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Ciel
It is definitely not wrong to say that 'everything is energy' (even though a plausible argument can be made that the total amount of energy in the Universe adds up to exactly 0, on the basis that gravity cancels out all mass! But we don't know if that's really correct...).
But all that doesn't get us very far in understanding things, and there are many different ways of understanding the world. "There are more things between Heaven and Earth, Horatio..." and all that! There are innumerable mysteries, and I am quite willing to accept that, and do not reject as 'crackpot' different ways of seeing the world. (Even, and especially, in quantum physics, the answer depends on how you ask the question. Pose the questions differently, you get different answers, each of them correct!) What makes it 'crackpottery' is to dress things up it in ill-fitting cloaks of 'science'...
Here's something I wrote a while back that will help in understanding my position http://www.blogit.com/Blogs/Blog.aspx/Nautikos/386405...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 26, 2008 at 5:54 AM
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Yup, that would be me,,,
I really don't quite get it...
But it is only some of us who believe in and work with the 'psychic stuff' that feel the need to prove it in order to support our own conviction. Many of us are tired of being dismissed as crackpots automatically by people who don't understand our side of it, and would simply like to have an answer for them.
The precept that "everything is energy", something I have been saying for years before I ever heard of partical physics or string theory--seems to tie the two together. Am I wrong in that intepretation?
posted by
Ciel
on June 24, 2008 at 6:16 PM
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And to address the specific points...
clairvoyance, telepathic communication, remote energy healing can
NOT be explained by reference to quantum physics! People who make that claim usually do not understand it properly in the first place, and in any case engage in wild speculation the public cannot possibly recognize as nonsense because it doesn't understand it either...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 24, 2008 at 5:56 PM
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Ciel
Actually, the rules (or 'laws') of quantum physics, that is to say those of the Standard Model, are in fact quite 'rigid' (though not in the 'classical' sense) and extremely well understood. The biggest problem remains the reconciliation between classical physics, which deals with macro bodies, and particle (quantum) physics. That's what string theory is about, but no cigar so far.
But because quantum physics deals with things that aren't really 'things', and are in some way really 'weird' (at least from the point of view of everyday reality), it lends itself to all kinds of claims on the part of people who really don't understand it.
My question is, why bother? Why must faith always search for 'support' from science to justify itself? Is that not a tacit admission of doubt and also, more importantly, a kind of genuflecting at the altar of science, as though in the end we can really understand things only scientifically? Which is of course wrong...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 24, 2008 at 5:45 PM
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If I understand what I have heard and read, things often called 'psychic'
such as clairvoyance, telepathic communication, remote energy healing... and things considered religious or faith-based, such as effective prayer, become plausible within the rules of quantum physics.
One of the books I've found most fascinating is The Holographic Universe.
I would have to write a whole blog, for several years, to explain what's real to me, and what I understand (at this point) about the way the Universe works and is constructed... Wait... I did! And here it is, all around us...
posted by
Ciel
on June 24, 2008 at 2:42 PM
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Ciel
It is indeed possible to speak of a certain convergence between quantum physics and 'spiritual' insights, although they are still worlds apart. Quantum physics remains
science, not
faith! And the 'Missing Day' business is a total crock of you know what...
posted by
Nautikos
on June 24, 2008 at 2:31 PM
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and so it goes!
A rose
and a smile
from me! =^. .^= Bo too!
posted by
Whacky
on June 23, 2008 at 9:32 PM
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