Tag: quantum physics

A Higher Plane…a Primer

The above photos are me in my favorite place, one of my hardest, triumphant, and at the same time, most poorly planned climbs of my life. How I made it is still a mystery, because I left my camera with my friend down on the beach. Anyway, I included it because it is with the same attitude that I begin this next chapter, I want to go to a greater height, and I will get there by just leaping ahead with the faith that I, regardless of my frailties and limits, will get there because I believe whole heartedly that it where the God of love wants me to go. In my first meditation on this new theme, my stomach was in knots, and I wrestled with the whole rational/spiritual dimensions of my nature: how can I present living on a higher plane in such a way that it makes perfect sense and is not just the figment of the imagination of an inventive mind? So, like that climb above, I just jumped out into the abyss that is my spirit and mind and embraced whatever came to me. At this point, I was and am chastised and humbled by ever worrying in the first place…this is going to be an adventure.

To begin with, the first things that came to mind when I focused on living on a higher plane, was all the work I had done with scientist, paleontologist, philosopher and mystic Teilhard de Chardin. He spent his lifetime studying the evolution of the planet/humanity and his conclusions are one of the cornerstones of my development. His teaching about the “phenomenon of man” (in quotes here, because in further usage I will only use gender affirming pronouns), that there is a correlation between the physical and psychical evolution of our species, is the link I’ve found between the disciplines of science and religion, that together work to form a more holistic view of our evolution. It is also the context, by which, the teachings of Christ and most other religions I’ve studied make the most sense. I will, of course, go into more detail in posts to come.

Secondly, because our universe is more than just a physical one (the without), its genesis has to also be understood in terms of the development of consciousness (the within). The evolution of both the inner and outer world share these same qualities: Plurality, Unity, and Energy. Once applied, from the teachings of Teilhard, there is a great shift in how neither the “without” of evolution and the “within” of evolution could be understood independently from one another. Ultimately, Teilhard believed that there is a specific direction to our evolution, that it is not a random set of events left to a multitude of circumstances, and that God is the source of that direction. He painstaking laid exactly how, and his work was censured by the Church, and he was exiled from France and China where he spent most of his life developing his theories.

While Teilhard’s theories were instrumental in my understanding of evolution on multiple levels, it was the science of quantum physics that expanded my understanding of Teilhard’s world (he died in the 50’s). The role of the observer, the impact of “the body” of thought, and the direction complex and nonlinear beings like humans will have on the collective unconscious, or “higher plane” as I am calling it, demands as much attention if we, cumulatively want to participate in the direction God wants us to go. Here is where it gets tricky…while God may have had the greater hand in directing our evolution up to this point, because of our free will, and powerful role in moving whether it be forward or backward, humanity, more than ever has within its power to embrace and live on this higher plane…or not, and the latter is what I find most frightening.

And yet, I am entering this year with my faith strengthened, solidified and purified by all I learned in the last year, and with the knowledge that I am not alone, I am joined by many open and brilliant blueprints out there who are finding their own way to shine their light, which to me, is synonymous with living on a higher plane. Of course, like anything, it doesn’t mean moving forward will be easy…I’ve already felt the struggle already. Wielding love is hard work and admittedly work that is relatively new to me…but true to my core, I will weather through it. The picture below is evidence physically what I am going through spiritually. I had just survived a huge storm on Lake Superior, that was terrifying and I understood, afterwards, how a huge ship like the Edmond Fitzgerald was sunk during a storm on that very same lake. I had thrown up my blueberry pancakes over the edge of said ship all the while thinking I was a goner and have never felt so fragile and aware of the power of the wind and nature in my life. To this day, the wind still freaks me out…whether it is physical or spiritual. But like the face in that picture, I am resolved to keep moving forward to better weather and greater heights.

Serious Work to Do

people_of_walmart_7398I took a step away from deep thoughts for a moment and thought I would step outside my small circle and check out the state of my view on ordinary people out there.  It’s not altogether pretty.  I’m usually an optimist, but man there is some weird stuff out there, and I found myself spiraling into a deep sense of pessimism that truly is foreign to me.  Just perusing through social network sites, (you would be amazed at how many are totally public) was shallow proof that the end of the world is nigh.  Seriously, if the observer does has an impact on the state of the world (check the last post), I can understand why we are all slipping into hell in a dirty hand basket.  I can’t get over the fact that there actually is a website dedicated to Wal-Mart people…moreover I can’t get over the fact that people on that website actually went out in public like that.  I am amazed at the stupid, stupid, STUPID things that ordinary folk take to heart as fact, such as Obama is really a foreign Muslim, or the world is 6000 years old, and Climate change is really Armageddon, so there is nothing we can so do to stop it.  This is not good.  I am a bit ashamed and feeling a bit self-righteous as an observer and I will ponder on this a bit.  Granted there is a lot of strange and stupid things out there, but it is how I, as an observer respond to it that makes on the difference in the world.  At this point, I admit I don’t know how to respond…so I won’t.  I will, believe me.  I just wanted you to understand the silence.

Why being Ordinary can carry Extraordinary Implications

observationA priest once told me that the movie in my head was much better than real life and I was just setting myself up for disappointment.  I actually felt sorry for him…and, hopefully, now that he is not restricted by human limitations any longer, he sees things differently.  I don’t know if it a blessing or a curse, but I do believe the movie in my head is fantastic…because it’s inspired by God and God has an even better imagination than I do.  I do admit, though, that priest’s words have challenged me throughout my life to understand the importance that perspective ( the movie in our heads) has on shaping reality.   While the theological essence of perspective has been my choice of study…I wanted to enlarge my focus to include a scientific perspective as well.  As a non scientist, though, it’s been an exciting challenge to understand the process of observation within the context of quantum physics.  but I do so because it opened my eyes (pun intended) to the important position of being an observer, and my personal impact on the world.   The first part may seem unbearably dry, but bear with me, it’s essential in understanding how important observation is in bringing the movie in our heads to fruition.  Just as important, in a time where fame and infamy give credibility and notoriety to a select and often undeserving few, I think a pitch for the ordinary Joe or Josephine is crucial.

It is tragic that in my study of theology, we never looked at science to broaden our understanding of God.  Reflecting back on my own experience with science, it always made me uncomfortable.  There was always an unspoken understanding that science was diametrically opposed to religion (just look at the controversy between evolution and creationism, or “divine intelligence” as its now called).  Somehow, since God transcended the material world and couldn’t be proved by extrinsic evidence, science existed in some subterranean dimension.   Many scientists and theologians appear to lie in wait to challenge, as fallible, the fundamental suppositions of either discipline (although there are plenty of religious leaders who believe there is plenty of extrinsic evidence that proves the existence of God, the majority of scientists I’ve met generally, keep faith and science separate).

During my early studies, the discovery that religion hadn’t necessarily represented my role as a woman in the world fair or accurately, led logically to understanding that perhaps that the conclusions they made about other things were flawed as well.  History has many sad moments when the church harshly closed a door on a scientific discovery.  It didn’t seem like an in-congruent step, then, as a result of all the historical animosity that scientists were not giving religious truth a fair shot either.  It appears to me, anyway, that many on both sides would be perfectly happy to cancel the other out.  Nothing like throwing out the baby with the bath water, don’t you think?  Let us hope that cooler heads prevail and we learn to utilize the language of the empirical and language of the spiritual to create a broader understanding of reality: where theology can nurture the observer, and science the observed.

In my own experience, I recall a conversation with a scientist about my belief that science and religion, like light, are the same thing, just observed differently.  By his reaction, not only was he offended that I would reduce quantum physics in such cheap layperson’s terms, as a theology teacher, I obviously didn’t have the level of intelligence necessary to further the discussion.  Unfortunately, his snub left me speechless.  While hiding in a bathroom stall to hide my watering eyes and embarrassment, I began to wonder if, in terms of science anyway, his observations would always be superior to mine.  My embarrassment turned out to be a good thing, however, because it also made me angry enough to begin yet another search for truth (OK, it also included the desire to prove him wrong—regardless of my motivation though, I did learn a thing or two).

It is sad that most people, like my conversation with the scientist, never get to fully understand how someone arrives at a certain perspective.  Not everyone just pulls things out of thin air.  I had spent countless hours studying and preparing for a class with the physics teacher at the high school where I taught: an investigation of theology from a scientific perspective and science from a theological perspective. What happened was something I couldn’t have predicted.  From the onset it appeared as if the idea had its own agenda. When my colleague and I entered into the world of quantum physics (I still get a tingle up my spine thinking of that moment), I knew my life would never appear the same again.

In the world of quantum the observer, or the means by which “something” is observed, means everything.  Its form depends on how it’s observed.  For example, light can exist both as a particle or a wave, depending on how it is observed, which, until quantum physics, was considered impossible.   Physicist Werner Heisenberg, gave even more importance to the observer via the uncertainty principle, which states that the exact position and velocity of a particle cannot both be known at the same time—the more precisely one value is known, the greater the range of possibilities that exist for the other.  Even the act of observing something changes the reality of what is being observed.  In the classical view of the universe, science taught that by eliminating subjective influences nature could be revealed as she really was.  Quantum physics changed that classical viewpoint by exposing a dichotomy between experienced and un-experienced reality.  The idea that the mechanism of observation could actually affect what form matter took forced science into a new paradigm, besides giving great weight to the observer.

The discovery of the wave/particle duality has taken us beyond the limitations of Newtonian physics.  There are two levels of reality which can be said to exist: reality as experienced, or as it exists in relation to the observer; and reality that is un-experienced, or as it exists in the absence of an observer (sort of like the old question does a tree falling in a forest make a sound when no one is there to hear it?).  Un-experienced reality, then, is reality as it exists before or beyond human experience (perhaps in a dimension beyond height, width, weight, depth and time).  Un-experienced reality relates to experiential reality in that it forms the basis or context of experienced reality like an archetype or prototype.  The issue that is of central importance to me is the relationship between what is experienced and what is not.  Naturally, since human beings, as observers, are confined by certain dimensional and subjective limitations, it would seem obvious that the un-experienced dimension has the greater control over what we perceive.  I’m not so sure of that anymore; from my theological background I know the power human beings have to be co-creators of the universe, and therefore color every experience with personal meaning.  What I have begun to worry about in this age of information overload, is the effect that all the negativity and violence has on the observer.  On a microscopic scale, are we turning into that priest that I talked about in the beginning?  Are we killing the movie in our heads and living a life of fear and disappointment?  Stay tuned.