Physics and Spirituality: the Next Grand Unification?
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Phys Educ 22 119871 Prlnted In thc UK Physics and spirituality: the next grand unification? current framework) seem to lie outside the scope of Brian Josephson science in its present form. At the present time we can see the emergence of something which, while not being exactly a consensus of opinion, at any rate In what light should a scientist regard the assertions forms a collection of mutually consistent ideas as to of a religion, or of religions in general? One extreme the general form of a possible new understanding of position is the atheistic one of regarding the asser- nature,and of what might constituteappropriate tions of religion as falsehoods. Such a position can means of investigating nature. that goes beyond and besustained only by regardingthe experiences is more flexible than is thecurrent conventional which individualsconsider as validating their reli- framework. These ideas are not well represented in gious beliefs as being explicable in other ways and, the standard literature-probably, in the last analy- in the absence of an adequate research programme sis, because they represent the same kind of threat tosupport it, must be consideredmore as falling to current scientific dogmas as scientific discoveries withinthe field of opinionthan as within that of havepresented to religious dogmas in thepast. science. (There has even been a suggestion, in the editorial Thealternative to this atheistic position is that pages of a prestigious scientific journal, that a par- there exists an aspect of reality-that we may for ticular book should be burnt because it propagated convenience calltranscendental-which embraces dangerous ideas.) the subject matterof religion (or as somemay prefer It will be my task in what follows to explain the to term it, the spiritual aspect of life) and which is ways in which current scientific orthodoxiesare not at present encompassed by science. The ques- beingchallenged and to convey some idea of the tion then arises whether some future science maybe alternativespresently emerging. A number of im- able to cope with this aspect of reality, or whether it portantthemes here include the questions of the will remain forever beyond the scopeof science. The validity of reductionismand the universality of general aim of sciencebeing to gain as full and quantum mechanics, as well as that of the relevance accurate a picture of reality as possible, one would of mystical experience. My own thoughts in this area expect logically that scientists in general would take have been much influenced by the writings of David a keen interest in such questions. just as they do in Bohm (1980) andFritjof Capra (1975). I have topics such as those of the fundamental constitution of matter, or of the mechanisms of life. In practice. ~~ ~ however, such questions have been almost entirely Brian D Josephson FRS, FlnstP is a Professor of split off from scientific consciousness. in some cases Physics, University of Cambridge. His MA and as a result of an atheistic point of view and in others PhD were from the same university.He shared because present science seems to be so far removed the 1973 Nobel Prize in physicsfor his fromanything spiritual that the suggestion of the theoretical prediction of the phenomena now possibility of a merging of the two seems improbable known as the Josephsoneffects. His visiting or even absurd. professorships have included the Indian While it may have been the case that such ques- Institute ofScience, Bangalore (1984) and the tions have been split off from scientific conscious- Computer Science Department, WayneState ness in general, there has been asignificant minority University, Detroit (1983).He is joint editor of the of scientists who have tried to apply the methods of conference proceedingsConsciousness and the thought and analysis of the scientist to those aspects Physical World(0xford: Pergamon) and his of realitythat (unless one adopts as an article of research interests concern the phenomenonof faith the idea that all these aspects will in due course intelligence and attemptsat unifying the either be explained or 'explained away' within the scientific and mystical views of nature. 0031-9120/87/010015+05$02,50~1987 IOP Publlshlng Ltd 15 benefitedalso from discussions with anumber of mechanics. If we try toovercome our ignorance scientific colleagues, including in particular Michael regarding the internal nature and constitutionof the Conrad,Dipankar Home, H R Nagendra. Steven biosystem understudy by performingsuitable Rosen and Richard Thompson, as well as with the observations, then we must at some point come up members of twospiritual movements that have with aproblem like thatpreviously encountered. attempted to elaborate suitable concepts in the area namely that observing asystem disturbs it slightly at beingdiscussed (the Transcendental Meditation the quantum level. Biosystems are examples of sys- movement and the Brahma Kumaris World Spiritual tems where, just as in the case considered above. we University). do not have the degree of control over the internal structure of the system under investigation that we do in general have in physics and chemistry. In the The validity of reductionism example previously given.a colleague determined One of the points of tension between orthodoxy and the state of the system in a way not accessible to us thenew thinking is thequestion of theextent to in detail; in thecase of biosystemsnature does which the approach of reductionism (i.e. studying a precisely the same thing. complexsystem in terms of its componentparts) Biosystems illustrate again the way successful ap- remains a valid one in quantum mechanics. Suppor- plications of a particular principle are emphasised ters of reductionism quote various examples from while thesituations where problems occur are physics (e.g. phenomena of the solid state) and from ignored or overlooked.Conventional thinking chemistry (e.g. explaining the properties of a mole- works adequately at the molecular level, where the cule) as proofthat the reductionist approach still change of the structure through observation is not applies despite the conceptual changes wrought by an overwhelmingproblem. It wouldbecome a quantum mechanics. In other situations, however, problem,however, if we wereto try to explain the reductionistic approach (withits implication that biosystems in detail at the level of the wave func- the properties of a system canbe satisfactorily deter- tion. The successes of molecular biology in no way mined by observation of that system alone) breaks detractfrom the force of Bohr’s argument, which down. Consider, for example. the following situa- applies in a regime different from that with which tion. A colleague B sends us a beam of polarised biology is currently concerned. particles which are individually polarised according to a rule that he alone knows. We cannot find out exactly how each particle in the beam is polarised The universality or otherwise of quantum mechanics becausean observation of onecomponent of the The question of the universality of quantum theory spin willin generalalter the values of theother has been discussed in detail by David Bohm (1980). components.And yet we cannot say (as is often He considers as an illustrative example the way in permissible in quantummechanics) that the indi- which insurance companies use statistical tables to vidualspins are undefined, since in this casea predict the probability that agiven person will die of perfectly definite spin has been given to each parti- a specified disease within a specified timeperiod. cle by our colleague B. This example shows in the Theexistence of thesestatistical laws in no way simplest possible way how in the quantum domain it excludes the possibility of other laws existing which is possible that information outside a system may be would determine the precise conditionsof death of a needed before a full description of that system can given individual policy holder (e.g. death caused by be given, thus contradicting the reductionist pointof an accident,the details of which are in principle view. describable by the laws of mechanics).Similarly. The example just given displays a common fea- Brownianmotion can be described either statisti- ture of many of the arguments that support ortho- cally or in terms of themotions of theindividual doxy, namely that the successful applications of a atoms in an individual instance of an experiment. particular principle are emphasised, while the situa- Analogously, one can argue that no contradiction tionswhere the principle cannot be successfully is involved in supposing that under suitable condi- applied or where there are some difficulties with the tions alternative descriptionsof systems to the quan- standard view are ignored or overlooked, creating tummechanical ones may bepossible, and that thus a distorted account of the true situation. possession of these descriptions might permit par- A very similar situation to that just described, but ticularpredictions to be made that were more one which is of considerablymore practical rele- definite than those which quantum mechanics pro- vance, was given by Niels Bohr (1958) who observed vides.Bohm notes that manyphysicists retaina that the uncertainty principle would ultimately limit belief that such ideas are not to be taken seriously thedegree to which onecould understand bio- because of thearguments against them that have systems in terms of themethods of quantum been made in the past. These arguments have now 16 beenshown