The Dancing Wu Li Masters (36 page)

The history of scientific thought, if it teaches us anything at all, teaches us the folly of clutching ideas too closely. To this extent it is an echo of eastern wisdom which teaches us the folly of clutching anything.

What does physics have in common with enlightenment? Physics and
enlightenment apparently belong to two realms which are forever separate. One of them (physics) belongs to the external world of physical phenomena and the other of them (enlightenment) belongs to the internal world of perceptions. A closer examination, however, reveals that physics and enlightenment are not so incongruous as we might think. First, there is the fact that only through our perceptions can we observe physical phenomena. In addition to this obvious bridge, however, there are more intrinsic similarities.

Enlightenment entails casting off the bonds of concept (“veils of ignorance”) in order to perceive directly the inexpressible nature of undifferentiated reality. “Undifferentiated reality” is the same reality that we are a part of now, and always have been a part of, and always will be a part of. The difference is that we do not look at it in the same way as an enlightened being. As everyone knows(?), words only
represent (re-present)
something else. They are not real things. They are only
symbols
. According to the philosophy of enlightenment,
everything
(every
thing
) is a symbol. The reality of symbols is an illusory reality. Nonetheless, it is the one in which we live.

Although undifferentiated reality is inexpressible, we can talk
around it (using more symbols). The physical world, as it appears to the unenlightened, consists of many separate parts. These separate parts, however, are not really separate. According to mystics from around the world, each moment of enlightenment (grace/insight/samadhi/satori) reveals that everything—all the separate parts of the universe—are manifestations of the same whole. There is only
one
reality, and it is whole and unified. It is one.

We already have learned that understanding quantum physics requires a modification of ordinary conceptions (like the idea that something cannot be a wave
and
a particle). Now we shall see that physics may require a more complete alteration of our thought processes than we ever conceived or, in fact, than we ever could conceive. Likewise we previously have seen that quantum phenomena seem to make decisions, to “know” what is happening elsewhere. Now we shall see how quantum phenomena may be connected so intimately that things once dismissed as “occult” could become topics of serious consideration among physicists.

In short, both in the need to cast off ordinary thought processes (and ultimately to go “beyond thought” altogether), and in the perception of reality as one unity, the phenomenon of enlightenment and the science of physics have much in common.

Enlightenment is a state of being. Like
all
states of being it is indescribable. It is a common misconception (literally) to mistake the description of a state of being for the state itself. For example, try to describe happiness. It is impossible. We can talk around it, we can describe the perspectives and actions that usually accompany a state of happiness, but we cannot describe happiness itself. Happiness and the description of happiness are two different things.

Happiness is a state of being. That means that it exists in the realm of direct experience. It is the intimate perception of emotions and sensations which, indescribable in themselves, constitute the state of happiness. The word “happiness” is the label, or symbol, which we pin on this indescribable state. “Happiness” belongs to the realm of
abstractions, or concepts. A state of being is an
experience
. A description of a state of being is a
symbol. Symbols and experience do not follow the same rules
.

This discovery, that symbols and experience do not follow the same rules, has come to the science of physics under the formidable title of quantum logic. The possibility that separate parts of reality (like you and I and tugboats) may be connected in ways which both our common experience and the laws of physics belie, has found its way into physics under the name of Bell’s theorem. Bell’s theorem and quantum logic take us to the farthest edges of theoretical physics. Many physicists have not even heard of them.

Bell’s theorem and quantum logic (currently) are unrelated. Proponents of one seldom are interested in the other. Nonetheless, they have much in common. They are what is really
new
in physics. Of course, laser fusion (fusing atoms with high-energy light beams) and the search for quarks generally are considered to be the frontiers of theoretical physics.
^*
In a certain sense, they are. However, there is a big difference between these projects and Bell’s theorem and quantum logic.

Laser fusion research and the great quark hunt are endeavors within the existing paradigms of physics. A paradigm is an established thought process, a framework. Both quantum logic and Bell’s theorem are potentially explosive in terms of existing frameworks. The first (quantum logic) calls us back from the realm of symbols to the realm of experience. The second (Bell’s theorem) tells us that there is no such thing as “separate parts.” All of the “parts” of the universe are connected in an intimate and immediate way previously claimed only by mystics and other scientifically objectionable people.

The central mathematical element in quantum theory, the hero of the story, is the wave function. The wave function is that mathematical
entity which allows us to determine the possible results of an interaction between an observed system and an observing system. The celebrated position held by the wave function is due not only to Erwin Schrödinger, who discovered it, but also to the Hungarian mathematician John von Neumann.

In 1932, von Neumann published a famous mathematical analysis of quantum theory called
The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
.
¹
In this book von Neumann, in effect, asked the question, “If a ‘wave function,’ this purely abstract mathematical creation, actually should describe something in the real world, what would that something be like?” The answer that he deduced is exactly the description of a wave function that we already have discussed.

This strange animal constantly would change with the passage of time. Each moment it would be different than the moment before. It would be a composite of all the possibilities of the observed system which it describes. It would not be a simple mixture of possibilities, it would be a sort of organic whole whose parts are changing constantly but which, nonetheless, is somehow a thing-in-itself.

This thing-in-itself would continue to develop indefinitely until an observation (measurement) is made on the observed system which it represents. If the “observed system” is a photon “propagating in isolation,” the wave function representing this photon would contain all of the possible results of the photon’s interaction with a measuring device, like a photographic plate.
^*
(For example, the possibilities contained in the wave function might be that the photon will be detected in area A of the photographic plate, that the photon will be detected in area B of the photographic plate, and that the photon will be detected in area C of the photographic plate.)

Once the photon is set in motion the wave function associated with it would continue to develop (change) according to a causal law
(the Schrödinger wave equation) until the photon interacts with the observing system. At that instant, one of the possibilities contained in the wave function would actualize and the other possibilities contained in the wave function would cease to exist. They simply would disappear. The wave function, that strange animal that von Neumann was attempting to describe, would “collapse.” The collapse of this particular wave function would mean that the probability of one of the possible results of the photon-measuring-device interaction became
one
(it happened) and the probability of the other possibilities became
zero
(they were no longer possible). After all, a photon can be detected only in one place at a time.

The wave function, according to this view, is not quite a thing yet it is more than an idea. It occupies that strange middle ground between idea and reality, where all things are possible but none are actual. Heisenberg likened it to Aristotle’s
potential
.

This approach has unconsciously shaped the language, and therefore the thinking, of most physicists, even those who consider the wave function to be a mathematical fiction, an abstract creation whose manipulation somehow yields the probabilities of real events which happen in real (versus mathematical) space and time.

Needless to say, this approach also has caused a great deal of confusion, which is as unclear today as it was in von Neumann’s time. For example, exactly when does the wave function collapse? (The Problem of Measurement.) Is it when the photon strikes the photographic plate? Is it when the photographic plate is developed? Is it when we look at the developed plate? Exactly
what
is it that collapses? Where does the wave function live before it collapses? and so on. This view of the wave function, that it can be described as a real thing, is generally the view of the wave function attributed to von Neumann. However, the real-wave-function description is only one of two approaches to understanding quantum phenomena which he discussed in
The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics
.

The second approach, to which von Neumann devoted much less time, is a re-examination of the language by which it is necessary
to express quantum phenomena. In the section “Projections as Propositions,” he wrote:

This suggestion, that the novel properties of quantum theory can be used to construct a “logical calculus” which is “in contrast to the concepts of ordinary logic,” is what von Neumann considered the alternative to describing wave functions as real things.

Most physicists, however, have adopted a third explanation of wave functions. They dismiss them as purely mathematical constructions, abstract fictions which represent nothing in the world of reality. Unfortunately, this explanation leaves forever unanswered the question, “How, then, can wave functions predict so accurately probabilities which can be verified through actual experience?” In fact, how can wave functions predict
anything
when they are defined as completely unrelated to physical reality. This is a scientific version of the philosophical question, “How can mind influence matter?”

Von Neumann’s second approach to understanding the paradoxical puzzles of quantum phenomena took him far beyond the boundaries of physics. This brief work pointed to a fusion of ontology, epistemology, and psychology which only now is beginning to emerge. In short, the problem, said von Neumann, is in the language. Herein lies the germ of what was to become quantum logic.

In pointing to the problem of language, von Neumann put his finger on why it is so difficult to answer the question, “What is quantum mechanics?” Mechanics is the study of motion. Therefore, quantum mechanics is the study of the motion of quanta—but what are quanta? According to the dictionary, a quantum is a quantity of something. The question is, a quantity of what?

A quantum is a piece of action (a piece of the action?). The problem is that a quantum can be like a wave, and then again it can be like a particle, which is everything that a wave isn’t. Furthermore, when a quantum is like a particle, it is not like a particle in the ordinary sense of the word. A subatomic “particle” is not a “thing.” (We cannot determine simultaneously its position and momentum.) A subatomic “particle” (quantum) is a set of relationships, or an intermediate state. It can be broken up, but out of the breaking come more particles as elementary as the original. “…Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum theory,” said Niels Bohr, “cannot possibly have understood it.”
³

Quantum theory is not difficult to explain because it is complicated. Quantum theory is difficult to explain because the words which we must use to communicate it are not adequate for explaining quantum phenomena. This was well known and much discussed by the founders of quantum theory. Max Born, for example, wrote:

This is the view currently held by most physicists: We encounter problems explaining subatomic phenomena when we try to visualize them. Therefore, it is necessary to forgo explanations in terms of “common language” and restrict ourselves to “mathematical analysis.” To learn the physics of subatomic phenomena we first must learn mathematics.

“Not so!” says David Finkelstein, Director of the School of Physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Mathematics, like English, also is a language. It is constructed of symbols. “The best you can get with symbols is a maximal but incomplete description.”
⁵
A mathematical analysis of subatomic phenomena is no better qualitatively than any other symbolic analysis, because
symbols do not follow the same rules as experience
. They follow rules of their own. In short, the problem is not
in
the language, the problem
is
the language.