quantum mechanics « WillSpirit!

An essay in David Bohm’s Wholeness and the Implicate Order, has me rethinking my attitude toward thought. The piece is entitled “Reality and Knowledge Considered as Process.” As with much of Bohm’s work, the concepts challenge the mind. But although he sometimes loses me, I trust his interpretation, as he was a highly regarded physicist who pondered the philosophical implications of quantum theory. Since an earlier essay looked at one quantum principle in spiritual terms, it makes sense to explore Bohm’s discussion; it pursues similar goals through more sophisticated means.

Bohm insists that thought and the world at large are not two separate realms. There is no thinking that doesn’t arise from prior contact with reality, and our experience of reality is never completely divorced from thought. Furthermore, thought is just as much a product of the cosmos as anything else. It emerges in a flowing stream along with Creation itself. Thought is no different, in this sense, from mountains, clouds, sunlight, electricity, or anything else we might think about.

Bohm compares thought to poetry. There will never be an ultimate poem that will make all future poetry unnecessary. Similarly, there will never be a final theory about reality that will obviate the need for more theorizing. Each view of the Cosmos is a work of art, not an objective truth. Some models of the world work better in a predictive sense, but all are susceptible to ongoing change and refinement. All are subjective and conditioned by prior prejudice. Bohm considers it a mistake to equate concepts with reality-as-it-actually-exists.

Consider gravity. According to Newton, matter exerts an invisible force on other matter. A planet has a large mass and through action-at-a-distance pulls strongly on objects nearby. Hence, we don’t float off into space. Newton’s laws permit one to calculate orbits and trajectories. They work in a predictive sense, but that doesn’t mean gravitation acts through force fields like Newton thought. Einstein’s theory of General Relativity describes the same reality in terms of distortion to the fabric of space-time. Planets orbit stars because stars warp the matrix through which planets travel. There is no force that extends from the sun to the earth; there is merely a kind of well that traps the earth in orbit around the sun. Relativity theory is also predictive of orbits and trajectories. Yet although its scope is more comprehensive than Newtonian mechanics, it cannot be said to be more ‘correct;’ it is merely more broadly applicable.

Newton and Einstein devised very different descriptions of gravity and reality. Each created a highly sophisticated line of thought. But neither can be said to have described ultimate Truth. Theories work in a utilitarian fashion but never pin down reality in any literal sense.

Physicists have long sought a ‘Theory of Everything’ that would succinctly describe the universe in mathematical terms. All manifestation would then be clarified as unfolding according to fundamental equations. Stephen Hawking appears to have abandoned this quest, as he now talks of ‘Model-Dependent Realism,’ wherein there would not be a single theory but rather a system of overlapping models. Each formulation would work within a defined domain, but none could be said to capture the totality. Einstein’s equations work when calculating the dynamics of light and matter on cosmic scales. Quantum mechanics works for subatomic particles. The hope (not yet realized) would be to find a way to make the two descriptions fit together when conditions overlap, as during the formation of the universe. But Hawking appears to have abandoned the search for a single set of equations that could be applied in all situations.

Bohm would probably welcome this concession by Hawking. He would insist that thought is not capable of describing totality, mainly because thought is part of totality itself. There is no separate reality, outside the mind, that the mind can figure out. There is only a single cosmos that includes the mind and everything the mind comprehends. We do not view reality from outside, we watch it from within. We can describe what we see, but we cannot describe the totality because we do not exist outside of it. We can’t get a view on the cosmos similar to the Apollo photographs of planet Earth. Just as we cannot see the whole earth from its surface, and so our view of it remains limited, we cannot see the whole universe. Our concepts are necessarily restricted and incomplete.

Furthermore, thought and cosmos are ever changing, so there can be no final description of anything. What fits today’s world may not fit tomorrow’s. Tribal societies on the North American plains had no need of a theory of digital computation, anymore than we have need of one guiding nomadic encampment in pursuit of herds of bison. You could argue that both theories are latent in the cosmos, but what does a theory of logic gates describe if there are no computers? How consequential is knowledge of migratory patterns if the few remaining buffalo live in fenced enclosures? Each formulation is relevant to a particular time and place, and useless outside of it.

For a hunter-gatherer society, a view of the environment that depended on vital spirits would be competent to the situation. It would help the hunter follow his prey; it would help the gatherer predict where her favored plants could be found. It would be a valid model under the circumstances. For some people, a religion built around a single, caring deity works well. It provides meaning, guidance, and feelings of safety. For others, life is better served by insisting that no such God exists. To them, the universe feels more comfortable if it is believed rational and predictable, without any quirky intrusion by non-material influences. Each person lives by a model that works for his or her given temperament. But none can claim ultimate truth, because there is no such thing.

This is a very difficult position to adhere to, precisely because it lacks solidity. To quit conflating thought with truth means to recognize every insight as provisional, including this one. Any claim to objective understanding, permanent and free of contamination by prior prejudice, is false. But the mind resists admitting its own limits, and clings to beliefs even when it knows better.

Bohm provides an alternate (and more challenging) path to the conclusion that ended my earlier post: we should hold our views lightly. I’m not sure this essay does his argument justice, but I think he would have agreed with the advice.

Today’s post is just a (kind of) short addendum to yesterday’s treatise on conflict in mental health discussions. Mandy, my wife, pointed out another reason that people tend to cling tightly to narrowly defined solutions: fear of uncertainty. I agree with her that the discomfort we all have with ‘not knowing’ plays a role in the common scenario of debates about policy turning into heated arguments between adversaries who each are certain they have the right answer. Because uncertainty raises anxiety.

When quantum mechanics began to be elucidated early in the twentieth century, physicists started to see a fundamental role of chance in the structure and behavior of matter. The inescapability of uncertainty and randomness made Einstein uncomfortable. Even though his groundbreaking work on Brownian motion and the photoelectric effect helped usher in the quantum age, he still wrote (in a letter to Max Born) that he was “convinced that [God] does not throw dice”.

The idea of a non-deterministic universe strikes many as unsettling, to say the least. One of the objections to the theory of natural selection has always been that ‘believers’ insist that ‘God’ has orchestrated the creation of the universe, the earth, and life. Natural selection postulates that random mutations and probabilistic sorting of genes form the raw material of changes in life forms. If the mutations or gene combinations are advantageous, they get passed on to subsequent generations in larger numbers than if they cause the organism problems. With thousands and millions of iterations, these changes add up to dramatic alterations in living forms and ecologies. But the underlying engine of change, by that view, depends on haphazard events. This assaults the worldview of those who believe in a ‘hands-on’ God who directs events and answers prayers.

Some day I will write about how I believe how the universe may accommodate both probabilistic development, universal consciousness, and a certain kind of facilitated (rather than completely random) progression of history. My point right now is just that since the dawn of human self-awareness, people have had a strong need for predictability, and for a sense that they are not just adrift in a sea of chance. We prefer certainty over doubt, black and white over gray.

I heard an interview with a scientist who has written about why people need to be right. Despite a lot of internet searching I can find neither the scientist’s name nor the book, if it was a book, or I would reference them here. But the basic idea seemed to be that if you see a lion approaching, you need to ‘know’ without taking time to think, that the proper response is to flee. She who doubts hesitates, and she who hesitates is lost. Once decisions start being processed through cognitive and analytical channels, reactivity slows down, so that if an instant choice must be made one had better have a predetermined action pattern in place. There seems to be an innate demand for strong conviction.

So opening our minds to the possibility that our survival mechanism (whether medication, a specific kind of therapy, or a spiritual philosophy) might be fallible becomes quite difficult. We would rather hold tightly to the belief that our ‘answer’ is comprehensive, our world predictable, and our emotional safety assured.

So if I wrote yesterday’s post again, I would include our inherent uneasiness with uncertainty as another of the reasons why people become so bound to constricted views. A tightly defined, closed off ideology feels safer than one that is wide open, and leaves us aware of our vulnerability. We’d rather sit in a watertight box than risk feeling adrift in the random currents of fate.

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