Theos-Talk Archives (March 2005 Message tt00053)

Friday, March 04, 2005



Dear Reed:



Thanks for answers:



I too seek for better understanding and correlating "science" and
"THEOSOPHY" 



Please see some further notes below.



Dallas



=============================



-----Original Message-----
From: Reed Carson [mailto:reed3@blavatsky.net] 
Sent: Thursday, March 03, 2005 8:05 AM
To: study@blavatsky.net
Subject: [bn-study] Re: ATOMIC PHYSICS and the ABSOLUTE



Dallas,



You have asked some excellent and profound questions.



You noted:



When the photons where about 10 kilometers

apart they ran into a detector. Gisin found that even though a

large distance separate the photons, something done to one photon

AT ONE END VERY MUCH AFFECTED THE PHOTON AT THE OTHER

END. . . INSTANTANEOUSLY."



===============================



and asked:DTB 





DTB HOW ? Are photons entities or waves ?



=================================



Reed:

You may find it intesting that science flip-flopped in its answer to your 

question about century by century from the time of Newton. Einstein needed 

to view light as particles in explanation for the photo-electric effect he 

explained in 1905. After that, when viewed as particles, light became 

called "photons".



In the 20th century science came to the conclusion that light was BOTH a 

particle and a wave. It is generally admitted that this does not make 

intuitive sense. 



A wave is spread out - like a ripple on the pond surface while particles are
concentrated at a point - like the pebble thrown into the water to generate
the wave. 



==================================

[ DTB How about the volume ? ]

==================================



Even more surprisingly, whether light was recorded as a wave or particle by
instrumentation turned out to depend on how the experimenter set up the
apparatus. You ask nature about the wave properties of light and the
instruments say it is a wave. Ask about the facts of lights particle nature
and the instruments tell you it is a particle.



Yet the oddness does not stop there. This priniciple was extended and the 

conclusion reached that all matter is either a wave or a particle.



If you ask a physicist what is the oddest conclusion of quantum mechanics 

you will get different answers. Some will say it is this dual nature of 

wave/particle.



For my part I ask myself if this dual wave/particle nature can be trace 

naturally back to the underlying duality asserted by Theosophy. I imagine 

that it does but the correlation does not seem natural to me. For example, 

does the wave/particle duality correlate to the spirit/matter duality? Also
Bohr emphasized a principle of complimentarity. For that also I ponder on
the underlying Theosophical duality. Bohr used the ying yang symbol. (Or
at least his followers have.)



Now it may be that you asked a yet more profound question about how a 

particle on one shore of Lake Geneva affected a "distant" particle on the 

other shore.



Precisely.



The basic answer is due to principles of conservation. These are very 

important in physics. For example - "spin" is conserved. Suppose you had 

a photon with "zero" spin. Suppose it broke into two smaller photons and 

they sped away. Suppose the photon "here" had a spin of "up". Then the 

photon "over there" would have a spin of "down". Thereby total spin is 

conserved - at zero.



Einstein would not have minded if total spin were conserved. He would have 

insisted upon it. 



BUT - what is upsetting is that the photon "over there" 

adjusted in reaction to events here with this photon (maybe it was 

measured) and reacted "too fast" - that is it reacted before light could 

get from here to over there to "tell" the distant photon that it had to 

change something to keep everything conserved.



Worse than that, by the time physics had set up experiments so very spread 

out (in quantum terms) as opposite shores of Lake Geneva, then the evidence 

was in that the distant photon adjusted in "no time". And locality is 

finished.



========================================



DTB What about the spiritual and the psychic universes and their

interaction with the physical? Are they not causal ? [S D I 181 ]



Apparently when in the SECRET DOCTRINE [ I 618 top: ".constant
interaction and communication."; also I 623, 629, 630-633 ] we find it
said that every "Monad" is in touch with or affected by every other, neither
time nor location is a factor. 



And if Karma is true, then this would be the (one way of considering the
physical aspect of) continual adjustment of effects to causes, everywhere
throughout the Universe ? [S D I 200-1 see footnote 201 on
"supersensuous matter" -- also on "Creative" Fire or Heat." This does not
relieve the original causative factor (a CHOOSING MONAD) of any of its
responsibility in a Universe of justice and honesty. 



Example - the wave / surface ripple you use as an illustration, is (as I see
it) not confined to the surface ripples, but the force, as such, extends to
every atom and sub-atom throughout the selected unit ? and from there to
the rest of affectable substances - air, metals, etc. until we loose our own
sense of the idea of the detection of minute changes. 



What a vision of continual instability within certain limits !



Our concepts of matter and fields of force as limits begins to falter, I
think. 



=========================================



Reed:



Above you have asked a very profound question that I think should concern 

us. Other people on the list may have suggestions.



Of course our teaching clearly holds that the spiritual and psychic 

universes are causal. What we need to resolve is how is this compatible 

with a completely determined physical universe. Physical laws can now 

predict outcomes to 15 significant figures (not counting any leading 

zeros). That is incredible accuracy. I do not think we have addressed 

that well in previous discussions and I do not feel I have a definite
answer.



I do not see that quantum mechanics is incompatible with Theosophy. And on 

the other hand I do not see any particular statement in Theosophy that 

appears to support quantum mechanics. Given that - some people (not on 

this list) have argued that the quantum indeterminacy allows "wiggle room" 

to explain how "God," or spiritual and psychic influences, to use your 

better terms, can still operate in a world of such definite physicals laws.



Personally I don't think this wiggle room is adequate. Suppose someone 

bends spoons with their mind? (Was Uri legit? ) Doesn't this need more 

than quantum indeterminacy to allow it?



Is it replicatable enough to satisfy the experimental methodology of 

science? Don't we begin to question the vaunted experimental methodology 

of science if it does not allow for such information?



==============================



DTB We do. Further the material of which our instruments are
constructed are themselves subject to the same laws of indeterminacy,
quanta, as viewed from our (physical) plane records. 



Hence the "instrumental error" factor has to be most carefully extracted and
measured. Was it ? I assume it must have been.



=============================



Reed

Basically I would move in a direction like this: The universe is first of 

all consciousness (a simplistic statement used here for convenience).
Matter and energy are subsequent and derivative. 



================================



DTB Interactive ? Is not "energy" causal? 



And who or what causes it to come into a channeled being, so as to achieve
measurable effects on the physical / astral / pranic / kamic / mental
planes? Is "Kama" or desire responsible? 



If so, Who or what controls and channels "desire?" The Mind acted on by the
CHOOSER-SELF ? [Lower, or Higher Manas ?] What causes "desire" tm become
involved? What imaginary pictures of "self"- and "isolated benefits"
obtrudes on our innate and intuitive knowledge of universal balance that
represents responsibility in action ?



And, is the dividing line not a question of honesty, sincerity,
impersonality and universality - to indicate the relationship of what we
commonly call "moral" or "ethical" factors ? 



In other words can "the laws of physics" be isolated from the rest of the
"Law family" of plane-interactions? I do not think so.



===================================== 



Reed

So are the laws of physics. Therefore it is not unreasonable that
consciousness can bend spoons and blatantly violate the otherwise



===========================



DTB [KNOWN ?] There are many "laws" still to be discovered ?



===========================



Reed

strict laws of nature.



That above statement obviously needs refinement. It is only a suggestion 

for direction to find enough wiggle room to account for more than physical 

causation - as you asked in your profound question.





As the head of the mathematics department





DTB [ WHO ? ]





at Princeton said to his colleagues "If you aren't worried about this,

you have rocks in your head."



Reed:

I tried to search for this quote on the net but could not find it. So I 

will tell you the personal story.



I was having a private meeting with the chairman of the graduate department 

of mathematics at Princeton University. The year was about 1992. The 

meeting was about his mathematics department and not physics. Soon 

thereafter I encountered his name in an article, probably about Bell's 

Theorem, in which he was assigned that quote. I was surprised that he also 

knew so much about physics and of course I noted it in my mind at the 

time. Now more than a decade later, in studying for that newsletter I 

encountered the exact same quote word for word as I had remembered 

it. Obviously it was the same person and a second reference to it. This 

time the man's name was not given. It was attributed to someone at, I 

think, a "party" of colleagues and used in the same spirit I used 

it. Alas, I don't remember his name. I remember he was a gracious 

gentleman. When I research it on the net, all I get is info on rocks.



Reed



======================================



At 07:54 PM 3/2/2005, you wrote:

Mar 2, 2005-03-02



Re: ATOMIC PHYSICS and the ABSOLUTE



Dear Reed:



Responding to this --



Please see some notes below on this interesting article.



Any further comments would be welcome.



Dal



================================



Subject: Blavatsky Net Newsletter March 1, 2005







Dear Member of Blavatsky Net, [ www.blavatsky.net ]





In this newsletter I will be starting with the most important fundamental

concept of Theosophy, called the ABSOLUTE.



Then I will trace some developments in modern physics that seem to be
reaching a highly parallel conception. This in itself is a bit daunting.
Then I

will conclude with the relevance of these grand conceptions to how we

see ourselves in this universe and our destiny. All of this is rather

of an ambitious task but lets begin. (If you cannot read it all -

perhaps you will skip to the end where this newsletter returns to

Blavatsky.)



Blavatsky says early in her SECRET DOCTRINE:



Before the reader proceeds to the consideration of the Stanzas from

the Book of Dzyan which form the basis of the present work, it is

absolutely necessary that he should be made acquainted with the few

fundamental conceptions which underlie and pervade the entire system

of thought to which his attention is invited. ...



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."

S D I pp. 13-4



That principle, beyond the range and reach of thought, is the "Absolute"

of Theosophy.



Is it possible that science could specifically prove the reality of

something similar to the Absolute? After all, the absolute is beyond

the reach of thought. ...



CUT





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