, entanglement and observer dependency will become much more understandable. We will see that we will even get a grip on that elusive phenomenon, time.

A thorough analysis of quantum physics experiments and what the conclusions thereof should be, can be found in my first book ‘Quantum Physics is NOT Weird’. The crash course you’ll find in the next chapter is meant to reach a much wider audience. I’ll present you there in a comprehensible language the conclusions and how science arrived to them, without using deep logical analysis of the complex experiments, but be assured that these conclusions of 20th century physics research, like the one that matter doesn’t exist until observed, are nonetheless theoretically and experimentally thoroughly founded. I’ll summarize the most important conclusions here already. Hold your seats.

Matter does not exist before it is being observed.

Before observation reality is a wavelike field of probabilities, or potentialities, that is not bounded in space and time.

Any observation triggers the universe to make a unique choice from this boundless field of probabilities, so that it becomes instantaneously an object of matter or energy. This is verily creation.

Observation does not only create matter or energy, but it does so in space and time.

Space and time are therefore not independent of our observation but are also created by observation.

The outcome of any experiment is reduced by the information that the experiment can deliver, but also by the information that is already available to us.

Quantum Physics is not limited to atomic dimensions, it applies to any object of any size. This applies without exception to all above statements.

If observation creates reality, then the observing mind is very probably necessary to create reality - including history.

All objects are, already before their creation by observation, independent of their mutual distance in space and time, immaterially instantaneously connected. This is called entanglement.

If two objects have a common history, which is information, they will be verifiably entangled.

If you tend to dismiss these statements as too weird or too unbelievable, be aware that all of them are scientifically confirmed if not proven facts. Your automatic dismissal comes from a lifelong education (call it brainwashed) in the materialistic view of the universe.

Try to recognize that and postpone your automatic rejection of these facts by staying curious and keeping your mind as open as possible. This will be rewarded by the insight that the universe is not as indifferent to you as you were told, and that mind is the primary stuff of the universe. You were meant to be here.

A Crash Course

What is an electric field? We don't know. If we knew, we would know why field and charge are connected in the particular way in which they are. .. when I was a child people would say ‘Electricity is very mysterious.' Now we say it's not so mysterious, but still nobody knows what electric force really is. We're used to it, that's all, by giving it a name and getting used to handling it ... What is a gravitational potential, what is an electrical potential, what is a quantum potential? You see, you would have to explain all the forces and explain why they act on particles. Now, nobody has done that.'

David Bohm – a privately recorded conversation by Robert Temple.

Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory cannot possibly have understood it.

Niels Bohr, Essays 1932-1957 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge

Well, according to Niels you are in for a real shock. Really understanding quantum physics, and I’m not referring to its mathematics which is quantum mechanics, will indeed turn your worldview upside down. But that’s not a negative thing, on the contrary.

Sabine and the shaman

From ‘Existential Physics’ [1] by Sabine Hossenfelder:

Can I ask you something? asked a young man when he heard that I was a physicist. About quantum physics, he added timidly. I was ready to elaborate on the measurement problem in quantum physics, but I was not prepared for the question that followed:

"A shaman told me that my grandmother is still alive. Because of quantum physics. Only not in the here and now. Is that true?"

Her answer is that the shaman is – in her opinion – not totally wrong. That’s remarkable. Sabine is a dedicated reductionistic thinking physicist, albeit with a very critical mind concerning the farfetched wild ideas of a lot of her contemporary colleagues. I can really recommend her book. Reductionism is the idea that everything that exists can be completely described and understood when all its components are completely described and understood. So, how is it possible that a reductionistic thinking physicist considers such an idea to be even not totally wrong? To answer that, we must look at the history of physics, the way physics became the all-important science it is today.

Modern physics starts with Galilei

Galileo Galilei is considered the first modern physicist by most physicists. He stressed the importance of mathematic calculation in studying nature. Mathematics would be the eminent way to study nature and reveal her secrets. Isaac Newton followed in his tracks and developed mechanics, a mathematical tool which became an all-important instrument of physics. Newtonian mechanics is still taught to physics students in the beginning of their study.

Newton and Wilhelm Leibnitz created – independently of each other - an entirely new and important new branch of mathematics, diffe-rential calculation. It was extremely well suited for doing predictions on the behavior of objects that experience forces such as heavenly bodies. Newtonian mechanics was the instrument by which Edmund Halley could successfully predict the day that a comet – now Halley’s comet - would reappear in the sky.

By such successes mathematics became the way we meant to understand nature. This is however the root of a confusing misconception that leads us away from a real understanding of nature. Being able to do precise predictions is not the same as understanding. Think of a computer. Newton admitted this partly by acknowledging that he could predict the effects of gravity, but not tell what gravity is. Be aware that gravity is intrinsically a ‘magic’ phenomenon because it is able to effect distant matter without really touching it. Becoming aware of this magic quality of nature might help you greatly to come to a better understanding of quantum physics. Anyhow, gradually, because we became better and better in our mathematical descriptions of nature’s behavior, we lost touch with the ‘magic’ quality of nature.

We started to regard more and more our descriptions of nature as nature itself. At the end we confused the map for the territory. Currently some physicists are even taking the position that reality is only a mathematical construction itself. Taking our mathematical descriptions of nature for the real thing is reification, taking abstractions for the real thing. Clear examples of reification are the force fields, such as gravity, electric and magnetic fields, and also the waves that are supposed to propagate in these fields. What is it really that is oscillating there? Nobody knows. Acknowledging your lack of real understanding of such concepts is a good start in this crash course.

Light is a wavy phenomenon

This question of what stuff it was that was oscillating was also one of the arguments expressed against Huygens’s wave theory of light that he proposed in 1690. Newton’s idea of light as utterly