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a “new physics” of the soul
until very recently, science has concerned itself with defining the universe’s attributes as
objective processes. little attempt was made to consider subjective processes as they are.
however many fields of thought including philosophy, metaphysics, and psychology borrow
from science, particularly physics, as they attempt to deal with the problems facing humanity.
undoubtedly these fields use metaphors from physics to describe the intangible elements in
them. usually these metaphors are based on classical science and the assumption of
reductionism. with the discovery of quantum physics and its present strength in describing a
wide range of physical phenomenon, new metaphors are emerging making it easier to grasp the
most arcane subjective processes known.
3yet, as we near the end of the 20th
century science is attempting to define consciousness
as a phenomenon emerging from simpler physical processes. the greatest effort seems to be
aimed at the wrong question, namely: how does a self-aware entity emerge from deeper and
more elementary physical processes? the answer may be: it doesn’t, and that is very difficult to
deal with in today’s reductionistic science.
my aim here is to set up a metaphorical “new physics” of the soul using quantum physics
as a basis for the metaphor. i remind the reader that subjective processes elude the objective
scientific seeker for a variety of reasons. hence we need new metaphors to describe subjective
processes involving consciousness. in my “new soul physics” i will show how the soul, the self,
matter, and consciousness are, although related, not equivalent. present science would
incorrectly reduce the soul and consciousness to purely objective physical and mechanical
energy. at best the soul would appear as an epiphenomenon generated by material processes.
when we bring in quantum physics we see the soul as a process involving the subjective
consciousness of knowledge. this internal process is postulated to occur in the vacuum of space
in the presence or absence of both matter and energy. from the inclusion of quantum physics in
the description of the soul, it becomes apparent why the soul is immortal—beginning when the
universe of space, time, and matter first appear and ending when the universe returns to the
nothing from whence it came. the major activity of the soul is manifestation of matter and
energy and the shaping of the material world by knowledge. this idea can be traced to plato’s
idealistic vision of the soul. it can also be traced back to ancient qabala, and its concept of void
and spirit. both manifestation of the world and the soul’s knowledge of it are then tied to
quantum physics principles, specifically the observer effect and the uncertainty principle.
the soul is a virtual process and not an entity
i propose a new vision of the soul here, one that explores many of our earlier concepts in light of
the tenets of modern science, particularly based as this vision is on the existence of an
“intangible, irreducible field of probability”—the quantum physical wave function, from which
all physical matter and energy arise.
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many, ranging from modern scientists to perhaps the buddha, introduce great confusion
into the search by not differentiating between spirit, soul, and self. based on my research, the
spirit appears to be virtual vibrations of vacuum energy, the soul turns out to be reflections of
those virtual vibrations in time (i’ll explain what a virtual process is momentarily), and the self is
an illusion arising from reflections of the soul in matter, appearing as the bodily senses as
suggested by the buddha. hence the three are related but essentially different.
the quantum wave function demonstrates what i mean by a virtual process—one that has
an effect even though it is not a result in fact. thus this wave function, although never measured,
has extremely important physical consequences. the soul arises along side this intangible field
of probability—as virtual processes in the vacuum of space. these processes appear much like
reflections of so-called “real” processes occurring in everyday life. however, these virtual
processes have a life of their own, and even though they are never observable themselves they
account for even the simplest things that we do observe.
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in other words, the soul is a virtual process and not an entity. without it there is no
awareness of entity. metaphorically, i believe the soul involves us in a manner similar to the
way virtual processes involve the ordinary processes of material existence. we know that in
quantum physics virtual processes are extremely important. an example of this is whenever light
scatters from atoms or molecules, such as in the everyday occurrence of sunlight scattering from
air molecules and producing the blue sky of the heavens, virtual electronic processes are
involved.
consider what the electrons in air molecules must do to accommodate this fact. it is
fantastic. when light scatters from an atom, each atomic electron excites itself by literally
absorbing energy from the light, even more energy than the light contains! each electron also
moves away from that atom in incremental steps from just a few atomic dimensions to an infinite
distance all the way across the galaxy! then each electron makes the long journey back to where
it started, again in incremental steps, giving back all of the energy it had absorbed from the light.
in the end, the debt of energy is paid back and the light is re-emitted in a different direction from
whence it came.
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all of this takes place in literally no time at all as a virtual or imaginary process. it
appears to the outside world that a particle of light has simply scattered from the atom with no
change in energy at all and no obvious escape of electrons from the atom. yet without all of that
going on, it is impossible to account for the scattering pattern of light observed when light
interacts with any atoms or molecules. in other words, the sky is blue because electrons take
virtual journeys to the vacuum and back!
the vacuum is fundamentally unstable. anything that comes into existence arose from it
through the soul’s desire to manifest. this desire governs both the appearance of all matter and
through the effect of observation spelled out by quantum physics, the relationship of a unified
consciousness to matter. thus the soul cannot be seen either materialistically or
reductionistically. in fact the soul cannot be seen as a mechanical physical thing, at all. the
soul’s fundamental purpose is the shaping of knowledge into material form.
here i leave contemporary science’s search for the material basis of consciousness and
self-awareness and offer a new and original concept. i wish to show that the self is
fundamentally an illusion arising as a reflection of the soul in matter much as a clear lake at
midnight reflects the moon. at the same time, the soul is not an illusion although it is a
reflection of spirit. (i’ll define what i mean by spirit shortly.) from this we will see how the
concept of self differs vitally from the soul.
in separating soul and self it is natural to ask why. as i see it, the soul and the self must
dialogue with each other and maintain a separation in consciousness. soul speaks to each of its
many illusions called selves. ludvik bass, in his paper, “the mind of wigner’s friend.”
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concluded that there is only one consciousness or one mind and hence one soul. from this it
follows that the sense that your mind is separate from another’s must be false. thus the little
bodymind or ego, the one we count when we count heads or play musical chairs, is an illusion.
the bodies are real, but the separated souls are not.
i conclude that consciousness--the field by which the soul communicates with the self—
is a singular noun whose plural is meaningless. yet you and i each feel we are uniquely
conscious. certainly, at times, we have heard a nagging voice inside our heads urging us to take
some form of action or possibly to cool it. even if we failed to hear that voice inside our heads
speaking as if someone else were actually there, we are aware of being conscious. much as if
someone had turned on a television receiver when no station was broadcasting, the buzz of our
conscious minds, like a hive of bees in a field of clover, asserts itself. if this buzzing field is
directly attributed to the presence of the soul within each of us--and, as bass has shown, this field
cannot be personalized--you and i face the paradox of a single potential voice, a world-soul
residing in each of us, capable of speaking to us as if broadcast from a single television antenna,
no matter where we are in space or when we existed in time.
the soul-voice speaks to us instantaneously in spite of any apparent separation in space
or time. therefore we conclude that this soul-voice clearly exists not only within each of us, but
also without. i am convinced this voice can be heard inside of you, and i assume that you are
convinced it can be heard inside of me. we seem to face the nonspatial or nonlocal
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