Theos-Talk Archives (November 2002 Message tt00721)

For those interested in theosophical correlation with modern science, some 
added clarifications [Maurer] are added below in response to the idea that 
quantum physics, while partially in agreement with theosophy, can be used to 
explain theosophical metaphysics and consciousness. In spite of such claims, 
most physicists are still wrong in using as their presumptive basis the idea 
that everything begins with and is caused by matter, including consciousness 
or awareness, and that quantum particles are the basis of the "information" 
the universe needs to construct itself by random interactions. 

>[Helena Blavatsky]
>The Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions: -
>(a) An omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on 
>which all speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of 
>human conception and could only be dwarfed by any human expression 
>or similitude. It is beyond the range and reach of thought - in the words 
>of Mandukya, "unthinkable and unspeakable".
>
>[Peter Mutnick]
>If the source of the complementary pairs of opposites is not this type
>of plenitude, then the alternative is a cheap defective universe. This is
>the impression that many have of complementarity and the Copenhagen 
>Interpretation, but it is a misconception on their part from the outset.

[Maurer]
Unfortunately, while the Copenhagen Interpretation attempts to explain the 
complementary pairs of opposites, it starts from the wrong end with the 
assumption that the there is neither a zero or an infinity in the universe, 
and that matter, starting with the quantum particle is the fundamental cause 
of all phenomena -- including consciousness and will. This is in direct 
contradiction to Blavatsky's teachings. 
>
>[Blavatsky]
>To render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with 
the 
>postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested,
>conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause - dimly formulated in 
the 
>"Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European philosophy - is the
>rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall be". It is of course 
devoid 
>of all attributes and is essentially without any relation to manifested,
>finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than Being (in Sanskrit, *Sat*), and
>is beyond all thought or speculation.
>
>[Mutnick]
>The penetration of the Unconscious leads to the implicate order as the
>true Mind of the Observer. The Unknowable is the foundation for the 
>implicate order as the noumenal back-ground. The Infinite and Eternal 
>Cause = the God of Spinoza = the Implicate Order of Bohm.

[Maurer]
Close, but not a bull's eye. These ideas attempt to explain the duality 
between consciousness and matter with labels that have no connection with 
actual reality, but simply justify the reductive approach of quantum physics 
that sees the universe from the outside in and can only measure its 
"observable" physical properties. The true mind of the observer, is the 
lowest energy phase field that is part of the first triple field emanation of 
the primal zero-point spinergy. Thus, the primal mind (Mahat) is the 
"explicate" order as contrasted with the "implicate" order of the initial 
ideational field that gave birth to it -- which in turn, gives birth to the 
ensuing fields of progressively denser astral and physical material forms (as 
fields within fields within fields . . . , etc.). 

>[Blavatsky]
>This "Be-ness" is symbolized in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects.
>
>On the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, 
>the one thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, 
>or conceive of by itself. On the other hand, absolute Abstract Motion 
>representing Unconditioned Consciousness.
>
>[Mutnick]
>The primary pair of conjugate variables are enunciated in 1888! Moreover
>a possibly profound meaning is given to them.

[Maurer]
Yes. The profundity is that the fundamental basis of everything is a duality 
that is completely opposite -- in that one extreme is entirely unconditional 
(and always remains a zero-point of pure emptiness) and the other is 
completely conditional (and thus changeable in infinite possibilities of 
fields of lawful action based on the fundamental laws of abstract motion -- 
without initial inhibition).

>[Blavatsky]
>Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is inconceivable
>to us apart from change, and motion best symbolizes change, its essential
>characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality is also symbolized by 
>the term "The Great Breath", a symbol sufficiently graphic to need no further
>elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom of the Secret Doctrine
>is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE - BE-NESS - symbolized by finite 
>intelligence as the theological Trinity.
>
>It may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given
>here. Herbert Spencer has of late so modified his Agnosticism as to assert 
>that the nature of the "First Cause", which the Occultists more logically 
>derives from the "Causeless Cause", the "Eternal", and the "Unknowable",
>may be essentially the same as that of the Consciousness which wells up 
>within us; in short, that the impersonal reality pervading the Kosmos is the 
>noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him very near to the 
>esoteric and Vedantin tenet.
>
>Parabrahm (the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute 
>Consciousness, i.e., that Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned
>existence, and of which conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But
>once we pass in thought from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality 
>supervenes in the contrast of Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter,
>Subject and Object.
>
>[Mutnick]
>This Absolute Consciousness is the same discovered by Edmund 
>Husserl through the phenomenological reduction. It is discovered by 
>everyone who turns their attention inward and asks in sincerity, 
>"Who and What am I?" But this cannot be done casually or even 
>necessarily through an act of will. Husserl said only that one should 
>perform the phenomenological reduction at least once during one's 
>lifetime. It is a peak experience and the experience of a lifetime. 
>Zen adepts often had two experiences: one an initial Kensho;
>and later a complete Enlightenment.
>
>[Blavatsky]
>Spirit (or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not
>as independent realities, but as two facets or aspects of the Absolute 
>(Parabrahm), which constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether 
>subjective or objective.
>
>Considering this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all
>manifestation, the great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation.
>I is the *fons et origo* of force and of all individual consciousness,and 
>supplies the guiding intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On 
>the other hand, precosmic root-substance (*Mulaprakriti*) is that aspect
>of the Absolute which underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
>Just as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so 
>pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades
>of its differentiation.
>
>[Mutnick]
>Substance and Ideation have to do with the State Vector and its Reduction.

[Maurer]
Here, Mutnick takes a big jump and ignores the separation between information 
as an overlay of the wave nature of matter, and assumes that information, as 
pre-cosmic ideation, is a function of the quantum particle that has a state 
vector and can be reduced to a wave. But the wave itself is not the ideation 
-- which is simply the "information" encoded by the holographic interference 
patterns carried by the wave, and that, later, has to be decoded and 
experienced directly by the zero-point center of conscious awareness (or 
unconscious, from an instinctive psychological POV). This particulate or 
digital treatment of ideational information, is what leads the AI computer 
people to think that once they can design a digital computer using a neural 
network configuration as complex as the brain, it will become conscious. How
ever, this is a wrong view, since conscious experience, being the inherent 
nature of the zero-point center of spinergy (the root of matter or 
mass/energy and the carrier of ideational information) can never be a 
derivative of, or explained by secondary properties of matter, such as 
quantum effects of mass/energy transformations or interactions.

>[Blavatsky]
>Hence it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the
>Absolute is essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe". Apart
>from Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual
>consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle of matter that 
>consciousness wells up as "I am I", a physical basis being necessary to
>focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain level of complexity. Again, 
>apart from the Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty 
>abstraction, and no emergence of consciousness could ensue.
>
>[Mutnick]
>Clearly applicable to the State Vector and its Reduction.

[Maurer]
Not so clearly. Since State Vector and its Reduction is just a mathematical 
metaphor related to but not causative of the experience of consciousness from 
a quantum physics point of view. Actually, HPB says, "Apart from the Cosmic 
Ideation . . . , etc." -- implying that this information is separate from the 
Cosmic Substance that "carries" it. Therefore, since this wave nature 
*carries* the "contents or images of consciousness" as the modulations of 
its cyclic wave nature -- when the "certain level of complexity" is reached 
(in a brain structure *informed* by this ideation) -- an *awareness* of such 
images, or "consciousness will emerge." This "emergence" is not a function 
of the physical properties of the substance or matter, but is the result of 
the union between the zero-point of focus of a *separate* mind field ray that 
can decode the holographic information carried by the material substance's 
electrical wave nature and its analogous em field. Quantum physics 
completely ignores this "separate" mind field -- although Superstring/M-brane 
theory clearly indicates the possibility of such enfolded hyperspace fields

>[Blavatsky]
>The "Manifested Universe", therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is,
>as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation".
>
>[Mutnick]
>EX-istence = explicate order.

[Maurer]
Again Mutnick completely ignores the "duality" HPB speaks of -- which implies 
an unbridgeable separation between matter and consciousness. Of course, this 
does correspond with the "implicate" order and "explicate" order posed by 
Bohm and explained by Whitehead. But, even they were unable to make a 
connection between the nature of multidimensional reality emanating out of a 
zero-point singularity, and the assumptions of quantum physics that every 
apparent duality is the result of the particle/wave duality of matter. Such 
an empirically reductive outside-in view can never reach an understanding of 
the fundamental zero-point emptiness of absolute consciousness (awareness) or 
the infinite fullness of the configurations of the material substance it 
experiences. In addition, by itself, it could never understand how the 
experience of consciousness is dependent on the descending series of 
"coadunate but not consubstantial" mind-memory hyperspace fields in between 
this basic duality. 

>[Blavatsky]
>But just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are 
>but aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the
>manifested Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject
>to object.
>
>This something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by
>the occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas" existing in the
>"Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as the "laws of Nature".
>
>Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic Ideation; or, regarded from
>the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the guiding power of all 
>manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted and made manifest through
>the Dhyan Chohans, the Architects of the visible World. Thus from Spirit, or
>Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from Cosmic Substance the 
>several vehicles in which that consciousness is individualized and attains 
to 
>self- or reflective - consciousness; while Fohat, in its various 
manifestations,
>is the mysterious link between Mind and Matter, the animating principle 
>electrifying every atom into life.
>
>[Niels Bohr]
>"Actually, ordinary language by its use of such words as thoughts and 
>sentiments, admits typical complementary relations between conscious 
>experiences implying a different placing of the section line between the
>observing subject and object on which attention is focussed. We are here
>presented with a close analogy to the relationship between atomic phenomena
>appearing under different experimental conditions and described by different
>physical concepts, according to the role played by the measuring instruments.
>
>In fact, the varying separation line between subject and object, 
>characteristic of different conscious experiences, is the clue to the 
>consistent logical use of such contrasting notions as will, conscience
>and aspirations, each referring to equally important aspects of human 
>personality." (Niels Bohr, "Physical Science and the Study of Religions",
>
>1953, in TPWNB, Volume IV, pp. 159-60)
>
>[Mutnick]
>Fohat as the mediator of subject and object is more than the "aspects of the 
>human personality" which are products of varying placements of the split.
>
>Fohat actually synthesizes the opposites (complementary pairs) in a way that 
>is not yet understood. THIS IS A PRIMARY KEY TO THE SCIENCE OF THE 21ST
>CENTURY! IT EXPLAINS THE DYNAMIC ACTION OF WILL IN A UNIVERSALLY 
>CREATIVE SENSE.
>
>[Maurer] 
>Too bad, Mutnick, while he sees the quantum correlation's with the 
>fundamental principles, can't see that, since Fohat manifests as the primary
>field of electrical energy in its threefold aspects, that the link between
>the opposites (fullness-emptiness, sleeping-waking, light-dark, etc.), as 
>well as the idea of "complementarity" depends solely on cyclic laws, and is 
>mediated by holographic field interference patterns overlaid on and carried
>by the fundamental frequencies of the primal mind and memory fields --
>linked to each other by their coadunate zero-point centers of universal 
>awareness and will. 
>
>[Blavatsky]
>The following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
>(1) The ABSOLUTE; the *Parabrahm* of the Vedantins or the one Reality,
>SAT, which is, as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.
>(2) The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, 
>*unmanifested* Logos, the precursor of the "manifested". This is the "First
>Cause", the "Unconscious" of European pantheists.
>(3) Spirit-Matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe", Purusha and Prakriti,
>or the *second* Logos.
>(4) Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the
>Cosmic Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and
>of Nature, also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
>The ONE REALITY; its *dual* aspects in the conditioned Universe.
>
>Further, the Secret Doctrine affirms: -
>(b) The Eternity of the Universe *in toto* as a boundless plane; periodically
>."the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and 
>disappearing", called "the manifesting stars", and the "sparks of Eternity".
>"The Eternity of the Pilgrim"* is like a wink of the Eye of Self-Existence.
>
>*"Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our "Monad" (the two in one) during
>its cycle of incarnation. It is the only immortal and eternal principle in 
>us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole - the Universal Spirit,
>from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the
>cycle. When it is said to emanate from the one spirit, an awkward and 
>incorrect expression has to be used, for lack of appropriate words in 
>English. The Vedantins call it Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation,
>too, differs somewhat from that of the occultists; to explain which 
>difference, however, is left to the Vedantins themselves.
>