Read Online Biocentrism: How Life and Consciousness Are the Keys to Understanding the True Nature of the Universe by ;Bob Berman MD Robert Lanza - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: ;Bob Berman MD Robert Lanza
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Einstein’s (and others’) hopes that locality can be maintained.
Before Bell, it was still considered possible (though increasingly iffy) that local realism—an objective independent universe—could be the truth. Before Bell, many still clung to the millennia-old assumption that physical states exist before they are measured . Before Bell, it was still widely believed that particles have definite attributes and values independent of the act of measuring. And, finally, thanks to Einstein’s demonstrations that no information can travel faster than light, it was assumed that if observers are sufficiently far apart, a measurement by one has no effect on the measurement by the other.
All of the above are now finished, for keeps.
In addition to the above, three separate major areas of quantum theory make sense biocentrically but are bewildering otherwise. We’ll discuss much of this at greater length in a moment, but let’s begin simply by listing them. The first is the entanglement just cited, which is a connectedness between two objects so intimate that they behave as one, instantaneously and forever, even if they are separated by the width of galaxies. Its spookiness becomes clearer in the classical two-slit experiment.
The second is complementarity. This means that small objects can display themselves in one way or another but not both, depending on what the observer does; indeed, the object doesn’t have an existence in a specific location and with a particular motion. Only the observer’s knowledge and actions cause it to come into existence in some place or with some particular animation. Many pairs of such
complementary attributes exist. An object can be a wave or a particle but not both, it can inhabit a specific position or display motion but not both, and so on. Its reality depends solely on the observer and his experiment.
The third quantum theory attribute that supports biocentrism is wave-function collapse, that is, the idea that a physical particle or bit of light only exists in a blurry state of possibility until its wave-function collapses at the time of observation, and only then actually assumes a definite existence. This is the standard understanding of what goes on in quantum theory experiments according to the Copenhagen interpretation, although competing ideas still exist, as we’ll see shortly.
The experiments of Heisenberg, Bell, Gisin, and Wineland, fortunately, call us back to experience itself, the immediacy of the here and now. Before matter can peep forth—as a pebble, a snowflake, or even a subatomic particle—it has to be observed by a living creature.
This “act of observation” becomes vivid in the famous two-hole experiment, which in turn goes straight to the core of quantum physics. It’s been performed so many times, with so many variations, it’s conclusively proven that if one watches a subatomic particle or a bit of light pass through slits on a barrier, it behaves like a particle, and creates solid-looking bam-bam-bam hits behind the individual slits on the final barrier that measures the impacts. Like a tiny bullet, it logically passes through one or the other hole. But if the scientists do not observe the particle, then it exhibits the behavior of waves that retain the right to exhibit all possibilities , including somehow passing through both holes at the same time (even though it cannot split itself up)—and then creating the kind of rippling pattern that only waves produce.
Dubbed quantum weirdness , this wave-particle duality has befuddled scientists for decades. Some of the greatest physicists have described it as impossible to intuit, impossible to formulate into words, impossible to visualize, and as invalidating common sense and ordinary perception. Science has essentially conceded that quantum physics is incomprehensible outside of complex mathematics.
How can quantum physics be so impervious to metaphor, visualization, and language?
Amazingly, if we
Before Bell, it was still considered possible (though increasingly iffy) that local realism—an objective independent universe—could be the truth. Before Bell, many still clung to the millennia-old assumption that physical states exist before they are measured . Before Bell, it was still widely believed that particles have definite attributes and values independent of the act of measuring. And, finally, thanks to Einstein’s demonstrations that no information can travel faster than light, it was assumed that if observers are sufficiently far apart, a measurement by one has no effect on the measurement by the other.
All of the above are now finished, for keeps.
In addition to the above, three separate major areas of quantum theory make sense biocentrically but are bewildering otherwise. We’ll discuss much of this at greater length in a moment, but let’s begin simply by listing them. The first is the entanglement just cited, which is a connectedness between two objects so intimate that they behave as one, instantaneously and forever, even if they are separated by the width of galaxies. Its spookiness becomes clearer in the classical two-slit experiment.
The second is complementarity. This means that small objects can display themselves in one way or another but not both, depending on what the observer does; indeed, the object doesn’t have an existence in a specific location and with a particular motion. Only the observer’s knowledge and actions cause it to come into existence in some place or with some particular animation. Many pairs of such
complementary attributes exist. An object can be a wave or a particle but not both, it can inhabit a specific position or display motion but not both, and so on. Its reality depends solely on the observer and his experiment.
The third quantum theory attribute that supports biocentrism is wave-function collapse, that is, the idea that a physical particle or bit of light only exists in a blurry state of possibility until its wave-function collapses at the time of observation, and only then actually assumes a definite existence. This is the standard understanding of what goes on in quantum theory experiments according to the Copenhagen interpretation, although competing ideas still exist, as we’ll see shortly.
The experiments of Heisenberg, Bell, Gisin, and Wineland, fortunately, call us back to experience itself, the immediacy of the here and now. Before matter can peep forth—as a pebble, a snowflake, or even a subatomic particle—it has to be observed by a living creature.
This “act of observation” becomes vivid in the famous two-hole experiment, which in turn goes straight to the core of quantum physics. It’s been performed so many times, with so many variations, it’s conclusively proven that if one watches a subatomic particle or a bit of light pass through slits on a barrier, it behaves like a particle, and creates solid-looking bam-bam-bam hits behind the individual slits on the final barrier that measures the impacts. Like a tiny bullet, it logically passes through one or the other hole. But if the scientists do not observe the particle, then it exhibits the behavior of waves that retain the right to exhibit all possibilities , including somehow passing through both holes at the same time (even though it cannot split itself up)—and then creating the kind of rippling pattern that only waves produce.
Dubbed quantum weirdness , this wave-particle duality has befuddled scientists for decades. Some of the greatest physicists have described it as impossible to intuit, impossible to formulate into words, impossible to visualize, and as invalidating common sense and ordinary perception. Science has essentially conceded that quantum physics is incomprehensible outside of complex mathematics.
How can quantum physics be so impervious to metaphor, visualization, and language?
Amazingly, if we
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