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- thereexists 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 , 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 . in some cases Physics, . 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 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 aparticular principle are emphasised ters of reductionism quote various examples from while thesituations where problems occur are physics (e.g. phenomena of the 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 (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 thesedescriptions 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 (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 to be invalid andthey can in factbe crystal)makes for particular mathematical sim- refuteddirectly by means of explicit counter- plifications. We gain then a consistentview of nature examples. in which the two categories of description comple- Thequestion of theuniversality of quantum ment each other; neither on its own containing the mechanics is closely boundup with the issue of full story. This featureof complementarity contrasts measurement.Does the measurement theory of with theconventional hypothesis that of thetwo quantum mechanics (Dirac 19%) give a satisfactory descriptions the quantum mechanicalis fundamental account of the outcome of all possible experiments, while biological descriptions are derivative. as is often asserted, or not? The factsof the situation One can go further: the conceptual picture which are confused by the fact that a physics experiment has just been described allows in principle a deep constitutesa special situation. An experiment is normally set up specifically to find out information that can be interpreted in the light of current physi- I God is subtle but he is not bloodyminded , (translation of Raffiniert ist der Herr Gott, aber cal theories and thus ultimately in terms of quantum 1 boshaft ist er nicht) mechanics. It should be nosurprise. then, to find ' God casts the die, not the dice. thatthe measurements done in practiceare ones quoted in The Harvest of a Quiet that conform to the ideaof measurement prescribed €ye (Bristol: The Instituteof Physics 1977) by thequantum theory and there is no reasonto conclude from this fact (as those who hold to the God not only plays dice.He also sometimes Copenhageninterpretation of quantummechanics throws thedice where they cannotbe seen. do)that the quantum mechanical theory of mea- Stephen Hawking quoted in the The Harvestofa surementprovides theorya of all conceivable Quiet Eye(Bristol: The Instituteof Physics 1977) measurement processes. Thereis no real reason why all information gathering devices. and in particular unification of biological phenomenaand quantum devices based on different concepts as to what kind phenomena (cf Stapp 1082. Villars 1983). In this of information is being gathered. should fit into the conceptual unification. a concept in the one modeof formal scheme provided by the quantum mechanical description,such as the making of achoice. goes theory of measurement, which is basedon the over in the other description into a corresponding assumption that to every measurement is associated concept(which in thisparticular instance is the a specific Hermitian operator. collapse of the wave function).This unification is reminiscent of Einstein's unltication of gravitation and inertia. in that in it two phenomena that are at Complementary descriptions first sight completely different in nature are seen to Theprobable inapplicability of thereductionistic be ultimately the same. By virtue of this unification andquantum mechanical modes of description in it canbe said that certain features of quantum certain areas of nature serves to focus our attention mechanicsbecome comprehensible in theirown onthe possibility alreadymentioned that descrip- right, rather than having to be arbitrarily postulated tions of nature may exist that supplement the con- as axioms. ventionalquantum mechanical one. Adetailed Thecomplementarity idea may beparticularly working out of this idea has been given by Michael relevant to the phenomenon of the effectiveness of Conrad, Dipankar Home and myself (Conrad et a1 performance of biosystems.The picture proposed 19x6). to which source the reader is referred for a leads to the possibility that the asymmetric kind of fuller account of the ideas than can be given in the order which exists in biosystems as a result of selec- space available here. In this paper we noted firstly tion processes may not have the kind of regularity that descriptions in science (and also the methods of that quantum mechanics describes, and hence may observation to be used) are not necessarily absolute well not fit into the quantum mechanical scheme. As in the sense of being equally suitable for use in all a result, for biosystems quantum mechanics might situations. For example. in a biological context, be systematically in error. Since the general effect of where some kind of selection process has beeneffec- natural selection is to improve the performance of tive. terms such as perception, purposive behaviour, biosystems over the time, it might be expected that decisionmaking, learning or adaptationare often biosystems would be more effective than quantum very useful, although such terminology is not suit- mechanics would lead one to expect. This,if we like able for systems in general. In the same way, one tothink of it in theseterms, is a valid way of may hypothesisethat the language of quantum introducing into science ideas that are collateralwith mechanics may properly apply onlyin a limiting case vitalism. In this connection it may be noted that the where some regular order (which it may be helpful arguments that have been presented in this section, tothink of asbeing analogous to the order in a suggesting that biological descriptions and quantum

17 descriptions may complement each other, go a long more to how one may overcome the problems that way towards legitimising the unorthodox approach faceone in obtaining‘good’ data and to how to of Sheldrake (1981), who regards certain biological integrate mystical knowledgeadequately with our concepts such as that of amorphogenetic field (a ordinary frames of reference. field postulated to account for the development of Theprimary goal of meditation is notthat of form) as being fundamental. gainingintellectual knowledge capable of being An important moral to be drawn from the above formulated compactly in terms of words. but rather discussion is that one should not overstress the value that of gaining through the experiencea new kind of of mathematical analysis in science. In the biological perceptionand understanding of reality that will sciences we find concrete illustrations of the fact that transform the ways a person acts in life. But it is by sciencecan sometimes proceed very well without no means the case that no propositions in words can anyequations. It maybe an overidealisation to be madeabout such experiences,and indeed the presume that one can always make a precise con- literature of mystical experience is extensive. It is nectionbetween concrete physicalreality anda not feasible in the space of this article to attempt to mathematical object of some kind; some aspects of give the reader any detailed vision of what this kind reality may be better captured by other, nonmathe- of knowledge is like, but I can recommend study of a matical, types of conceptual entity. These can lead work such as the classical Yoga Sutras of’ Patanjnli to models which canbe tested just assuccessfully (trans. in Shearer 1982) as possibly providing a faint against reality as can models based on equations. hint as to the kind of thoughts that are involved. The interpretation of what mystics have written is complicated by the fact that different mystics have Introspection as a scientific tool used many different languages and different stylesof Wecantakeideathe of complementary description, whileagain different mystics have descriptions-which, as exemplified by the descrip- spoken on the basis of different levels of develop- tions found in biology, are ‘softer’ than the numeri- ment.Indeed. more and more clarity of mind is cal descriptions used in physics and chemistry-one necessary before the subtler perceptions of mystic- stage furtherby taking account of descriptions of the ism can be understood and realised, paralleling the inner reality which is found by introspection. Discus- way that clarity of mind is required in order to work sion of this moredelicate experiencing of reality, with subtle muthemutical concepts. If oneunder- which includeswhat is commonlycalled mystical stands these facts. and avoids such traps as presum- experience, serves to bring the topic back again to ing to be able to judge the various aspectsof mystic- the subject of physics and faith, the overall theme of ism without having had the relevant experience or this issue of Physics Education. Here training. one will in all probability be able to recog- has been a leading figure in promoting the view that nise that there is indeed a consistent body of know- mystical experience complements the knowledge of ledge that can be gained through this deeper means realitythat we gain throughthe use of orthodox of introspection. scientific methods (Capra 1975). In this context the As to the significance of mystical experience, the questionimmediately arises whether, in talking natural reaction of the is to debar conscious about introspective knowledge in general and mys- ticism in particular, we may not be venturing outside Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in theboundaries of what is legitimate in science. I the multiplicity and confusion of things ... He is shall respondto this question by posinganother. the God of order and not of confusion which is dependent on the fact that, although mys- tical experience is not an element in current science, mathematicscertainly is. Thequestion is. why experiencefrom the framework of discussion should the thinking involved in doing mathematics altogether.This may besatisfactory as far as the (which is as introspective in character, as is meditat- study of matter is concerned (although not even in ing) should serve as a legitimate componentof scien- that case if, as Wigner has suggested, consciousness ce, while mystical experience does not? collapses wave functions). but it becomes a dubious If this question seems a strange one to the reader. doctrine if theconscious individual himself is our this is almost certainly because the meditative states subject of interest. It is a natural extension of argu- of the mystic arenot recognised parts of his life, ments previously given to consider that descriptions eventhough he has in fact probablyexperienced of aconscious individual in quantummechanical them to some degree on particular occasions. Some- terms may have to be supplemented by descriptions one who is familiar withsuch experiences, on the in terms of his thought processes, just as previously other hand, will see the question of legitimacy to be it was proposed that similar supplementationmay be misconceived; rather the questions that arise relate necessary for the case of nonconscious biosystems.

18 From a generalviewpoint. when we describe our Benson 1972) which measure the effects of psycho- thoughtprocesses we aredescribing some of the logical techniques such as meditation on parameters mechanics involved in theexpression in action of which canbe measured by more objective means. our intelligence.Logically. the subtler experiences The implication of such research is that the mind- of mysticism can also be interpreted as being a part body interaction is now an experimental matter, not of theworkings of intelligence in nature(which just one of philosophical interest. One tangible out- characterisationcan. in principle,also include the come of such research is that it is becoming accepted divineintelligence). Because of our consciousness in the medical profession that it is not sufficient to we can have directknowledge of theseprocesses treat disease on a purely physiological basis. As yet, that is not accessible to the usual means of investiga- however, there is little acceptance of the idea that a tion of science and.as previously noted, it is illogical spiritual component may also beinvolved in matters to rule out this kind of knowledge while accepting of health. the use of mathematics. My second example is of a successful preliminary attempt, with which I havebeen involved, to put ideasfrom mysticism intoa more concrete form. Paths for the future This consisted of a computer model of a develop- 1 have here presented the reader with a number of mental process, based on descriptions of the mind conceptsthat are quite far removed from those given by MaharishiMahesh Yogi. These descrip- found in traditional ways of thinking. I have sug- tionswere originally themselvesderived from the gested in the first place that there is no good reason Vedas, which are some of the earliest expressions of to suppose that the current physical laws represent mystical experience.Circumstances have not yet theend of theroad for science. It is largely the allowed the continued development of the model to limitations on thinking that the current framework apoint where it might compete with the kind of imposes (especially in view of the standard advice model of the mind built by workers in the field of that it is bestnot to worry about the meaning of artificial intelligence. but the fact thatthe model quantum mechanics) that make it impossible to see worked at all clearly refutes the commonly heldview that it isin factquite a restricted framework for that mysticism is totallydevoid of meaningful viewing nature as a whole. Secondly, complement- content. arity and concepts associated with complementarity seem to becrucial for handling the interpretative problems that will arise if one attempts to go beyond References quantum mechanics and encompass alternative pers- Bohm D 1980 Wholeness and the Implicate Order(London: pectives on reality. Finally, the subtle experiences of Routledge and Kegan Paul) ch. 4 reality found, for example. in meditative states may Bohr N 1958 'Light and life' in Atomic Physics and Human have a fundamental role to playas data in future Knowledge (New York: Wiley) pp 3-12 science. Capra F 1975 The Tuooffhysics(London: Wildwood A possible aim of this future science may be what House) theBrahma Kumaris have called 'combining the Conrad M et a1 1986 'Beyond quantum theory: arealist psycho-biological interpretation of physical reality' in power of science with thepower of silence'.The Tarozzi G and van der Merve (eds)Microphysical power of science is the capacity it gives us to under- Reality and Quantum Formalism to be published stand nature in very specific terms, giving us thereby (Dordrecht: Reidel) the ability to control nature and to createvery many Dirac P 1958 The Principles of Quantum Mechanics of those things that we desire to have. Experiencing (Oxford: ) ch. 2 silence. on the other hand, gives us a power whose Ginsberg H and Opper S 1969 Piaget's Theory of Intellectual Development (Engelwood Cliffs. NJ: achievements may be easier to see if they are de- Prentice-Hall) fined negative terms, as for example the in absence Shearer A 1982 Effortless Being (London: Wildwood of conflict, confusion, fear and anger. Upto now the House) twokinds of powerhave been separated and one Sheldrake R 1981 A NewScienceofLife(London: Blond could almost say that the existence of only the one and Briggs) hasbeen acknowledged officially. Nowthe future Stapp H P 1982 Found. Phys. 12 363-99 holds out to us the possibility of combining the two. Villars C N 1983 Psychoenergetics 5 129-39 Finally, in orderto avoid leaving the sceptical Wallace R K and Benson H 1972 'The physiology of reader with theidea that nothing of aconcrete meditation' Sci. Am. 226 84-90 nature is involved in the things about which I have been talking, I should like to comment very briefly on two examples of more concrete research. First, there are now many experiments (e.g. Wallace and

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