Quantum Mechanics, Monism, Isness, Meditation

Art48

It’s been observed that quantum mechanics tells us what will occur if we make a measurement. It doesn’t tell us how the world “is,” what the world is doing when we aren’t looking. In a way, that’s disappointing because we naturally want to know.

It’s as if a theory said whenever I go to the kitchen in the morning, I’ll find a cup of hot coffee waiting for me. The theory doesn’t tell me who is making the coffee, why they are doing it, and how they are getting into my home. The theory tells me nothing about how it’s done; just what I observe. Such a theory wouldn’t feel entirely satisfying. That’s the way I feel about QM.

QM reminds me of Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. QM tells us what we will experience (phenomena) but doesn’t tell us what reality is (noumena). (It could be said the QM wave function is real. But it’s difficult to see how a mathematical function which gives complex values, complex as in values involving the square root of negative one, can be reality.) If we can’t experience the noumena which underlies what we do experience—as when we experience a person, a cat, or a tree—then it’s possible those three things, and all physical things, share the same noumena. (Maybe the universe has one huge wave function encompassing the entire universe.)

To me, QM seems to say that monism is possible; not proven, just possible. Monism is the philosophy that everything in the universe is a manifestation of a single thing. Just as everything in a dream is really the mental image of one individual. Or like we see only one thing—light—on a monitor, but we imagine people and landscapes and a universe. (QM is misused to support all sorts of outlandish beliefs. I hope this article doesn’t fit that category but leave the verdict to the reader.)

Science seems to be going in the direction of monism. Begin with all the different objects in the world, to about ten thousand different chemical compounds, to a bit over a hundred elements, to the seventeen particles of the Standard Model, hoping to reach some Grand Unified Theory. It’s not difficult to see a trend. For simplicity, we’ll call the one thing that exists “Isness,” although it’s also called “the ultimate ground of existence.”

The idea of monism has some consequences.

If only Isness exists, then either Isness is God, or God doesn’t exist in the absolute sense. I, a cat, a tree all exist in the relative sense, as manifestations of Isness. Only Isness exists at the deepest level, in an absolute sense. I exist in the relative sense and so might some person “god,” but such a being would not be ultimate, would not be God.

If only one thing exists, then we may picture objects dynamically, as acts of Isness, as dependent on Isness for their existence. If Isness ceases to act, everything else ceases to exist—like the spray of a fountain disappears when the water is turned off. Maybe in a few billion years, the universe will decide to take a break. Imagine it becoming a shimmering ocean of conscious, undifferentiated light, sparking and radiant. At peace: no more pesky simulation called “the universe” to run. After some billion years of rest (does time still exist in this scenario?), maybe the light begins to “dance” again and another universe begins.

If only one thing exists, then we are “it.” We ourselves literally are made in the image, or Isness, of God. But we don’t experience ourselves that way. We are immersed in the world. We live in a steady stream of touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, emotion, and thoughts, day in, day out. How can we experience the Isness which we are? Or, rather, is us? By quieting the stream and searching within. Meditation. Sitting in a quiet room. But the stream goes on. I relive experiences and thoughts of the day. But if I sit long enough, the stream flows more slowly. If the stream stops, you may experience yourself as Isness itself, as “Uncreated Light”—or so they say. Sadly, I don’t speak from experience.

More at https://adamford.com/NTheo/NewTheology.pdf

Mikie

If only one thing exists, then we are “it.” We ourselves literally are made in the image, or Isness, of God. But we don’t experience ourselves that way. We are immersed in the world. We live in a steady stream of touch, taste, smell, sight, hearing, emotion, and thoughts, day in, day out. How can we experience the Isness which we are? Or, rather, is us? By quieting the stream and searching within. Meditation. Sitting in a quiet room. But the stream goes on. I relive experiences and thoughts of the day. But if I sit long enough, the stream flows more slowly. If the stream stops, you may experience yourself as Isness itself, as “Uncreated Light”—or so they say. Sadly, I don’t speak from experience. — Art48

It's difficult but not impossible -- just keep at it. Eventually you do reach a state where anything that
arises (to use the lingo) -- thoughts, images, sounds, sensations, or any phenomena whatsoever -- just becomes something to be aware of, without reacting to or judging.

When you get good at that, it feels like a rather odd place to be, and you start experiencing first-hand all the talk of "oneness" and "unity." I like to think of it as "being," -- what you called "is-ness."

I think of it as an exercise. It's good for me. It's much harder than yoga or running or lifting weights. Which is why I rarely do it!

But anyway -- I don't see how meditation has much to do with quantum mechanics. A lot has been said about QM and meditation, but so much of it strikes me as woo-woo.

T Clark

It’s been observed that quantum mechanics tells us what will occur if we make a measurement. It doesn’t tell us how the world “is,” what the world is doing when we aren’t looking. — Art48

QM reminds me of Kant’s distinction between phenomena and noumena. QM tells us what we will experience (phenomena) but doesn’t tell us what reality is (noumena). — Art48

Quantum mechanics is science. It is a description of how the world is or appears to be, or at least how we think it is. Noumena and phenomena are metaphysical entities. They are not facts about the world, they're ways of looking at the world. Mixing up science and metaphysics is one of the most common mistakes in philosophical discussions.

Art48

Quantum mechanics is science. It is a description of how the world is or appears to be, or at least how we think it is. Noumena and phenomena are metaphysical entities. They are not facts about the world, they're ways of looking at the world. Mixing up science and metaphysics is one of the most common mistakes in philosophical discussions. — T Clark

Which is why I wrote "QM reminds of Kant’s distinction . . ."

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy. The book that arguably begin modern science is Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, i.e., The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy. Mixing up science and metaphysics may be a common mistake, but that doesn't me the two should never be mixed. (I'm not saying you believe the two should never be mixed. I don't know if you do or not. I'm just saying "common mistake" doesn't necessarily lead to "should never be done.")

Joshs

↪Xtrix

's difficult but not impossible -- just keep at it. Eventually you do reach a state where anything that
arises (to use the lingo) -- thoughts, images, sounds, sensations, or any phenomena whatsoever -- just becomes something to be aware of, without reacting to or judging.

When you get good at that, it feels like a rather odd place to be, and you start experiencing first-hand all the talk of "oneness" and "unity." I like to think of it as "being," -- what you called "is-ness — Xtrix

As someone who has written a lot here about Heidegger’s questioning of the ‘is’, isn’t your notion of non-judgmental awareness part of what Heidegger was critiquing? Isn’t all experience evaluative? Can there be such a thing as a neutral, passive subject of awareness, a pure , empty self-reflexivity?

Non-judgmental awareness is a goal
of mediation practice:

“...meditation is thought to support a “bare attention”, or “passive observational stance”, unobtrusive enough to avoid disturbing target experiences or coloring their description with theoretical preconceptions” (Thompson, Lutz and Cosmelli, 2005, pp. 69-75). Mindful meditations is “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn 1994, p. 4). ” Mindfulness registers experiences, but it does not compare them. It does not label them or categorize them. It just observes everything as if it was occurring for the first time. It is not analysis which is based on reflection and memory. It is, rather, the direct and immediate experiencing of whatever is happening, without the medium of thought. It comes before thought in the perceptual process (Gunaratana, 2002, p. 168). (Davis and Thompson)

T Clark

I'm just saying "common mistake" doesn't necessarily lead to "should never be done.") — Art48

The phrase "mixing up" was a confusing choice of language on my part. What I meant was that it is a mistake to confuse scientific principles with metaphysical ones, which I think your post does.

Mikie

As someone who has written a lot here about Heidegger’s questioning of the ‘is’, isn’t your notion of non-judgmental awareness part of what Heidegger was critiquing? Isn’t all experience evaluative? Can there be such a thing as a neutral, passive subject of awareness, a pure , empty self-reflexivity? — Joshs

I'd love it if there were some link, but I see very little in Heidegger in terms of discussing meditation.

I wouldn't say all experience is evaluative -- in fact, most isn't. Most is unconscious, automatic, habitual, etc. Most ready-to-hand activities aren't evaluative. We may be able to do a little evaluation afterward, but then we'd be in a present-at-hand mode of being. At least that's what I think Heidegger would say.

My own opinion is that meditation is indeed a present-at-hand type experience, without necessarily involving any ideas about "substance," which crept in fairly early in the history of Western thought. I would say Parmenides and Heraclitus were seeing similar things as the Buddha: "is-ness." It changes/becomes, it stays the same, it is differentiated in trillions of ways, etc. The ancient meaning of phusis and logos and noein and aletheia, for example, suggest this -- decades before idea and ousia came to dominate.

Whether or not these early thinkers grasped the importance of time (as temporality) is another matter.

Gnomon

To me, QM seems to say that monism is possible; not proven, just possible. Monism is the philosophy that everything in the universe is a manifestation of a single thing.. . . . If onlyIsness exists, then either Isness is God, or God doesn’t exist in the absolute sense. — Art48

Since my own personal philosophical worldview is Monistic & Holistic, the title of your OP caught my eye. I developed my Enformationism thesis from certain aspects of Quantum & Information theories. But I'm not sure how you derived philosophical Monism from the typical scientific interpretations of Quantum theory. For example, the article linked below somehow connects the Multiverse hypothesis with Monism, but I don't follow. Anyway, I down-loaded your New Theology thesis, and will look it over, as I get time.

At the moment, I'm not sure what you mean by "isness", but it sounds similar to my own notion of "BEING", as the essential "ground of being", or the "reason for existence of something instead of nothing", or the ultimate Cause of mundane beings. Exactly what the nature of that "isness" is, is hard to pin down. But for most people, it is equated with their concept of a divine creator. Yet my notion is more like a Universal Principle, like Plato's LOGOS. So, to avoid committing to any particular religious doctrine, I sometimes spell it "G*D" . Something like BEING or ISNESS must exist of necessity, or we wouldn't be here speculating. However, maybe it's none of my business, what Isness is. :joke:

BEING :
In my own theorizing there is one universal principle that subsumes all others, including Consciousness : essential Existence. Among those philosophical musings, I refer to the "unit of existence" with the absolute singular term "BEING" as contrasted with the plurality of contingent "beings" and things and properties. By BEING I mean the ultimate “ground of being”, which is simply the power to exist, and the power to create beings.
Note : Real & Ideal are modes of being. BEING, the power to exist, is the source & cause of physical Reality and mental Ideality. BEING is eternal, undivided and static, but once divided into Real/Ideal, it becomes our dynamic Reality.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page10.html

Quantum Monism Could Save the Soul of Physics :
The multiverse may be an artifact of a deeper reality that is comprehensible and unique
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/quantum-monism-could-save-the-soul-of-physics/

Joshs

↪Xtrix

I wouldn't say all experience is evaluative -- in fact, most isn't. Most is unconscious, automatic, habitual, etc. Most ready-to-hand activities aren't evaluative. — Xtrix

When I said that experience is evaluative, what I had in mind was valuation. Valuation is another way of talking about attunement, or Befindlichkeit , our always being thrown into experience in some affective attunement. Heidegger also talks about this affective comportment as displacement, as being disposed in some way or other toward experience.

“What we are now calling displacement is the essential character of what we know under the name of disposition or feeling. A deep-rooted and very old habit of experience and speech stipulates that we interpret feelings and dispositions—as well as willing and thinking—in a psychological-anthropological sense as occurrences and processes within an organism, as psychic lived experiences, ones we either have or do not have. This also means that we are “subjects,” present at hand, who are displaced into these or those dispositions by “getting” them. In truth, however, it is the disposition that displaces us, displaces us into such and such a relation to the world, into this or that understanding or disclosure of the world, into such and such a resolve or occlusion of one's self, a self which is essentially a being-in-the-world.”

There is a difference between saying that this displacing attunement is implicit rather than explicitly available to awareness , and claiming that it is completely unconscious. I would argue there there is no experience for Heidegger that is simply unconscious , automatic , habitual. The radically temporal nature of Dasein precludes this.

Agent Smith

Most interesting. — Ms. Marple

I recall this youtube video on the making of Top Gun 1. It seems that the Air Force allowed only one missile to be fired from an F-15. So what did the producers do? They captured the missle from different angles to create the illusion that multiple missiles were launched. It was just one missile. That, in a nutshell, is monism. :snicker:

180 Proof

↪T Clark

:100: :up:

Mikie

I would argue there there is no experience for Heidegger that is simply unconscious , automatic , habitual. — Joshs

Seems at odds with almost everything I’ve read of Heidegger, but okay,

Agent Smith

Science seems to be going in the direction of monism. Begin with all the different objects in the world, to about ten thousand different chemical compounds, to a bit over a hundred elements, to the seventeen particles of the Standard Model, hoping to reach some Grand Unified Theory. It’s not difficult to see a trend. For simplicity, we’ll call the one thing that exists “Isness,” although it’s also called “the ultimate ground of existence.” — Art48

Big Bang Theory style?

P. S. We've reached the limits of our understanding is what it is. That's all.

Gnomon

By quieting the stream and searching within. Meditation. Sitting in a quiet room. But the stream goes on. I relive experiences and thoughts of the day. But if I sit long enough, the stream flows more slowly. If the stream stops, you may experience yourself as Isness itself, as “Uncreated Light”—or so they say. Sadly, I don’t speak from experience. — Art48

I have practiced meditation -- including Alpha-Theta monitoring and the sensory deprivation of an isolation float chamber -- but so far have experienced no "uncreated light". Those who did psychedelic drugs in the 60s, often referred to mysterious lights, sometimes in the shape of a mandala. But such experiences can be traced to mis-firing neurons in the visual cortex. Therefore, like you, the notion of "isness", or "BEING" as I call it, remains an abstract imaginary concept.

I have read The New Theology thesis down to page 20 of 67. And I find most of it in agreement with my own post-theological worldview. Yet, I have had no mystical experiences to emotionally confirm what my dispassionate Logic has concluded about the Monad (Monism) that hypothetically contains the multitudes of pluralistic reality. I'll keep plugging-away though, and maybe I'll eventually achieve some form of Enlightenment. :cool:

Gnomon

Monism is the philosophy that everything in the universe is a manifestation of a single thing. . . . Science seems to be going in the direction of monism. — Art48

The current scientific model of reality is indeed grudgingly Monistic, but most scientists are more interested in the Pluralistic parts. When the Big Bang theory implied that the universe (one world) had a Monistic beginning in a mathematical Singularity, some offended scientists immediately began to look for models more compatible with their Reductionist perspective. A popular alternative to a unique act of creation is the concept of a Multiverse. Which implies that our Miniverse (many worlds) is just one meaningless instance in a beginningless series of bangs like an unbounded pan of popcorn. Ironically, the all-encompassing Multiverse itself is conceptually singular & infinite & eternal & creative. Almost like a traditional god, except it's imagined as mindless & purposeless. But, if so, whence the purposeful minds in our little corner of this bubble universe? :joke:

jgill

It is speculated (theorized?) that time began with this event called the BIg Bang, as did space, in the context of spacetime. So there is no "before" the BB. So originally there was complete monism that fragmented as time progressed. Well, just more babble (rubble) I suppose.

Gnomon

It is speculated (theorized?) that time began with this event called the BIg Bang, as did space, in the context of spacetime. So there is no "before" the BB. So originally there was complete monism that fragmented as time progressed. Well, just more babble (rubble) I suppose. — jgill

Just as some people can't accept that Life ends with Death, others can't believe that continuous Time began with a Bang. One alternative rationale is to assume that space-time itself is eternal. Hence, contingent worlds like ours are just a drop in a bottomless bucket. Another desperate diversion was to slice the Big Bang into imaginary bits of sub-planck-time, in order to allow enough temporal "space" for hypothetical super-luminal Inflation to organize the unformed Potential of the Singularity into actual physical patterns that we can detect in the Cosmic Microwave Background. In that case, Time is like Water (fluid monism), it has no obvious joints, so you can carve it arbitrarily fine. Bubble, rubble, boil & babble. :joke:

It would be nice if we could, as Plato wrote, carve nature at its joints: 'Plato famously employed this “carving” metaphor as an analogy for the reality of Forms (Phaedrus 265e): like an animal, the world comes to us predivided. Ideally, our best theories will be those which “carve nature at its joints”.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7518925/

jgill

to organize the unformed Potential of the Singularity — Gnomon

Interesting to learn of the various ways the word Singularity is used. In the simplest math it's just where a denominator equals zero. But in the complex plane the function $f(z)={{e}^{\frac{1}{z}}}$ is a world of trouble for
$z=0$

Gnomon

Interesting to learn of the various ways the word Singularity is used. In the simplest math it's just where a denominator equals zero. But in the complex plane the function f(z)=e1z is a world of trouble for
z=0 — jgill

Yes. The Big Bang Singularity has a simple mathematical definition : to paraphrase, it's where finite math goes off the charts, to infinity and beyond. In the form of an asymptotic curve, the historical trace of space-time evolution approaches-but-never-reaches infinity. Beyond that finite curve, we have no access to factual information. Hence, we can only guess about the Time before Space-Time.

For variety, Kutzweil gives the notion of "Singularity" a technological twist, in which a brave new future world will be created by smart machines. Most physicists, though, treat the original Singularity either 1> as-if it just accidentally happened, "something from nothing for no reason", or 2> as-if it was just a recycling of old worlds through the garbage grinder of pre-historic Black Holes. But in my Enformationism thesis, I give it a philosophical definition, based on Information Theory. There, I treat that pin-point-of-potential as-if it was the DNA from which space-time was created, and then filled with the stuff we see around us.

The size of the hypothetical Singularity was sub-Planck-scale. So, it couldn't possibly contain any space-occupying matter. Yet it could conceivably contain non-spatial Energy in the form of Latent Potential. And it could possibly contain mathematical information in the form of a computer algorithm, encoded with instructions for evolving a world from scratch. Does that make any sense to you? :smile:

Potential energy is the latent energy in an object at rest, and is one of two forms of energy. The other form, kinetic energy, is the energy expressed by an object in motion. Potential energy is a core concept of any physics-based discussion, and one of the most influential variables in the formulas that describe our known universe.
https://www.livescience.com/65548-potential-energy.html

Latent : (of a quality or state) existing but not yet developed or manifest; hidden or concealed.
https://languages.oup.com/google-dictionary-en/

Singularity :
A singularity is literally something unique or unusual. As a mathematical concept it is an object that is undefined due to its proximity to infinity. For Systems Theory a Singularity is a tipping point where a small change can cause a large effect. In physical Cosmology, it is the hypothetical mathematical point of infinite density before quantum fluctuations caused the Big Bang that created the Universe.
1. In Enformationism theory, the initial singularity was a mathematical formula or equation encoded with information & instructions for creating the physical universe from meta-physical Potential, equivalent to Platonic Forms.
http://blog-glossary.enformationism.info/page18.html

Quantum Mechanics, Monism, Isness, Meditation

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