Infinite Potential: What Quantum Physics Reveals About How We Should Live - Hardcover

Schafer, Lothar

 
9780307985958: Infinite Potential: What Quantum Physics Reveals About How We Should Live
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0307985954 ISBN 13: 9780307985958
Verlag: Deepak Chopra, 2013

Inhaltsangabe

A hopeful and controversial view of the universe and ourselves based on the principles of quantum physics, offering a way of making our lives and the world better, with a foreword by Deepak Chopra

     In Infinite Potential, physical chemist Lothar Schäfer presents a stunning view of the universe as interconnected, nonmaterial, composed of a field of infinite potential, and conscious. With his own research as well as that of some of the most distinguished scientists of our time, Schäfer moves us from a reality of Darwinian competition to cooperation, a meaningless universe to a meaningful one, and a disconnected, isolated existence to an interconnected one. In so doing, he shows us that our potential is infinite and calls us to live in accordance with the order of the universe, creating a society based on the cosmic principle of connection, emphasizing cooperation and community.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Lothar Schäfer is the author of In Search of Divine Reality: Science as a Source of Inspiration and is a distinguished professor of physical chemistry (emeritus) at the University of Arkansas.

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Chapter 1

Materialism Is Wrong: The Basis of the Material World Is Nonmaterial

“Modern atomic theory is thus essentially different from that of antiquity in that it no longer allows any reinterpretation or elaboration to make it fit into a naive materialistic concept of the universe. For atoms are no longer material bodies in the proper sense of this word . . . the experiences of present-day physics show us that atoms do not exist as simple material objects.”

--Werner Heisenberg

The phenomena of quantum physics force us to believe that the basis of the visible world doesn’t rest on some material foundation, but on a realm of nonmaterial forms that have the properties of waves, as though our world were afloat on an invisible ocean.

Western philosophy was born in Greece in the years between 600 and 400 BCE. Basically, all the concepts and possible views of the world that have dominated the thinking of the Western mind originated at this time, when people were interested in finding some sort of primeval stuff, some primordial matter out of which everything else is made. It was the birth of materialism and of the concepts of elements and atoms; that is, the idea that all things are made up of some tiny units of matter. If you take a material object and divide it into smaller and smaller parts, or so the argument went, then you will eventually arrive at a level where you can divide no more, no matter how sharp your knife is. This is the level of the indivisible constituents of things: Atomos in Greek means “indi-visible.”

In a constantly shifting and confusing world, the Greeks searched for something lasting and trustworthy, and they believed they found it in stuff, matter. If stuff is the source and basis of everything, then it isn’t amazing that the word matter has a connotation with mother. This connotation isn’t found in its Sanskrit roots, but in Latin: Matter is materia; mother is mater. Matter is the mother of it all--something sacred--and materialism is its religion. Quite generally, words trigger inner images in you and affect what you are thinking. Their hidden meanings aren’t accidental.

In the sixth century BCE, the city of Elea in Italy was an important center of learning. At that time one of its citizens, Parmenides, founded a school of philosophy whose teachings still affect us today. Parmenides added the concepts of space and time to matter. He asserted that stuff is eternal, indestructible, and unchangeable and fills space solid. This makes “being” and “nonbeing” the same as “full” and “empty.” To be means to fill space solid. If something doesn’t fill space, it isn’t real.

These ideas dominated science for centuries. In his book on optics, Isaac Newton, for example, wrote about material particles that “God in the beginning formed Matter in solid, massy, hard, impenetrable, moveable Particles.” This is exactly the point of view of the ancient Greeks. Newton took great pride in the fact that his science needed “no hypotheses” because he was dealing with facts--but it isn’t clear how he knew for a fact the manner in which God at the beginning formed matter. He even went on to claim that the solid, hard, and impenetrable particles are “so very hard, as never to wear or break in pieces; no ordinary power being able to divide, what God himself made one in the first creation. . . . And therefore, that Nature may be lasting.” With Newton, the doctrine of materialism entered the physical sciences and, after that, public life. Its connection with God’s will confirms the impression that it has religious roots.

It is interesting that Newton spoke of elementary particles when he referred to the microscopic constituents of things. The roots of this word are related to the Latin particula, meaning a “small part” or “little piece,” and to partiri, which means “to divide.” You divide a thing; you end up with small parts: particles. It seems simple! The problem is that the concept implies that the particles that you find at the bottom of material things are as solid and permanent as the things that they form. But that isn’t so. This is what we will have to work out in the rest of this chapter: The elementary particles at the bottom of things aren’t lumps of matter in the ordinary sense of this word. As we shall see, they have wavelike properties, and the nature of these waves is closer to the nature of thoughts than things. So instead of calling them particles, it would be entirely justified to call these elementary building blocks elementary waves, or wavelets. And since these wavelets have thoughtlike properties, it would be perfectly all right to call them elementary thoughts. In this sense, your body is made up of elementary thoughts.



From Material Particles to Waves

How many people do you know who can drive a car? Probably a lot of them! How many of them can drive a car safely, even though they know very little about how it works? Many people can drive a car even if they have no idea what a fuel injection system or a piston is. They may not even know about gears, if they first learned to drive on an automatic car. And yet they can drive safely from point A to point B. Something like this is what I propose for you to do in this chapter: move from point A to point B.

Of course, our focus in this chapter has nothing to do with driving cars. Rather, the task we are facing is to take a piece of matter--some stuff--and turn it into numbers. At point A we are holding a material object in our hands--some massy thing--and then at point B this thing will have turned into a bunch of numbers. Mass gone! You can think that the numbers represent a mathematical form, such as a circle or a sphere.

Turning matter into nonmaterial numbers or mathematical forms is the easiest thing that you have ever done; you don’t even need a driver’s license. This is so because, at the level of elementary material particles, matter turns itself into numbers, spontaneously: All you have to do is to create the right environment and, bingo, it happens. If the conditions are right, elementary units of matter, such as electrons, atoms, and molecules, will spontaneously make transitions from a matterlike state into a numberlike state, in which they are no longer material particles but mathematical forms, patterns of information: very much like ideas.

What does this have to do with driving a car? Well, to get from point A to point B in the quantum world, you can proceed in the same way in which you drive a car: You have a couple of options. You can do it with the expertise of a mechanic, who understands all the technical details of the process that will get you from point A to point B; or, you can simply hit the road without worrying too much about the technicalities of driving.

To understand why the phenomena of quantum physics force us to think that material particles turn into mathematical forms when the conditions are right, you can proceed at different levels of technical insight: You can take some time out and get a PhD in physics, so that you’ll understand what is going on at a level where you can take the system apart into its nuts and bolts and enjoy putting it back together again. Alternatively, you can take a shortcut and consider the quantum phenomena as they appear to you, without getting into the bad habits of physicists--their passion for complex theories and their joy in advanced mathematical -analyses--and you can still get safely from point A (states of matter) to point B (states of numerical forms), understanding the essence of that process, even though you skip the technical...

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Verlag
Deepak Chopra
Erscheinungsdatum
2013
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0307985954
ISBN 13 
9780307985958
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
336
Kontakt zum Hersteller
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