Another excerpt from Synchronicity.
Quantum theory and relativity had a revolutionary effect upon [the] Newtonian approach, not only in transforming the formalism of physics but also in changing the worldview that was associated with it. Niels Bohr, for example, stressed that quantum theory had revealed the essential indivisibility of nature while Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle indicated the extent to which an observer intervenes in the system he observes. A contemporary physicist, John Wheeler, has expressed this new approach in particularly graphic terms:
We had this old idea, that there was a universe out there, and here is man, the observer, safely protected from the universe by a six-inch slab of plate glass. Now we learn from the quantum world that even to observe so miniscule an object as an electron we have to shatter that plate glass; we have to reach in there … So the old word observer simply has to be crossed off the books, and we must put in the new word participator. In this way we’ve come to realize that the universe is a participatory universe.
This participatory universe of Bohr and Heisenberg, this relativity of space and time, this interconnectedness of things, points to a very different worldview than that of Newtonian mechanism. Yet despite important revolutions that have taken place within physics, old ways of thinking continue to dominate our relationship to nature. Time, we believe, is external to our lives and carries us along its flow; causality rules the actions of nature with its iron hand and our “consensus reality” is restricted to the surface of things and seems closer to the rule-bound functioning of a machine than to the subtle adaptability of an organism. Even scientists themselves, who accept the formalism and mathematics of what has been called the “new physics”, retain many of the attitudes of 19th century science. Most believe, for example, in some form of objective reality that is external and independent of themselves … Paradoxically, scientists have not yet caught up with the deeper implications of their own subject.
Absolutely we believe in objective reality, and it is not becuase we don’t understand the implicaitons of QM, it’s that those implications can not be applied on scales much larger than the atomic scale (or at laast aggregates of a few atoms). Nothing amuses atomic physicicsts more than laypeople trying to use QM to describe phenomena in the universe that is large enough to observe with our eyes. (With few exceptions, you can’t).
I’m a layperson. I like to contemplate this stuff, as amusing as it might seem to the experts. Oh well.
Well, speculation is one thing, but this guy’s tone (to me) implies he is laying this stuff out as fact. Maybe I’m reading too much into it.
Maybe it’s the “physicists are too conservative to follow their own theories to their logical conclusions” bit that got up my nose. NO. They are too smart to make unwarranted leaps of logic. Not to say that QM behavior might not be at work on the macro scale, but the theory as it stands does not predict that.
Maybe, I have no idea. Like I said in a couple posts below: some people even get pissed off at those asking the questions. I understand that, because a lot of it seems silly or stupid.
But I like to ask the questions. Not to get into a state of weird obedience – like: Ooh, my dreams mean I should do THIS – because the symbols mean this, this, and this.
No.
But I do not ignore that there may be something else going on in them. That there may be some kind of message, or that I may be tapping into some universal symbolic thing with them.
This drives some people nuts. I am thinking of one of my old boyfriends. We used to crack each other up, with our opposite ways of dealing with coincidental moments. I would say, “Wow – can you believe that I asked you if you had ever heard that song just this morning – and now we just heard it TWICE on the radio in a 20 minute period??” He would scoff, “Bah. Sheer coincidence.” Much laughter would ensue. It was kind of a game between us.
But very indicative of the different points of view.
Whatever. I find this stuff interesting.
Yeah, I’m not pooh-poohing the notion. I have some pretty serious deja-vu that goes on form time to time. (I once “knew” how to solve a new equation in 8th grade becasue I was having a flash-forward). However, I do not point ot QM to explain it, other than as analogy. It’s the mis-appropriation of the theory that gets my goat.
You obviously would perceive that far more clearly than would I.
One of the reasons why I like Jungian theories of analysis (as opposed to Freudian – grrr. Don’t even get me started) is the embracing of a certain amount of mystery. Now this does not fly with a lot of folks – and you can see it in the form that the self-help industry has taken in its gradual triumph over our entire country. For the most part, the self-help behometh has Freud as its base (even though so many of his theories have been de-bunked) – and Jung has been pushed to the side.
I have a lot of theories about why this might be the case. One is the victimology-stance of a lot of self-help. (I need to be careful when I talk about this – a lot of people have really strong feelings about analysis, and rightly so).
Of course Freud thought that talking about it would help HEAL the hurt. This has been shown not to be the case always. (It certainly wasn’t in mine. If anything, I got worse with that kind of analysis.) And you can spend YEARS just talking and talking and talking about how hurt you were as a child, until this victim thing is engrained – it is now your personality. This is not always the case, but it does appear to be an off-shoot of total focus on Freudian analysis.
Jung, to me, looks at everything in a much deeper (and ultimately way more healing) way. It’s not as literal. And I love that – when we’re talking about our dreams, our psyche, our heart, whatever … all of those intangibles that makes us US.
I used to have these intense water dreams. I can’t even describe them – they were apocalyptic type dreams, and yet there was a certain exhilaration to them too. My readings of Jung when I was in college, and all that archetypal exploration, was so FREEING. It’s very subjective, obviously – but to discover that these symbols have a certain universality, and that maybe they could mean THIS – was awesome.
I still have water dreams on occasion and I always pay attention to them. Some message is trying to get through.