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Quantum Mechanics and Reality, by Thomas J McFarlane

Quantum Mechanics and Reality, by Thomas J McFarlane
© Thomas J. McFarlane 1995www.integralscience.org Most traditional [spiritual] paths were developed in prescientific cultures. Consequently, many of their teachings are expressed in terms of cosmologies or world views which we no longer find relevant. . .The question then naturally arises: Is it possible to incorporate both science and mysticism into a single, coherent world view? . . .Up until the first quarter of the twentieth century science was wedded to a materialist philosophy which was inherently antagonistic to all forms of religious insight. With the advent of quantum physics, however, this materialist philosophy has become scientifically untenable. The primary purpose of this essay is to explain how quantum mechanics shows that the materialistic common sense notion of reality is an illusion, i.e., that the objective existence of the world is an illusion. Now listen to Niels Bohr, the pioneer of 20th century physics: Consider the words of Shankara, the famous Hindu philosopher:

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Quantum physics says goodbye to reality Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra "hidden variables". Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism -- giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871). Quantum spacetime In mathematical physics, the concept of quantum spacetime is a generalization of the usual concept of spacetime in which some variables that ordinarily commute are assumed not to commute and form a different Lie algebra. The choice of that algebra still varies from theory to theory. As a result of this change some variables that are usually continuous may become discrete. Often only such discrete variables are called "quantized"; usage varies.

Body Atlas Reveals Where We Feel Happiness and Shame Yellow shows regions of increased sensation while blue areas represent decreased feeling in these composite images. Image courtesy of Lauri Nummenmaa, Enrico Glerean, Riitta Hari, and Jari Hietanen. Chests puffing up with pride — and happiness felt head to toe — are sensations as real as they are universal. And now we can make an atlas of them. Alice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of Quantum Mechanics by a CERN Physicist by Maria Popova Down the rabbit hole of antimatter, or how to believe six impossible things about gender stereotypes before breakfast. As a lover of science and of all things Alice in Wonderland, imagine my delight at discovering Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum Physics (public library) — an imaginative and unusual 1995 quantum primer by particle physicist Robert Gilmore, who has under his belt experience at Stanford and CERN. Besides the clever concept, two things make the book especially remarkable: It flies in the face of gender stereotypes with a female protagonist who sets out to make sense of some of the most intense science of all time, and it features Gilmore’s own magnificent illustrations for a perfect intersection of art and science, true to recent research indicating that history’s most successful scientists also dabbled in the arts.

to be wearable Illustration (123RF) This year’s Consumer Electronics Show ushered in a new term that is destined to become as common as “Google” in the near future: wearables. The term “wearable” refers to technology devices that have been transformed into something that can be worn by a user. According to lawofficer.com, in just the past few years, the introduction of wearable cameras for law enforcement officers has begun to shape the public safety wearable marketplace. Recent reports surfaced that the New York City Police Department had acquired two pairs of Google Glass but NYPD isn’t the only agency considering wearables for law enforcement, though. In its “Connected Law Enforcement Officer” campaign, Motorola envisions not only body-worn video for the future of law enforcement, but many other technology advances.

Quantum entanglement Quantum entanglement is a physical phenomenon that occurs when pairs or groups of particles are generated or interact in ways such that the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently – instead, a quantum state may be given for the system as a whole. Such phenomena were the subject of a 1935 paper by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen,[1] describing what came to be known as the EPR paradox, and several papers by Erwin Schrödinger shortly thereafter.[2][3] Einstein and others considered such behavior to be impossible, as it violated the local realist view of causality (Einstein referred to it as "spooky action at a distance"),[4] and argued that the accepted formulation of quantum mechanics must therefore be incomplete. History[edit] However, they did not coin the word entanglement, nor did they generalize the special properties of the state they considered. Concept[edit]

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Synergetics (Fuller) Synergetics is the empirical study of systems in transformation, with an emphasis on total system behavior unpredicted by the behavior of any isolated components, including humanity's role as both participant and observer. Since systems are identifiable at every scale from the quantum level to the cosmic, and humanity both articulates the behavior of these systems and is composed of these systems, synergetics is a very broad discipline, and embraces a broad range of scientific and philosophical studies including tetrahedral and close-packed-sphere geometries, thermodynamics, chemistry, psychology, biochemistry, economics, philosophy and theology. Despite a few mainstream endorsements such as articles by Arthur Loeb and the naming of a molecule "buckminsterfullerene," synergetics remains an iconoclastic subject ignored by most traditional curricula and academic departments.

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