Well, some books end with a rousing crescendo. Others end with a deflating sense of ho-hum. I can't say that Heinrich Pas' The One: How an Ancient Idea Holds the Future of Physics was totally in the latter category for me, but it was close to it.
I've been writing about the book because I'm fascinated by quantum mechanics and have read quite a few books that explore the possible meaning of this field, apart from the undeniable success of the mathematics of it — which makes possible so much of our modern technology.
Pas deserves a lot of praise for tackling the meaning question head-on. It's pretty clear that most theoretical physicists are in the "shut up and calculate" camp when it comes to quantum mechanics. Pas, though, wants to know what we should make of quantum mechanics from a meaning perspective.
His answer is summarized in the Conclusion chapter.
Following Zeh, we have eventually arrived at an understanding of quantum mechanics that is diametrically opposed to Niels Bohr's view.
Instead of conceiving the wave function as a tool providing information about the potential behavior of the classical objects in everyday life, this new view suggests nothing less than the contrary: classical objects, space, time and matter have to be conceived as information about the underlying quantum reality.
The behavior of classical objects allows us to constrain the space of probabilities that characterizes this fundamental reality, and the more we learn about quantum cosmology, the better we will understand what "the One" really is.
…We started this book by realizing that if "all is One," it doesn't make sense anymore to think about the universe as composed of particles. Rather, the opposite is true: any conglomeration of particles is nothing but a specific perspective on the all-encompassing One.
Such a view does nothing less than turn the quest for the foundations of physics upside down. Taking this book's argument to its logical conclusion, physics can only move forward by building on quantum cosmology instead of particles or strings.
At some point — and the persisting fine-tuning problems that researchers encounter may indicate that this point has been reached — probing continually smaller distances and higher energies won't help us get closer to the foundations of physics.
All that, albeit speculative, makes good sense. Pas is just laying out a program for physics to follow in trying to confirm whether the notion of a quantum wave function encompassing the entire universe is reality or fantasy.
It's when Pas tries to draw conclusions based on his outline of such a theory where I found the book lacking. For example, in a chapter called "The Conscious One" Pas delves into theories of consciousness and how consciousness might relate to quantum mechanics. Near the end of the chapter he says:
In the end, the thought experiment we were describing was probably too simplistic. Obviously, human consciousness doesn't interact in any meaningful way directly with a quantum system; it receives preprocessed information at the end of a chain that starts with a measurement apparatus, is transmitted by light through a medium of swirling molecules, gets fed into macroscopic sensory organs, and eventually is sent through the neural system.
Yet Pas goes on to say:
With technological progress though, a more direct exposure to the quantum measurement process may become available — for example, with subjects that use neural prostheses. While any such scenarios are admittedly extremely speculative, for the time being, one can conclude that the hypothetical bird perspective onto quantum reality shares striking similarities with psychological conditions known as altered states of consciousness.
So even though human consciousness can't experience quantum reality directly, somehow Pas believes that just because some people who take psychedelics, meditate deeply, or have a peak experience after climbing to the top of a high mountain say "I felt at one with everything" their "one" could be a reflection of a quantum wave function encompassing the entire universe that Pas calls "The One."
One is just a word. Sure, it may point to a direct sensation of unity, but Pas goes overboard in trying to relate the One he feels lies at the heart of quantum mechanics with how humans speak of One in a very different sense. He writes:
Maybe it is not entirely impossible that subjects experience a quantum holism in altered states of consciousness, including what has been understood as "mystical experience" from the beginning of time. Alternatively, maybe humanity somehow preserved some unconscious memory about being "one with nature" from primordial times when individuation wasn't fully developed — an arguably paradisiac state as suggested in the interpretations of the Fall of Man and discussed in the works of John Scotus Eriugena or Friedrich Schelling.
OK, but if the criterion for considering an interpretation about the meaning of quantum mechanics is "not entirely impossible," just about anything can be shoved through that almost-wide-open door.
To his credit, though, Pas follows up the thought above with this:
There exist, of course, more mundane explanations as to why, for millennia, humanity has pondered monistic philosophies that at their core are amazingly similar to what quantum mechanics seems to suggest.
As my friend Xerxes Tara, a theoretical physicist at the University of Hawaii, for example, proposed in a different context, humanity may have only a limited set of concepts available to make sense of nature. If this is true, we shouldn't be surprised that similar ideas appear in quite different contexts, such as religion, theoretical physics, and abstract mathematics.
A radical version of the argument above has been produced by my friend and mentor Tom Weiler, a particle physicist at Vanderbilt University: "There are only two choices. Either All is One or All isn't One. You have a fifty percent chance to be right."
Tom is one of the most humorous persons I have ever met, so he may not have been entirely serious about the relative chances. But whatever the concrete chances, needless to say, I don't agree.
A similar argument could be made, for example, to question Albert Einstein's genius: "Either spacetime geometry is determined by the Einstein equations or it isn't." And just as Einstein's discovery of general relativity required a huge leap in abstraction from everyday experience, so does monism.
For me, it remains a profound mystery how a thought so courageous as to claim the unity of the entire cosmos could ever be thought, and what's more, in the absence of any observational evidence for it.
This somehow seems to suggest that it is deeply engrained in ourselves, as conscious residents of this wonderful universe.
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Hahaha…
Our mother , eternal peach be upon her soul, if she had one, would tell us again and again:
“books are written for those that do not need it”
Being her son I would like to honor her for her teachings:
“Books are selective chosen and read by those that do not need them”
Or
we chose our experts, sources in a process of self fulfilling prophecy, in an attempt to prove to our selves what we already believe, and as it doesn’t work, we go on and on reading other books.
Facts are not important, but what humans DO with them in term of attributing meaning and value to them, for reasons that are not at all related to these facts.
Facts are what they are
seldom what they look like
let alone how they are seen and presented by pre-conditioned minds
How, for heavens sake, can any body, that has made up his mind as to not believe in ONE, god or whatever, believe anything else?
Yep. As you say, Brian, that’s kind of “ho-hum”. But only if measured against expectations of some far-reaching paradigm shift. It was only to be expected, I suppose, that it’d be that. Because had that not been the case, then it would either have been crank territory, or else it would have been something that would make us all change how we look at the world — which last is, well, unlikely.
It was completely fascinating, actually, this whole discussion about this approach that Heinrich Pas is working on.
Pas’ words here, as you quote them here, are just a bit unclear. As far as I can make out, they do agree with what he’d clearly and explicitly said in his New Scientist article. First, that this isn’t a done deal, but merely one cutting-edge prospect that he and some other physicists are currently working on, very much a work-in-process, that’s no more than just a possibility at this point. And second, that this Oneness is merely the “oneness” of the model, or overarching-EFT if you will, global-EFT if you will, that describes the universe as a whole. That last, it is a huge thing, absolutely, certainly if it turned out to be true it would change the basics of physics; but still, it’s nothing to do with the kind of Oneness that the ancients (whether Greek, or Indian, or Chinese), or for that matter (some of) the enlightenment philosophers spoke of. Even though it is with reference to them that he’s prefaced these final observations of his, within his book I mean to say, and as you’ve discussed in past installments of this discussion.
(Is that right? The above paragraph, I mean to say? If my understanding on this is in any way flawed, then do please correct me, Brian!)
Appreciative Reader, I neglected to add the rest of the paragraph where Pas mentioned his friend’s 50-50 comment. I just added that part to the post. Which is:
—————————————
Tom is one of the most humorous persons I have ever met, so he may not have been entirely serious about the relative chances. But whatever the concrete chances, needless to say, I don’t agree.
A similar argument could be made, for example, to question Albert Einstein’s genius: “Either spacetime geometry is determined by the Einstein equations or it isn’t.” And just as Einstein’s discovery of general relativity required a huge leap in abstraction from everyday experience, so does monism.
For me, it remains a profound mystery how a thought so courageous as to claim the unity of the entire cosmos could ever be thought, and what’s more, in the absence of any observational evidence for it.
This somehow seems to suggest that it is deeply engrained in ourselves, as conscious residents of this wonderful universe.
Agreed, Brian, it’s nothing less than wondrous, this capacity that we puny humans possess, who are no more, really, than ants mucking around all self-importantly in the mud for a brief while until our short lives are done, to reach out into the innards of a reality so inconceivably larger* than ourselves, and from there wrestle out these answers, these dazzling answers like Einstein’s was, and like Pas’ might turn out to be.
( * or tinier, as the case may be!)
It is said that Yolande Duran Serrano, a french lady that all of an sudden found herself in the state that is described by teachers as Shri Nisargadatta.
Before she reached that state she went through a stressful period after the death of her mother, which she loved very much. what made her end up one day in a church where she out lout expressed her complaint in these words:
Qu’est-ce que j’en ai marre, de ne pas croire en Dieu!
J’aimerais avoir la foi.
[I’m sick of not believing in God! I wish I had faith.]