If you've ever used Google Alert, you know the jolts it can deliver. Whenever anyone in the blogosphere decides to blow a poison dart your way, Google is happy to deliver the news, along with the more positive mentions, of course. Most of my stinging darts come from skeptics. Over the years I've found that ill-tempered guardians of scientific truth can't abide speculative thinking. And as the renowned Richard Dawkins has proved, they are also very annoyed by a nuisance named God.
Statistically, cynical mistrust is correlated with premature sudden death from cardio vascular disease. Since the skeptics who write venomous blogs trust in nothing, I imagine that God will outlive them. In the interests of better health, these people should read scripture, or at least a poem, twice a day. Doctor's orders.
I've debated skeptics, including Richard Dawkins (I spoke with Dawkins for over 90 minutes on camera in Oxford. He extracted 30 seconds from the dialogue and dubbed me the enemy of science.) and I am amazed that they mistake self-righteousness for happiness. A sort of bitter satisfaction is what they reap. No skeptic, to my knowledge, ever made a major scientific discovery or advanced the welfare of others. Typically they sit by the side of the road with a sign that reads "You're Wrong" so that every passerby, whether an Einstein, Gandhi, Newton, or Darwin, can gain the benefit of their illuminated skepticism. For make no mistake, the skeptics of the past were as eager to shoot down new theories as they are to worship the old ones once science has validated them.
It never occurs to skeptics that a sense of wonder is paramount, even for scientists. Especially for scientists. Einstein insisted, in fact, that no great discovery can be made without a sense of awe before the mysteries of the universe. Skeptics know in advance -- or think they know -- what right thought is. Right thought is materialistic, statistical, data-driven, and always, always, conformist. Wrong thought is imaginative, provisional, often fantastic, and no respecter of fixed beliefs.
So whenever I find myself labeled the emperor of woo-woo, I pull out the poison dart and offer thanks that wrong thinking has gotten us so far. Thirty years ago no right-thinking physician accepted the mind-body connection as a valid, powerful mode of treatment. Today, no right-thinking physician (or very few) would trace physical illness to sickness of the soul, or accept that the body is a creation of consciousness, or tell a patient to change the expression of his genes. But soon these forms of wrong thinking will lose their stigma, despite the best efforts of those professional stigmatizers, the skeptics.
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There will always be traditionalists who see things from a classical point of view, until something comes along to upset the apple cart. That's why I'm glad we have physicists willing to venture out into the unknown with their scientific theories. Even Einstein was afraid of where the implications of quantum physics were leading.
In labeling something, there is the danger of deluding yourself into thinking that you understand it. Be it a group of people (skeptics) or a physical concept (wave particle duality). The illusion of understanding limits our ability to see truth when it lies in front of us.
I have seen so much prejudice from each side of the search for truth, both scientific and spiritual, and it echoes in this discussion. Making a harsh criticism on skeptics is dangerous if your goal is teaching, unless the lesson was contained in the use of the word itself. If this subtlety is his intent, I would bow out of respect to Dr. Chopra as a teacher. In using the word, an undercurrent to the discussion has taken form, in which each person latches on to the connotations the word has for them and the class of people they apply this term to.
If you give into the illusion that there is a right point of view to be touted about the skeptics in question, you miss the point of the teaching entirely. If you watch the debate flow, and question why it is happening, you are in danger of piercing the illusion and tasting a small piece of truth.
That's exactly what I'm doing. I'm taking the opposite position of "Ladyfractal" and saying the experiment can be applied beyond the sub-atomic particle level. There are plenty of physicists, including Fred Alan Wolf, Neils Bohn, Nobel Prize Winner Brian Josephson and Jack Sarfatti, who would accept the observer effect viewpoint. As I said before, there is a minority group of scientists who interpret the results of the wave particle experiment in a way that conflicts with the mainstream school of thought. Sometimes experts can reach different conclusions from the same test.
Also, just because some scientists may see it differently, will not prove to me that therefore your statement is true. Scientists are as susceptible as anyone else to making the mistake of retroactively fitting the evidence into what they want to be true. Of course experts can reach different conclusions from the same tests. But if one or two (or four) people interpret it in a scope that is far beyond the reaches of the experiment, though, it should be questioned.
Again, I want to reiterate that because this doesn't, in my opinion, prove the observer effect for our day-to-day lives, does not mean that I don't think the mainstream opinion could be overturned, or that quantum mechanics couldn't have mind-blowing implications for what it means to exist in the physical world. But I do think when you interpret it in a way not supported by the evidence, you actually limit the potential implications by not exploring where the evidence leads you.
Although these experiments pertained to sub-atomic particles, the implications are that it can be applied to our everyday lives. I firmly believe in miracles. I know many scientists are not prepared to make that leap, and that's okay. That's all the proof that some of us need.
I've been reading your conversation with ladyfractal, and you completely ignored her logically sound rebuttle to your argument. What ladyfractal is saying is that BECAUSE those theories ONLY apply to the sub-atomic level, there can be no (or extremely limited) implications for matter on a larger scale. Matter is still controlled, primarily, by Newtonian mechanics at our human-sized scale, so any "miracles" will still have to follow these rules.
The main problem with your statement is when you imply that scientists should accept your interpretation. Because you firmly believe in miracles, you probably cannot be persuaded to believe otherwise. Is there any evidence you can imagine being presented to you that would change your mind? This attitude is what puts your argument outside the realm of science, which tries to prove itself wrong because this trial and error process leads to a richer knowledge of a subject. Therefore there is no proof that has convinced you; you came to this evidence with a preconceived notion of what you wanted to find.
No really. There are just two schools of thought--two different interpretations of the data--that don't agree on the result of the experiment. I favor the observer effect viewpoint.
Not even wrong. I'm one of those skeptics you have such disdain for. I'm ALSO one of those scientists you have such disdain for (when you aren't misquoting my colleagues in the physics department about quantum mechanics). Every scientist I know, every scientist I've ever met, has an almost *childlike* wonder about the world. We follow our intuitions and are happiest when we stumble across something that makes us say "well now, that's curious!" It is from that place that scientific advancement happens.
What skeptics DO mock are attempts to rope quantum mechanics to carry water for all manner of quantum mystic flapdoodle. We mock it rightfully so. I've read your work, Dr. Chopra, and you have a love of the word quantum. Somehow, though, you manage to invoke things like the Schrödinger wave equation without even *once* mentioning the inconveniently small value of the Planck constant which keeps the quantum weirdness at the sub-atomic level from being apparent at the molecular level. Never. Why is that, Dr. Chopra? It's not as if the Planck constant is some trivial little bit of QM. It's *core* to QM. This is the kind of thing that is opposed by skeptics, Dr. Chopra, and we are right to do so.
cheers
LF
We'll have to agree to disagree. A significant minority in the scientific community still supports the "observer effect." This concept doesn't necessarily say we can change reality with our minds, but the implications are there. Peace and light always
I write this comment to another blogger just now. I'm giving it to you too.
I hope this one example of quantum physics will put this issue to bed. The lab experiments that scientist have done dozens of times, showing that the observer affects reality. An electron in the experiment was changed from a particle to a wave merely because an observer was there to witness it. This is a huge discovery. It has wide implications. Spiritual ones even, that human beings can actually affect reality by just looking at something. It gives new meaning to the phrase, "So a man thinketh so is he."
The problems with the act of observation are based on completely random stochastic phenomenae, like the decay of a single specific atomic nucleus, as in the Schrodinger's Cat thought experiment. This is an exercise in cognitive dissonance used to demonstrate a state of quantum flux, not a fundamental shift in the nature of reality. Particle/wave duality represents a deficiency in our methods of perception.
In any case, the implication that OBSERVING a random event can change the outcome does not imply that THINKING ABOUT that event and trying to direct it MENTALLY can change the outcome. In the Schrodinger's Cat dilemma, thinking really hard about the cat being alive before opening the box would do absolutely nothing, since the state of quantum flux is based on random events, not meditation.
I challenge you to produce one (peer-reviewed) study where meditation or thought has been proven to influence any external event on a quantum level.
there's one problem and I point it out above to Dr. Chopra. The Planck constant has an inconveniently low value (6.6*10^-34) which confines things like the Uncertainty Principle and the Schrödinger wave function to the sub-atomic realm.
Cheers
LF
I hope this one example of quantum physics will put this issue to bed. The lab experiments that scientist have done dozens of times, showing that the observer affects reality. An electron in the experiment was changed from a particle to a wave merely because an observer was there to witness it. This is a huge discovery. It has wide implications. Spiritual ones even, that human beings can actually affect reality by just looking at something. It gives new meaning to the phrase, "So a man thinketh so is he."
Cheers
LF
There are plenty of people in the scientific community "proper" who offer proof that quantum physics is establishing the validity of several Buddhist principles (connectivity, the unified field, nothingness, etc.). Dr. Chopra uses his technical background to explain scientific concepts in layman's terms. He is still a classical man of science. Admittedly, quantum physics isn't his speciality, but it doesn't preclude him from any type of intellectual discussion about certain principles of the field.
I note the danger quotes on "proper". Yes there are a number of popular books on QM and eastern philosophies. The are all extraordinarily speculative, far from having the proof you claim. So Chopra's claims of QM support are doubly speculative, and does not supply the credibility he implies in his book Quantum Healing.
That definition of spirituality by Sagan is fine. I just would expand it to include consciousness.
"The only dumb question, is the one you did not ask."
"Truth does not require a leap of faith, it is faith requires a leap."