From the Spookiness of Limited Mind to the Undivided Wholeness of Reality
Menas Kafatos, Ph.D., Fletcher Jones Endowed Professor of Computational Physics, Chapman University
Quantum mechanics brought in the role of observation in a primary way, and the participatory universe of John A. Wheeler is a natural consequence of measurement theory in standard John von Neumann quantum view established more than 80 years ago. Recently, entanglement has been demonstrated in macroscopic diamond crystals, implying that non-trivial quantum effects are not confined to the microscopic realm. Quantum theory, in its foundations, implies a primary role for the mind and interactions of observers with objects under observation. Yet, despite these profound experimental results confirming quantum physics, neuroscience assigns mental activity to physical process and seeks explanations in neuronal connections and processes with no obvious role for the observer or agency implied by quantum physics. Although advancing our knowledge of correlates of conscious experience and yielding great medical advances, brain science through its fundamental physicalist assumptions has yielded little in the actual understanding of experience and mind.
The emerging view proposed here is that entanglement, nonlocality and coherent structures are all manifestations of the universe which is basically living and conscious. Consciousness manifesting as awareness, of objects and the observing agent, is primary, rather than derived through blind processes as current materialist approaches claim. Entanglement is not a peculiarity of quantum mechanical phenomena at microscopic scales. It is instead the natural feature of the primacy of consciousness, operating through three fundamental principles of complementarity; creative interactivity and sentience; and recursion. The main issue is not how such the universe is nonlocal and entangled but rather how it appears as made of distinct, physical objects. What is proposed is that the mind creates a veiling of undivided wholeness. It is both the new and also ancient vision of non-duality, which we should pass on to the next generations.
