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Category: Science

  • Why Aren’t We Being Visited by Time Travelers from the Future?

    This was Stephen Hawking’s famous question and or reasoning for why time travel must not be possible: For if it were, and since Einstein’s equations say that the Future already exists, then we should be flooded with ‘tourists’ all around us from some point in the future, when surely the technology will have been developed.

    Most of the time, I feel like Movies in general, are the worst types of ‘didactic pornography,’ but you just have to appreciate how, say, a movie like ‘Loopers’ at least tries to creatively address such issues. It’s agains the law. Presumably because of the chaos it would create through an endless cybernetic feedback loop would end up giving off more energy than the Universe could handle. The energy from this feedback loop, that just kept multiplying exponentially, would rapidly become greater than the Big Bang itself and just rip Space apart as well as breaking down the laws of physics.

    Whenever I’ve thought about this question, most of the time I end up thinking the darkest of all thoughts, but one that’s all too obvious: That we destroy ourselves before we’ve developed the technology. It’s a terrible thought. God, I hope it’s not true. But look at the facts. This was a real fear in peoples’ live in the 50’s and especially the 60’s at the height of the Cold War, then even into the 70’s and when I was growing up in the 80’s.

    Then when the Cold War ended we thought a real “Dawning of the Age of Aquarius” had begun, and that threat was over. Hope it is. But look out over the next thousand to 10 thousand years, which feels like about the amount of time needed for something like time travel to be invented. With so much technological power growing exponentially every year available to the individual, God, such dark thoughts almost seem inevitable, unless, hopefully, we evolve every aspect of our humanity for one, also develop the technology that would stop the ‘lone rogue’ without hampering the benefits of increasing technology for increasing the standards of living, enjoyment, and prosperity for the majority. As much as I hate thinking about this topic in this way, I’m really surprised that no one responded to Hawking with this answer.

    But anyway, moving on, having just read “The Way of Zen” and currently reading such things as “Creative Mythology” as well as “Spiritual” things by Deepak Chopra and Ram Dass, another answer occurred to me in the shower: What if the reason is more metaphysical? Such as: The Reason we haven’t been visited by tourists from the future is because we are asking the question. 

    That’s the same answer that a Buddha master gave when his student asked, “Am I a Buddha?”

    “No,” said the master, “You are not a buddha.”

    “But,” protested the student, “You said all things are ‘buddha’ things.”

    “Yes,” the master responded, “All things are Buddha things. But you are not.”

    “Why not?” implored the student.

    “Because you are asking the question.”

    Most physicists, even the cutting edge ones like Brian Greene and Michio Kaku, would immediately dismiss and leave any conversation if Metaphysics were brought up. But I can’t help but feel that Quantum Theory itself, as well as many aspects of Relativity, is a “Meta” Physical Philosophy. If that’s the case, then surely a metaphysical answer to the question, and metaphysics in general, must have a place at the modern day “Philosophical” Dinner table.

     

  • If Everything is Made of Atoms Who or What is Doing the Seeing?

    If everything is made of atoms, who is it that is doing the seeing, the feeling. Atoms don’t have eyes, so who or what is it that is doing the seeing? It’s striking how much that galaxy looks like an atom. Infinite Worlds above, Infinite Worlds below, and your wave function exists in all of them simultaneously, forever.

    Richard Feynman said that the greatest discovery in history is that everything is made of atoms. That made me think of this. My entire body and everything around me is made of atoms, or more precisely three primary constituents, protons, neutrons, and electrons. So that’s what drives me to ask the question “Who or what in me is doing the seeing?” If you say the neurons, which is a collection of atoms arranged in a specific way, it makes me think of an instrument like a camera. But does the camera have consciousness? It collects photons through a lens and arranges them in a pattern. But until we look at the photo, does anything happen? And even when we do, again who is doing the seeing? Because we are made up of exactly the same three ingredients as the camera, only arranged in a different way.

    Update: 10/13/12: As I was stirring my coffee today, the white powdered sugar at the top, as it was swirling around looked just like a galaxy. As I stirred harder the middle of the white froth started to sink in the middle reminding me how space curves inward from gravity. It reminded me that gravity is simply energy. In this case my “Mini” galaxy was spinning from the energy of my hand being transferred to the coffee. So the coffee was like the fabric of space itself. But what I was curious about was although I knew the energy was there and causing the sugar to swirl, I still wondered why the swirling energy made the coffee suck downward in the middle. The coffee wasn’t being sucked downward due to gravity. It was being sucked downward by the swirling energy. Was it only being sucked down because the energy of my straw was pushing the coffee outward towards the sides of the cup? So is gravity not really a force in and of itself but merely the after effect of energy pushing space outward? In that case then somehow this energy pushing space outward must cause a vacuum within Hyperspace (some Physicists refer to this as “The Bulk”) that sucks the the fabric of space inward towards the bulk itself. Interesting. So Hyperspace itself must be causing the attractive force of gravity. Really, when you think about it the “sucking” of gravity is caused by energy moving a portion of space towards the “wall” of Hyperspace (aka the wall of the cup) and so the middle of that portion of space loses its volume and moves away from Hyperspace (In this case the Hyperspace is like the surface of the cup of coffee.)

     

     

    Related Posts:
    Qualia Principles: The Foundation For A Science Of Consciousness – DeepakChopra.com

    And if you have a Facebook, it was this photo/post from Deepak that sparked this thought of mine.

  • How Metaphysics and Physics are Coming Closer Together

    There’s always those quotes that bypass the Ego gate and strike a chord deep within what Jung might call your “Collective Unconscious,” and this was one of them for me. One reason this strikes me is that it seems to relate or come very close in a metaphysical way to the Physical Scientific Fact that all of us have wave functions that fill up not just the entire Universe but also the infinite number of Quantum Multi Verses, as well as all of time past and all of time future, forever and ever without end. That sounds Metaphysical, but it’s actually a Scientific fact. It almost feels like how they built the railroads in the 19th century, one group working from the West Coast inwards, the other from the East, and then they met in the middle. It seems like the more Science discovers or rather “uncovers” the more the images seen in the telescopes and the microscopes seem to resonate with the images of Metaphysics, Mythos, and what is coming out of the Collective Unconscious.

    The great barrier in the Metaphysical picture painted above is the Ego, which is symbolized by Dragons, serpents, and other creatures that are cutting off this natural flow of “Cosmic” energy. In the Fairy Tale and Myth, “Slaying the Dragon” is symbolic of “Slaying” your own “Ego” which by its very nature of seeing itself as separate from “Nature” and the rest of the World and Universe, destroys Spirit. For in this picture, “Spirit” like the bloom on a flower is the by product of Nature, something created by nature, not something separate or to be imposed on nature.

    Makes me start to think that the Wave Function is the equivalent of “Consciousness” as in the famous Vedic expression: Being> Consciousness> Bliss (Sat, Chith, Ananda in Sanskrit) So, the second of that Trinity. “Being” seems to be the initiator of a great track opening up. But what is “Being”? That seems to be the great mystery and key.

     

  • Quantum Wave Functions and Consciouness

    This is an interesting picture when you think about how in the main Quantum picture, it is consciousness that somehow “freezes” matter into a definite state, that matter “responds” to consciousness. And everyone has had that experience where something truly amazing, or at least what they want happens, when they “take their mind off it” If every possible vibration and wave function exists, then somehow “taking our ‘mind’” off it for a while allows for more possibilities to “freeze” But I’m still not sure why having our mind on things usually ‘freezes’ negative outcomes, while ‘stilling’ the mind or consciouness, seems to bring forth mostly positive experiences. (I made this blog post because you know those sites that make you put in a password to approve your comment and then your comment ‘vanishes’ to wait for approval, and then you don’t know if you’ll see it again?)

    From Deepak’s blog: http://www.deepakchopra.com/blog/view/353/life_after_death

    Question:

    I’m an academic neuropsychiatrist with deep interest in brain and mind. I only read 2 of your books, Buddha and Muhammad. What impressed me the most is your thorough understanding of the person in these figures. For me you seem to know that what is sacred is every moment we spend existing and not in what is “out there”. I don’t believe in god/gods or in religion and I feel that humans are miserable because they developed “consciousness”, an extension of the frontal lobe function that allowed awareness of time, what has passed and what to come, which created this eternal anxiety about life and death and all the complexity that followed. I think that the Buddha figured it out and gave us the only way to go through it with the least suffering. But when we die, we blend back to the energy in this universe, our soul is the set of experiences that we had and left traces behind, the noise of the working machine of our body and the products of that machine that is left behind. How far am I from the “Truth”!

     

    Deepak Answer:
    I don’t presume to know Truth with a capital “T”, but Buddha’s doctrine of freedom from suffering is premised on the idea of awakening from ignorance. This ignorance is the energetic pattern of our identity that keeps us in the cycle of reincarnation until we are fully enlightened. So while the raw material of our bodies is recycled on death, the energy of our individual consciousness is not united with the consciousness of the universe until the body of the enlightened person dies. As for what exactly that experience will be or won’t be, we’ll have to see.

    Love,
    Deepak

  • Deepak Chopra Quotes

    “…the Scientific discoveries show that the laws of physics themselves preclude us from intellectually getting in touch with the source.”

    “The more we understand the nature of the Universe, through ‘Science,’ the more we understand there is the ‘Unknown’ and there’s the “Unknowable.’ The ‘Unknowable’ because the Scientific discoveries show that the laws of physics themselves preclude us from intellectually getting in touch with the source. You have to go beyond the intellect. You have to listen to the heart. The heart has reasons, that reason doesn’t know. The great prophets, Jesus, etc., they transcended to a level where they were in touch with the mystery.”  – Deepak Chopra on “The O’Reilly Factor” Nov. 2, 2011. – Youtube Video Link

     

    “When we transcend our own thoughts, we get in touch with the womb of the Universe.”

    Video Link

  • The Mythic Dimension

    If I were going to help Deepak in his argument with Leonard (Leonard Mlodinow) I might say:

    Our eyes are only capable of seeing a tiny sliver of all the magnetic waves that exist.

    “Deepak, ask him whether he believes in the 4th dimension. After he says, ‘Yes,’ ask him to point to it.”

    He can’t. He can’t even imagine it. Our brains are incapable of even imagining it. They’re hard wired for only 3 physical and one temporal dimensions. Unfortunately they make a perfect playground on which Social Conditioning can make it’s stamp
    of reality only consisting only of what our 5 senses are capable of experiencing. Note that even our eyeballs, as advanced as they are, are only capable of sensing a tiny fraction of the lightwaves that are (Conveniently coined the “Visible Spectrum”)

    Isn’t that the same as Spirituality? We can’t point to it, but we know it’s there.

    It’s the “Mythic” dimension, which is constantly at right angles, known as “eternity”, to the arrow of time.

    “Eternity is in love with the productions of time,” said Blake.

    Why?

    Because like a beautiful work of art needs a canvass to act as a medium for manefestation, even in some sense acting as “foil,” eternity needs the “foil” of time and space to act as “relief” in representing it’s message of the infinite.

    Think about it. In order to represent something moving, you have to have another thing standing still, or the message can’t be conveyed.

    In the same way, in order to convey the message of “revelation” you need to have the backdrop, the blank canvass, if you will, of a mundane, restricted, and merely mechanical “Worldview.”

    Without the Labyrinth, there wouldn’t be the adventure, the magical thread that leads one out.