Another excerpt from Synchronicity<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n 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:<\/p>\n 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<\/i> simply has to be crossed off the books, and we must put in the new word participator<\/i>. In this way we’ve come to realize that the universe is a participatory universe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 … Continue reading