Sir Issac Newton and Today’s Quantum Physics

Centuries ago Sir Issac Newton was hit on the head by a falling apple. His subsequent gravitational theory turned the known world upside down and established the scientific method. 

Today science and scientific research continue to rock our understanding of reality and, even what reality is.  Nowhere is this more obvious than in the explorations of quantum physics.   We are about to be hit on the head again—the discoveries and implications of quantum physic research suggest that the physical and mental worlds are deeply linked.  In short:  your thoughts and inner images may be interacting, changing, and even directing the physical world you experience.

Although this might sound like science fiction to some people, several research labs around the world are doing experimental training with disabled people. Early success with these experiments has assisted the development of an entirely new field of research: implantable neuromotor prosthetics.

Amazingly, research indicates that, when implants are used, prosthetics devices can be guided and controlled by thoughts and imagination alone.  Consider Matthew Nagel.  Matthew’s spinal cord was completely severed in a brutal knife attack and, as a result, he hadn’t been able to move his arms or legs for four years.  When Dr. Leigh Hochberg, a Neurologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, and others implanted Matthew’s brain with a device designed to respond to his thoughts and convert them into action, Matthew surprised everyone with his abilities. 

"Thoughts are things." -- Lynn Charlson, founder of LSF

After he received the brain implant, Matthew (1) was able to modulate devise activity based on instructions such as ‘Move your arm” or motor intentions, (2) only had to imagine moving his hand to track a moving cursor on the computer screen, (3) could perform other computer-based tasks including reading e-mail, playing simple computer games, and control a television, and (4) control simple robotic devices.  He could do this in spite of the fact that the brain cells responsible for controlling his limbs had not been able to function for 4 years.  Researchers were very encouraged to learn that, unlike muscles, brain cells do not atrophy with lack of use.

At a minimum, this living proof of ‘mind over matter’ or, perhaps more correctly, ‘mind working with matter,’ suggests a potentially powerful intersection between psychology and physics.  While it seems clear that thoughts and/or intentions create electrical firing in the brain that can be converted into action a full description of what is happening and what could happen are not known. For example, what is the mechanism in the cell that translates intention into electric pulses? Is the quanta level of the brain somehow involved in these communications?

In addition to applications in health care and the tie between psychology and physics, the research between mind and matter may have far reaching implications for biology, education, sociology, innovation, and the environment. While being interviewed, a prominent computer software and hardware developer said that people would one day be able to communicate with computers in three ways:  mechanically, verbally, and mentally.  Of the three, only the first has been perfected (through the mouse and keyboard).  The second is only partially perfected, and the third (the mental) is only in the initial stages of research. If scientists are correct, one day your brain may turn on your coffee maker before you wake up. Or, imagine how history might have changed if Sir Issac Newton knew how to mentally direct the apple away from his head.  

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New Science

This aspect of new science-the understanding of what is called quanta and related phenomena-paints interesting possibilities for the future and also suggests answers for specific unknowns about the past. Some quanta behavior may offer one explanation for psi or psychic phenomena, such as when you know someone is starring at you or going to call you. Telepathy, remote viewing, psychokinesis, precognitions or postcognitions, ESP and other intuitive phenomena could be directly related to (which is not necessarily causal) the relationship between and among quanta.

How did science make these discoveries? Quantum Theory, one of the major theories of the modern physics, is based on quantum mechanics (QM;) QM relies on the math found in the Schrodinger Equation. This equation, which is used to analyze and predict various physical quantities for electrons and other particles, has led physicists to the inevitable, if uncomfortable, conclusion that whenever an electron produces photons through orbit or other energy changes, the photons that are produced remain in contact with one another indefinitely and at any distance.

In time, this prediction of QM became known as the "nonlocal" effect, where nonlocal referring to action "at a distance." Quantum theory calls electrons and photons quanta, which means a definite or discreet amount of energy. Electron quanta are connected nonlocally by photon quanta, which appear to maintain the electron's information everywhere in space, in spite of the fact that they are in continual interaction with other quanta and are moving apart over vast subatomic or atomic distances.

If your imagination has a hard time incorporating the implications and potential applications of these discoveries, you are not alone. Nonlocal communication bothered Albert Einstein to the point where he called it "Spooky action at a distance." He and other scientists also concluded that quantum theory was not complete, and needed further explanations to account for quantum connection without a causative mechanism.

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One Potential Explanation: Spin Coupling

Although the exact means of nonlocal communication is not known, one explanation for the physical cause of the nonlocal effect lies in the "spin coupling" of electrons. In a pair of spin-coupled electrons, one electron has "up" spin and the other "down" spin. An electron's spin not only never changes, but spin itself is independent of the properties predicted by QM (energy, momentum, position), which all change constantly. Up-down electron pairs should remain coupled forever, with the up spin electron always sensing the physical condition of its opposite spin pair, the down spin electron. This can be tested scientifically, and has been several times. In experiments with lasers, the continuous stream of photons coming out of the laser contains the programming of both up and down spin electrons in equal amounts, thus indicating that half of the photons are produced by up spin electrons and the other half by down spin electrons. The conclusion of these experiments is that both spins are produced equally and remain connected as pairs nonlocally.

If you are asking yourself, "The theory of a sustained connection between quanta is interesting, but these are the smallest things known.  What do quanta have to do with me or larger things?"  The answer is:  electrons have to do with anything made of atoms and molecules, therefore, they have to do with everything including you.  All chemical and biochemical reactions, including those in living cells, involve the exchange of quanta between atoms and molecules.  Biophysicists have discovered that cells emit biophotons, which are quanta.  In technology, for example, the materials used in nanotechnologies, computer ships, and electronic devices all utilize and produce quanta.     

The quantum non-local effect cannot be dismissed as nothing more than the communication of information at the speed of light, something that also occurs with all electromagnetic waves, such as those that carry radio and TV signals.  The non-local effect is a sustained connection at a distance, independent of time and space, and is more powerful than the transmission of electromagnetic waves at the speed of light. 

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Consciousness: You, The Group, and the Non-local Effect 

In terms of physics, all material or physical activity is based on the action of quanta.  This includes the cell activity associated with the brain's mental functioning, and even its psychic functioning.  Thus, the interaction of the mind, quanta, and matter may be part of the success behind efforts to convert brain thought and imagery into action.     
        
Success has not been limited to limb prosthetics. Deaf people’s speech has also been aided when electrodes were implanted in their ears.  Because such a small number of sites were impacted by the ear implant, researchers assumed that results would be limited to helping people improve their lip reading.  However, researchers were surprised to learn that the people with implants were quite successful at understanding speech.  Once again, the mechanism behind this result is not understood.

These examples may indicate that the quantum level is operating in human functioning. We have seen that thought can be converted into action, but this is only half of what is possible, as the connection between quanta, mind, and matter also occurs nonlocally.  Currently, a new, refined theory, "quantum nonlocal holography," is being proposed to explain paranormal phenomena such as ESP. remote viewing, clairvoyance, etc.   This theory suggests that quanta from mental activity are stored in holographic patterns in space. The nonlocal effect then allows patterns imbedded in the space to communicate with each other.
         
While these examples focus on how your individual mind and quanta can interact with matter, well-known consciousness researcher, Dean Radin, explores the impact of group mind or collective consciousness on reality.  Using random number generators and the collaboration of laboratories all over the world, Radin has demonstrated repeatedly that when people all over the world are focused on a single event—the opening of the Olympics, for example—the shared field represented by the random number generator becomes more coherent.  Radin points out, that although we may not be able to influence the outcomes of events very powerfully as individuals, we may be able to achieve that influence as a group or collective. [For more Dean Radin info link to bio and chapters listed under New Science.]

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Ever-Expanding Understanding and Exploration
         
With proof that human consciousness-- thoughts and ideas—impacts the physical world of computers and can direct events, an entire new vista opens for technology.   Although the human world and the quanta world may not have the same ‘rules’, the discovery of nonlocality could imply that some day people, such as yourself, will communicate mentally not only with their computers and mechanical devices, but also that their thoughts will be communicated to others instantly regardless of distance or time.

If this is so, life as we know it will expand into the time/space continuum sometimes obliterate our existing boundaries and our linear experience of time.  These scientific discoveries in quantum physic have brought the human family to another fork in the road. Knowing our potential capacity to co-create or create reality, will humanity use that power and knowledge to develop a more harmonious, peaceful world or will we follow a more destructive path?

In the past, we have always thought that ‘only the future’ holds the answer to such questions.  But if the quantum physics explorations continue to unfold our understanding and large scale activities do reflect the tiny world of quanta (which is an assumption), we may have to face that we, our individual and collective consciousness, are responsible for influencing, if not creating, the future and are fully capable of knowing our chosen future in advance.

References     

Raymond Trevor Bradley, “The Psychophysiology of Intuition:  A Quantum-Holographic Theory of Nonlocal Communication,” World Futures, 63:61-97

G.M. Clark, “Cochlear Implants,” Neuroscience, 2000

Radin, Dean, The Conscious Universe, HarperOne, in San Francisco HarperOne, San Francisco, 1997

Stephen H. Scott, “Thoughts Into Action,” Neuroscience, Vol 442/ July 13, 2006

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