THE OBSERVER EFFECT

 

I recently read a review of a new best-selling fictional book simply titled OBSERVER.  It caught my attention because I remembered reading about a scientific experiment result in 1998 that was completely unexpected when the researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science encountered the Observer Effect.  They were conducting a double split fork experiment with electrons at the subatomic level beamed at the fork.  In short, the particles behaved like waves, but when a conscious, quantum observer was present, they behaved like particles.  The researchers were forced to conclude that the mere act of observation affected the outcome which has raised all sorts of speculation.  Robert Lanza’s new novel explores the notion that time, space and even reality all ultimately depend upon us, the observers.

Consciousness can be defined as being mindful or aware of oneself as a thinking, feeling being.  We realize with awe the miracle of a body that is informed by this extraordinary thing we call life that we take for granted almost every day.  The fateful day we realize this eternal truth is the beginning of a lifelong spiritual journey.

God is a conscious spiritual being and we are conscious mortal beings.  We were created in his image, so we can expect parallels in our existence.  His being occupies the universe like our consciousness occupies our body.  By liberating the spaces in our lives and minds that are filled with clutter and chatter, we allow the presence of God to more easily occupy that space!

If two particles are entangled and if you observe one of them, then the other is affected even if they’re far apart.  That communication is instantaneous, suggesting there is no space between them and no time influencing their behavior.  Aldous Huxley in his book, The Doors of Perception” theorizes that our brain possibly acts as a mental filter to help us survive on this planet.  We’re only capable of perceiving the material world around us versus the infinite sea of consciousness

We only consciously know the information that our five senses perceive.  However, consciousness does not simply observe the universe, we create it collectively.  Even though a table is mostly composed of empty space at the subatomic level, we collectively consider it as a solid at the macro-level.  The particles of atoms consist of a nucleus surrounded by electrons that revolve in extremely vast regions of empty space.  Man has now determined that there are no solid objects at the subatomic level.   A subatomic particle is a set of relationships that reach out and interconnect, not with objects, but with other interconnections.  Light travels in waves and as particles (photons) at the speed of light.  The photons collide with the air, in a cosmic dance of continuous creation and destruction, a ceaseless flow of energy going through a multiplicity of patterns.  The waves are abstract patterns of probabilities or relationships.   At the subatomic level there is a continual exchange of matter and energy between us and everything around us.  We're all part of one inseparable web of relationships.  

  J. P. Moreland reasons that, “Consciousness cannot be reduced merely to the physical brain.  Our consciousness came from a greater consciousness.  You see, the Christian worldview begins with thought and feeling and desire and choice.  That is, God is conscious.  God has thoughts.  He has beliefs, he has desires, he has awareness, he’s alive, he acts with a purpose.  We start there and because we start with the mind of God, we don’t have a problem explaining the origin of our mind.  …he’s invisible because that’s the way conscious beings are.  I have no inclination to doubt that this very room is teeming with the very presence of God.”

Jill Bolte Taylor writing in My Stroke of Insight perceived life through the restricted lens of only her right brain after a stroke incapacitated her left hemisphere.  She observed that her self-concept was no longer a solid with boundaries, but a fluid.  Operating without the constant "brain chatter" from her left hemisphere left her feeling one with the universe.  Mystics and serious practitioners can also reach that ultimate present moment state of nirvana. 

Taylor writes, “The innate differences we each experience...to stimulation contributes greatly to how we perceive the world…When I lost my left hemisphere and its language centers, I also lost the clock that would break my moments into consecutive brief instances.  Instead of having my moments prematurely stunted, they became open-ended, and I felt no rush to do anything. 

My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from the entities around me.  I understood that at the most elementary level, I am a fluid.  Of course, I am a fluid!  Everything around us, about us, among us, within us, and between us is made up of atoms and molecules vibrating in space. 

My left hemisphere had been trained to perceive myself as a solid, separate from others.  Now, released from that restrictive circuitry, my right hemisphere relished in its attachment to the eternal flow.  I was no longer isolated and alone.  My soul was as big as the universe and frolicked with glee in a boundless sea… Our right brain perceives the big picture and recognizes that everything around us, about us, among us, and within us is made up of energy particles that are woven together into a universal tapestry.  Since everything is connected, there is an intimate relationship between the atomic space around and within me, and the atomic space around and within you—regardless of where we are.

One of the many conclusions in the book refers back to the famous two-slit experiment which asks the question, “How can a particle ‘out there’ change its behavior depending on whether you watch it or not?  The answer is simple—reality is a process that involves our consciousness.”

CONSCIOUSNESS

Waves, Jamestown, NC
Particles, Jamestown, NC

Science has been making some very profound discoveries and observations lately. USA TODAY announced in 2014 that the “smoking gun” needed to validate the inflation theory of the Big Bang has now been detected by a telescope in Antarctica. The team of U.S. scientists detected the tiny ripples in the cosmic microwave background that affected light created some 13.5 billion years ago. The universe was smaller than a marble just after the Big Bang when it expanded violently and instantaneously. The Bible is no science book and the narrative in Genesis simply states that our God, a conscious spiritual being, spoke the universe into existence. The three big things that astrophysicists are still looking for in the cosmos are dark matter, dark energy and extraterrestrial life. And science still does not have a good scientific answer for the creation of the universe.

Dr. Robert Lanza has been voted the third most important scientist alive by the NY Times. His initial background was in the biology field, but lately he has ventured into the world of physics, quantum mechanics and astrophysics. His biological perspective has enabled him to recently coin the term “biocentrism”, which postulates that life and consciousness are fundamental to the universe. In fact, he reasons that since the ultrafine-tuned laws, forces and constants of the universe sustain life, intelligence must have existed prior to matter. And it is consciousness that creates the material universe, not the common reverse theory. The mystery that is our consciousness can be defined as being mindful or aware of oneself as a thinking, feeling being. Our perception of our surroundings is limited to the brain’s interpretation of the stimuli received from our five senses. We humans have enough receptor cones in our eyes to see a rainbow of colors, but a dog cannot distinguish orange or red. “Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no observer is present”? We perceive the “sound” when disturbed air waves reach our ear drum and electrical impulses are interpreted by our brain. But no sound exists without an observer! The same logic follows with our other senses. Space and time are merely tools for our animal understanding and our God transcends them both.

Folks naturally identify themselves with their body, as we are conscious mortal beings. Many believe that when the body perishes, that’s it. But Lanza agrees with other scientists that no physical laws exist which would prohibit the existence of multiple universes. And our consciousness and soul may have been created right along with everything else at the Big Bang. Our nervous system and brain could be the receptors of this consciousness and the primary sites of quantum processing until our body expires. And then this information with our consciousness merges into another dimension apart from the body. In an era that now routinely resuscitates human bodies from clinical death, especially heart failures, more and more folks are returning back to the living with extraordinary spiritual accounts that try our sensibilities. The spectacular colors some perceive can only be related to our earthly experience with rare jewels.

One of the fascinating and thought-provoking premises of biocentrism is that “the animal observer creates reality and not the other way around…without perception there can be no reality”. Quantum theory tells us that everything in nature has a particle nature and a wave nature. Lanza discusses the “act of observation” in a famous two-hole experiment which “goes straight to the core of quantum physics…if one watches a sub-atomic particle or a bit of light pass through slits in a barrier…it behaves like a particle…it logically passes through one or the other hole…But if the scientists do not observe the particle, then it exhibits the behavior of waves that retain the right to exhibit all possibilities, including somehow passing through both holes at the same time”. German physicist Max Born demonstrated back in 1926 that quantum waves are waves of probability, not waves of material. This phenomenon applies to small discrete particles like photons or electrons. Large objects like a bus have smaller wavelengths that are too close together to be measured. A subatomic particle has been defined as a set of relationships that reach out and interconnect, not with objects, but with other interconnections. Lanza concludes that “without consciousness, matter dwells in an undetermined state of probability. Any universe that could have preceded consciousness only existed in a probability state”. The Bible informs us that human beings were created for relationship with the reasoning power and free will to make the conscious decision to either accept or reject other human beings and even our Creator.

Bernard Haisch has proposed a mind bending theory about consciousness in his book, “The God Theory”. He contends that “ultimately it is consciousness that is the origin of matter, energy, and the laws of nature in this universe and all others that may exist. And the purpose is for God to experience his potential. God’s ideas and abilities become God’s experience in the life of every sentient being…God experiences the richness of his potential through us because we are the incarnations of him in the physical realm.” Many scientists are proponents of the universe of reductionism in which “everything can be reduced to the behavior of particles of matter and energy”, completely apart from any spiritual connection. As a learned astrophysicist Ph.D., he contends that our consciousness is the ultimate connection to God, the spiritual creative force in the universe and the source of all consciousness. While we are in our everyday state of consciousness, we remain aware of our surroundings through the filter of the physical world. But mystics who are conditioned to enter the unfiltered state of ultimate consciousness or nirvana experience a state of peace, love and bliss, something Haisch defines as “a concentration point within a single universal consciousness”. Haisch writes that “My inner life of thought and awareness utterly denies that my consciousness is nothing more than an inanimate, chemical creation. I know better, and so do you.”

Consciousness exists apart from the body and survives death. The temporary physical world was created for the development and evolution of conscious human beings. Our natural timeless home lies in the wider supernatural realm of our conscious spiritual Creator. We are not only IN this universe, but we are OF this universe. Paul writes in his letter to the Ephesians (4:4-5), "There is one body and one spirit...one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all”. And we were created in God's image!

"The human consciousness is really homogeneous. There is no complete forgetting, even in death."--D.H. Lawrence