NON-DUALITY
The following quotes (along with many others), point out the inadequacies of the metaphysical framework modern science uses.
"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics" - Richard Feynman (1967)
"Quantum theory makes absolutely no sense" - Roger Penrose (1986)
"It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory - Michio Kaku (1995)
One Substance
Oneness of All Things
Unification Theories
Theory of Everything
Nonduality and Quantum Mechanics
1. Fallen in love with Nonduality: after spending a dedicated year reading and meditating on all the nondual teachers, teachings and philosophies I could find, I have fallen in love with this radical view of reality. I have reached a great clarity in the overall philosophy and have had a few glimpses or direct realizations or recognitions of the nondual isness of the universe.
2. My personal Favorite approaches are Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta. Favorite modern teachers are Ramana Maharshi (my overall FAVORITE), Tony Parsons (and Jim Newman) , and Jean Klein (and Francis Lucille, and Robert Adams). Both Tony and Jean Klein have influenced the modern true nondual moverment more than any in my opinion.
3. Philosophy and Experience/Practice two birds of a wing, but its a practiceless practice.
The philosophy and experience are like two wings on a bird both needed to navigate the profound emptiness and fullness of all that is.
4. Words are only pointers (limits of language): When using words as pointers to this unknowable mystery, we must be careful to point out that words can never capture everything being nothing. How can you describe an ultimate reality that is absolutely everything that is with mere words or even a comprehensive philosophy? It seems impossible, because logically to know something you have to get outside of it, and you can never get outside of everything. So ultimately philosophies are seemingly doomed and words most surely fail, right? The answer is being mindful the words are pointers to something that truly cannot be described, and yet it can and in fact I feel the nondual teachers, and philosophies are crucial in leading to the actual experience.
5. Words, teachings and philosophies have two critical roles:
ONE: they can touch something deeper via a sort of resonance that meets (seemingly) the uprising longing in the apparent individual. Resonance does not seem to work if that genuine longing is not there.
TWO: the nondual teachings can help to reorganize your personal worldviews, beliefs and paradigms that are inherently dualistic (for are for most most).
MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE: Even though I was familiar with nonduality before this past year, this passionate deep dive has helped me to see, I was still acting and thinking in ways that are inherently dualistic. This is still hard to shake, but the illusion has greatly loosened THANKS TO the Nondual teachers, teachings and Philosophies, I have felt (ONE) something deeper being touched through some sort of resonance (for lack of a better word). Also (TWO) I have found the philosophies have been of utmost importance to restructure my beliefs and personal worldview and paradigm that was, as I found out, inherently dualistic until my deep dive into radical Oneness or non-duality.
6. Two differing styles:
ONE: Sunya/Emptiness/No Self, No Consciousness/Awareness - No One
TWO: Brahman/Atman (Self or I-I)/Universal Consciousness/Primordial Awareness - Only the One
WHAT THEY HAVE IN COMMON: No separate Individual, whether there is No One, or Only the One.
Also they both point out the illusion of the seeker going on a path (sadhana) to attain something called Enlightenment, Moksha, Satori, Liberation , etc. If all there is is oneness, you cannot attain something you already are. Nondual or not 2 is used to point out that words like Oneness or God are easier to objectify than Nonduality, or Emptiness. And as soon as you objectify something, you separate yourself from it. As an exercise, if you believe in God, can you see how there is an inherent dualism between this creature and creator?
--(Further Elaboration below)
I found it very interesting that there are overall two differing styles that point to the same underlying ultimate reality. Even with true nondual experiences by the pioneers like Nagarguna, Gaudapada, and Shankarcharya, their corresponding philosophies differ in how they use words as pointers.
What I consider the two most complete and comprehensive nondual philosophies, that of Mahayana Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta founded by Nagarguna and Shankarcharya use what seems at face value diametrically opposed explanations. On the one hand, in Buddhism there is Sunya, which is the emptiness or void, but translated it also means a fullness. In Advaita Vedanta, there is Brahman, the one without a second. In Buddhism there is no self, in Vedanta there is only the Self. Getting to the core of these differences and looking at modern nondual teachers, it boils down to using words like emptiness versus consciousness. But as long as we are clear, that emptiness is both everything and nothing, and as long as we understand "Consciousness is a singular, for which there is no plural" as Schrondinger said, then we can reconcile the opposing views as two ways of pointing to the same ultimate reality that is ultimately beyond both views and all views.
--
7. A third Style - Quantum Mechanics:
ONE: Supplement - Not meant to replace the great Nondual Traditions but supplement and clarify and confirm them!
TWO: Beauty of QM is we No Longer need to take Nonduality on Faith: Before quantum mechanics, Nonduality was something that had to be taken on faith from true Masters who pointed out that Prajna (direct seeing) was needed to understand it.
THREE: More precise language of Complex Numbers, Vectors, A probability based on the ||2-norm|| that reality forced upon us. QM also for both everything (superpositions of all possibilities) and Nothing (Possibilities in Potentia not existing until measured). Normal language and Classical or Newton Mechanics based on real numbers, determinism, ||1-norm|| statistics, etc are inherently dualistic.
FOUR: Fresh Nondual Insights obtained by ironically objectively doing quantum experiments to see what Nature REALLY is, not subjective experience. BUT this objective investigation of UR via Quantum mechanics leads to
The Evolution of Science from Many to One. (Horizontal)
From Classical Atoms and the Void to Newtonian Atoms and the Void, to Fields that Connect, to Consciousness that Connects to Non-dual Suchness of String/Loop.
Quote Vivekananda - Vedanta
"All is one substance, but it is manifested variously."
Erwin Schrodinger, one of the founders of quantum physics himself wrote in the appendix of "What is Life" (1944):
"Consciousness is a singular, for which there is no plural."
Quote Heisenberg - Physics and Philosophy - Physics
"All the different elementary particles could be reduced to one universal substance which could equally be called energy or matter, and none of the different particles should be privileged and considered as being more fundamental. This point of view corresponds to Anaximander's doctrine, and I am convinced that in modern physics this view is the correct point of view."
Apeiron - ἄπειρον - Primal Substance: the unlimited, indeterminate, and indefinite ground, origin, or primal principle of all matter postulated especially by Anaximander
Established Oneness, So a Unifying Nondual Quantum Consciousness is really the ONLY logical choice in describing the Meaurement Problem/Observer Effect in Quantum Mechanics.
III. Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory (Standard Model)
The Information Age
The science has been around since the early 1920's to account for the microworld (world of the very small).
Quantum mechanics describes the rules of how electrons arrange themselves in atoms and move through materials... which means it is behind the whole of chemistry, material science, solid state physics and electronics.
QED is perhaps most accurate theory ever tested.
1 part in a trillion accuracy of theoretical w/ experiment – fine structure constant 1/137
Distance of moon to earth in a hair width (magnetic moment of e-).
Describes how semiconductors and lasers work for example and behind
Computers/laptops
Internet
Lasers
Smartphones & Tablets
MRI and PET scans and SQUIDs
Electron microscopes
Atomic Clocks
Satellite Navigation
Quantum Computers
III. Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Field Theory (Standard Model)
The Information Age
The science has been around since the early 1920's to account for the microworld (world of the very small).
Quantum mechanics describes the rules of how electrons arrange themselves in atoms and move through materials... which means it is behind the whole of chemistry, material science, solid state physics and electronics.
QED is perhaps most accurate theory ever tested.
1 part in a trillion accuracy of theoretical w/ experiment – fine structure constant 1/137
Distance of moon to earth in a hair width (magnetic moment of e-).
Describes how semiconductors and lasers work for example and behind
Computers/laptops
Internet
Lasers
Smartphones & Tablets
MRI and PET scans and SQUIDs
Electron microscopes
Atomic Clocks
Satellite Navigation
Quantum Computers
Quantum Principles
Classical Mechanics very intuitive (large sizes and small speeds, (my addition no coherence, no life, because there ARE macroscopic quantum events)… you can visualize in your head. Based on concepts drawn from the everyday world.
Its intuitive to estimate where a fly ball with drop, unless there is a sudden gust of wind, but that is only because you did not take in all the variables.. Like a golfer would do.
Classical - balls throw, projectiles, bullets, rockets, marbles colliding, sports examples with balls, etc.
Quantum mechanics describes things SOO small that they are COMPLETELY beyond the range of the human senses. We did not evolve an intuition for the quantum world of small sizes and super fast velocities. Atom large compared to electron.
The best we can do is understand them with mathematical abstractions (quantum mechanics)
Neural architecture programmed for 3 dimensions…
Quantum Mechanics is as abstract as abstract can be.
Quantum Mechanics is about things that your evolutionary developed neural architecture is not prepared to deal with directly.
We deal with it with abstract mathematics.
Classical Mechanics very intuitive (large sizes and small speeds, (my addition no coherence, no life, because there ARE macroscopic quantum events)… you can visualize in your head. Based on concepts drawn from the everyday world.
Its intuitive to estimate where a fly ball with drop, unless there is a sudden gust of wind, but that is only because you did not take in all the variables.. Like a golfer would do.
Classical - balls throw, projectiles, bullets, rockets, marbles colliding, sports examples with balls, etc.
Quantum mechanics describes things SOO small that they are COMPLETELY beyond the range of the human senses. We did not evolve an intuition for the quantum world of small sizes and super fast velocities. Atom large compared to electron.
The best we can do is understand them with mathematical abstractions (quantum mechanics)
Neural architecture programmed for 3 dimensions…
Quantum Mechanics is as abstract as abstract can be.
Quantum Mechanics is about things that your evolutionary developed neural architecture is not prepared to deal with directly.
We deal with it with abstract mathematics.
Are brains are simply not wired for Quantum mechanics. Common sense is out the window.
Observer - Observer creates reality, Subject and Object arise together with observation and collapse of the wavefunction.
There is no objective Universe because ultimately there are no objects.
2 Ingredients
1. 4D - Spacetime = Space and time are not separate, but form a 4D continuum. Space and time can curve, bend, shrink and dialate. No longer a mirror to nature, more like looking in a carnival mirror in which your watch is connected and can speed up and slow down.
2. Quantum Fields - Superpositions of all possibilities, Observation/Measurement creates reality. Quantum fields are fields of possibility, fields of consciousness
a. Granularity/discreteness (h) - Finite Number of Choices, Quantum Jumping. Collapse
b. Indeterminacy (i) - Spontaneity, Freedom, Choice
c. Relation/Entanglement - Wholeness and interconnectedness.
Substance = Consciousness
Philosophy = Monistic Idealism, Vedanta - Spacetime Witness, empty awareness, because only unmanifest quantum fields.
Language Subject - Verb - Objects
Health - Placebo Effect, Positive Thinking
Biology - Quantum Fields, Information Fields
Highest Expression / Mysticism = Formless Mysticism - Witness/ Causal - Shunya Void
Beginning from the End. (Radical Oneness/One Substance/Sunya/Consciousness, Timelessness, Always Already Is-ness, All things spontaneously Enlightened, Nothing Happens - Resolves all pairs of opposites, Complex mathematics Nondual, Geometry Nondual).
Observer - Observer creates reality, Subject and Object arise together with observation and collapse of the wavefunction.
There is no objective Universe because ultimately there are no objects.
2 Ingredients
1. 4D - Spacetime = Space and time are not separate, but form a 4D continuum. Space and time can curve, bend, shrink and dialate. No longer a mirror to nature, more like looking in a carnival mirror in which your watch is connected and can speed up and slow down.
2. Quantum Fields - Superpositions of all possibilities, Observation/Measurement creates reality. Quantum fields are fields of possibility, fields of consciousness
a. Granularity/discreteness (h) - Finite Number of Choices, Quantum Jumping. Collapse
b. Indeterminacy (i) - Spontaneity, Freedom, Choice
c. Relation/Entanglement - Wholeness and interconnectedness.
Substance = Consciousness
Philosophy = Monistic Idealism, Vedanta - Spacetime Witness, empty awareness, because only unmanifest quantum fields.
Language Subject - Verb - Objects
Health - Placebo Effect, Positive Thinking
Biology - Quantum Fields, Information Fields
Highest Expression / Mysticism = Formless Mysticism - Witness/ Causal - Shunya Void
Beginning from the End. (Radical Oneness/One Substance/Sunya/Consciousness, Timelessness, Always Already Is-ness, All things spontaneously Enlightened, Nothing Happens - Resolves all pairs of opposites, Complex mathematics Nondual, Geometry Nondual).
Quantum Metaphysics –
Science does not take place in a conceptual vacuum. It operates within a metaphysical framework that formulates the questions it seeks to answer, and that interprets the answers it obtains through experiment and observation.
This framework of formulating questions and interpreting results is not testable by the methods of empirical science.
Science operates within a metaphysical framework that formulates questions and interprets the answers.
This metaphysical framework is NOT testable by the methods of science.
One may adopt a materialistic framework of thought, ask questions that arise in this framework, and then try to make sense of the answers one obtains. One may instead adopt a spiritual framework of thought, ask questions that arise in this framework, and try to make sense of Nature’s answers to these questions.
Therefore there is no such thing as “the scientific world view.” Nobody can claim that his or her world view is the only world view that is consistent with the empirical data.
Where quantum mechanics is concerned, the most that can be said is that it makes more sense when placed in the right framework which is a spiritual or TOP down framework.
The following quotes (along with many others), point out the inadequacies of the metaphysical framework modern science uses.
"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics" - Richard Feynman (1967)
"Quantum theory makes absolutely no sense" - Roger Penrose (1986)
"It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory - Michio Kaku (1995)
Besides making better sense of quantum mechanics, a spiritual or top down approach is a better fit for making sense of consciousness, it is a framework that can deal with the reality of quality and value, AND it gives us MUCH deeper insights and perspective into the nature of evolution.
materialistic framework of thought (questions), we will ask: what are the ultimate building blocks? how do they interact? and how do they combine to form the objects of everyday experience?
spiritual framework of thought (questions), we will postulate an Ultimate Reality. Because this exists independently of anything else, we may call it “Pure Being.” The question we will then ask is: how does Pure Being manifest the world? And to this question quantum physics offers an exceedingly simple answer: Pure Being manifests the world by entering into reflexive spatial relations. “Reflexive” means that the relations are self-relations: Pure Being enters into relations with itself. “Spatial” means that the relations have the character of relative positions — positions that things occupy in relation to each other.
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It turns out Quantum Physics (currently our best model to explain the physical universe), can be interpreted from TWO overarching perspectives or world views. The random atheistic materialistic worldview which is a bottom up model in the sense that fundamental particles randomly become and evolve more and more complex up to the point of intelligence life. Life is created from the bottom up by a long and ridiculously unlikely fortuitous chance events starting from the Big Bang. No need for a Creator, no need for a guiding intelligence. It all happens randomly within the parameters of the laws of quantum physics and Darwinian evolution. Quantum physics does work within this model but to me (and many others), it is very unsatisfactory and borderline ludicrous.
The other framework that you can view Quantum physics is a spiritual framework. There is ONE universal substance guided by a divine intelligence (that transcends and includes the substance), divides itself into manifestation (involution) and than EVOLVES itself back to oneness as the many spiritual traditions have told us (especially Eastern). Here the universe does not happen by chance but is guided by an Infinite and supreme intelligence. This a top down approach in that spirit descends into and becomes matter (and yet remains). More on this in a bit.
Here are some points to consider why Quantum theory makes more sense within a Spiritual Framework:
Science does not take place in a conceptual vacuum. It operates within a metaphysical framework that formulates the questions it seeks to answer, and that interprets the answers it obtains through experiment and observation.
This framework of formulating questions and interpreting results is not testable by the methods of empirical science.
Science operates within a metaphysical framework that formulates questions and interprets the answers.
This metaphysical framework is NOT testable by the methods of science.
One may adopt a materialistic framework of thought, ask questions that arise in this framework, and then try to make sense of the answers one obtains. One may instead adopt a spiritual framework of thought, ask questions that arise in this framework, and try to make sense of Nature’s answers to these questions.
Therefore there is no such thing as “the scientific world view.” Nobody can claim that his or her world view is the only world view that is consistent with the empirical data.
Where quantum mechanics is concerned, the most that can be said is that it makes more sense when placed in the right framework which is a spiritual or TOP down framework.
The following quotes (along with many others), point out the inadequacies of the metaphysical framework modern science uses.
"I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics" - Richard Feynman (1967)
"Quantum theory makes absolutely no sense" - Roger Penrose (1986)
"It is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory - Michio Kaku (1995)
Besides making better sense of quantum mechanics, a spiritual or top down approach is a better fit for making sense of consciousness, it is a framework that can deal with the reality of quality and value, AND it gives us MUCH deeper insights and perspective into the nature of evolution.
materialistic framework of thought (questions), we will ask: what are the ultimate building blocks? how do they interact? and how do they combine to form the objects of everyday experience?
spiritual framework of thought (questions), we will postulate an Ultimate Reality. Because this exists independently of anything else, we may call it “Pure Being.” The question we will then ask is: how does Pure Being manifest the world? And to this question quantum physics offers an exceedingly simple answer: Pure Being manifests the world by entering into reflexive spatial relations. “Reflexive” means that the relations are self-relations: Pure Being enters into relations with itself. “Spatial” means that the relations have the character of relative positions — positions that things occupy in relation to each other.
--------
It turns out Quantum Physics (currently our best model to explain the physical universe), can be interpreted from TWO overarching perspectives or world views. The random atheistic materialistic worldview which is a bottom up model in the sense that fundamental particles randomly become and evolve more and more complex up to the point of intelligence life. Life is created from the bottom up by a long and ridiculously unlikely fortuitous chance events starting from the Big Bang. No need for a Creator, no need for a guiding intelligence. It all happens randomly within the parameters of the laws of quantum physics and Darwinian evolution. Quantum physics does work within this model but to me (and many others), it is very unsatisfactory and borderline ludicrous.
The other framework that you can view Quantum physics is a spiritual framework. There is ONE universal substance guided by a divine intelligence (that transcends and includes the substance), divides itself into manifestation (involution) and than EVOLVES itself back to oneness as the many spiritual traditions have told us (especially Eastern). Here the universe does not happen by chance but is guided by an Infinite and supreme intelligence. This a top down approach in that spirit descends into and becomes matter (and yet remains). More on this in a bit.
Here are some points to consider why Quantum theory makes more sense within a Spiritual Framework:
╰ ☆ ╮Top 10 Reasons To View the World Quantum Mechanically╰ ☆ ╮
Here is my top 10 list of some very interesting, strange, and seemingly magical properties of quantum systems. And guess what, evidence is growing that the human body is a coherence macroscopic quantum system. So stop seeing the world through sensory and Newtonian eyes, lift the veil and behold ... The Quantum Universe of Possibilities!
① Consciousness Creates Reality - Because it is our observation of a quantum object that collapses the quantum wave of many possible facets into a unique event of actuality that we experience, we MUST say that it is our consciousness that chooses.
② Parallel Universes - All possibilities exist simultaneously in the quantum world until a conscious observer chooses a particular outcome. This is why parallel universes are actually taken seriously by many leading physicists.
③ We can change the Past - Present observations affect the past. This is a top down approach proven by delayed choice experiments. So don't think the past is written in stone... Its written in quantum erasable ink.
④ Life is a Symphony not a static piece of art - Quantum theory is a theory of action, process of wholes, and evolution of a system. It's a science of verbs, not nouns... Quantum mechanics is more like a symphony that is only appreciated in its whole through time, not a picture or static art piece.
⑤ We are all Connected - Quantum theory includes Nonlocality, Entanglement, faster than light information transfer. Every particle in the universe is quantumly entangled, and interconnected.
⑥ Walking through Walls May be possible - Quantum Tunneling - Particles can travel through walls... Master this and you could walk through walls.
⑦ Being Two Places at once - Bilocation - Quantum particles can exist in two places at once. Perhaps stories of Indian gurus being at two places at once is explainable by quantum theory.
⑧ Teleportation - Beam me up Scottie... Quantum particles can teleport from one location to another.
⑨ Materialization/Precipitation - Particle pair creation, particles are created out of the vacuum of space.
⑩ Purpose in even a photon? How does light know to bend in glass (least action). It seems there is a purposiveness in quantum systems that evolve in time to a specific outcome chosen by the observer.
Here is my top 10 list of some very interesting, strange, and seemingly magical properties of quantum systems. And guess what, evidence is growing that the human body is a coherence macroscopic quantum system. So stop seeing the world through sensory and Newtonian eyes, lift the veil and behold ... The Quantum Universe of Possibilities!
① Consciousness Creates Reality - Because it is our observation of a quantum object that collapses the quantum wave of many possible facets into a unique event of actuality that we experience, we MUST say that it is our consciousness that chooses.
② Parallel Universes - All possibilities exist simultaneously in the quantum world until a conscious observer chooses a particular outcome. This is why parallel universes are actually taken seriously by many leading physicists.
③ We can change the Past - Present observations affect the past. This is a top down approach proven by delayed choice experiments. So don't think the past is written in stone... Its written in quantum erasable ink.
④ Life is a Symphony not a static piece of art - Quantum theory is a theory of action, process of wholes, and evolution of a system. It's a science of verbs, not nouns... Quantum mechanics is more like a symphony that is only appreciated in its whole through time, not a picture or static art piece.
⑤ We are all Connected - Quantum theory includes Nonlocality, Entanglement, faster than light information transfer. Every particle in the universe is quantumly entangled, and interconnected.
⑥ Walking through Walls May be possible - Quantum Tunneling - Particles can travel through walls... Master this and you could walk through walls.
⑦ Being Two Places at once - Bilocation - Quantum particles can exist in two places at once. Perhaps stories of Indian gurus being at two places at once is explainable by quantum theory.
⑧ Teleportation - Beam me up Scottie... Quantum particles can teleport from one location to another.
⑨ Materialization/Precipitation - Particle pair creation, particles are created out of the vacuum of space.
⑩ Purpose in even a photon? How does light know to bend in glass (least action). It seems there is a purposiveness in quantum systems that evolve in time to a specific outcome chosen by the observer.