Prospero:

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd tow'rs, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

W. SHAKESPEARE - "Tempest" Act 4, Scene 1

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A few days ago I listened to a program entitled Parts OF A Whole where Michael Toms, of New Dimensions Radio, interviewed David Bohm, the world renouned physicist whose approach to quantum physics addressed the totality of existence, including matter and consciousness, as an unbroken whole.

Today we tend to take this approach for granted, forgetting how long it took for the human mind to be able to apprehend reality as an interactive and subjectively perceived phenomenon, rather than an objectively observable, relatively stable ground of being. However, when one realizes that this interview took place in 1983, one cannot help but to feel humbled by Dr. Bohm's brilliance.

I hope you will take the time to listen to this interview. Aside from the fact that it is an interesting and entertaining exchange, Dr. Bohm raises an issue of the utmost importance for the future of our species and of the planet we inhabit. I feel so strongly about this that, if I were in charge of things, I would make it a mandatory requirement, for anyone pursuing any kind of higher education, that in order to be admitted in class he or she must first listen to, and show an understanding of, this program's content. Or, to be more precise, of its implications.

Are you curious? What could this thing be about? And how could it be so relevant to us humans and to the earth?

And what could a 1983 interview reveal, that we should pay so much attention to it?

Most of all....what does any of this have to do with dreams?

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Come join us tonight for our usual "Every Other Thursday Night In NYC" group meeting, located at 301 West 55th Street, buzzer # 4, and you shall find out, once and for all.

Look forward to a quantum bit of dream exploration with you.

Don't miss it. For real.

rma

Here is one of my favorite short videos about one of my favorite subjects.

I call it the "Q2s" (pronounced cue-too's), for Quantum Quirks. The whole thing lasts about 45 minutes, and it is remarkably interesting (although I could do without the preamble, which drags on a bit). I am grateful to the Center for Sacred Sciences for putting it out, as I'm sure you will be, after you watch it.

I find that, many of these cute little educational pieces, often have titles like "Quantum Weirdness" or "A Quantum Paradox", implying that it is the Quantum theoretical approach that's kind of cooky, originating as it does, within a branch of the scientific community that is notoriously populated by really smart blokes with unmanageable hair and no sense of fashion.

But this is highly misleading. It isn't Quantum Physics that's weird. If you were a scientist who works with these ideas, you too wouldn't care if your socks matched, since you'd have to face, day in and day out, what your chosen field of research reveals, i.e. that it's all a great big joke.

What is a great big joke, some may ask?

Everything. Especially since... actually.... there is nothing.

What do you mean there is nothing? (I'm making up a dialogue now, but it's still just me, answering my own questions).

Well, when we look at what things are made of, and by things I mean objects, people, trees, cats, French Fries, stars, black holes, wheat grass juice, etc. etc., all matter, in other words, we discover that everything is made of empty space. Except that, when we look into this empty space, trying to find the actual "thing" we are looking at, a few specks of stuff show up, here and there, more or less where we expect to find them.

The whole thing is so empty, that one is left wondering if these few subatomic particles showed up out of pity for us, the observer, just so we wouldn't walk away from our "experiments" totally empty handed.

That's it, in a nutshell.

If that's all true, what happens when we don't look for things? Do they disappear? Are they still there while we are gone? And if not, where do they go? Is there an objective reality we can count on to exist independently from our observations? One that is always there and is exactly as we see it?

Yes and no.

What do you mean yes and no?

I mean just that. The answer is yes, but it's also no, at the same time.

That can't be.

You heard what the great physicist Bhor said: "If you aren't shocked by the implications of this theory, you didn't really get it".

That is precisely as it is. You, me, your favorite aunt, you dog, the person you have a crush on, your grocer, bank teller, your plumber, your childhood, our lives...the whole universe, exist ONLY in the mind of the beholder, you, even though appearances make it look otherwise.

What? How? Who? Where? Why?

I know, the questions keep coming, and there is no end in sight.

But you see, that's precisely how I feel about it.

With this newly acquired awareness of reality staring at us in the face all the time, I don't know how anyone can take in this information and go on living as if its implications didn't mean much on the practical level. To me, they mean everything! I mean...nothing! I mean...both!

Well, anyway...

Maybe it's easier to live a life on solid ground, even if that ground exists only in our imagination. Personally, I prefer to build cognitive bridges between my perceptual experience, still functioning as if I lived in a Newtonian world, while knowing for a fact that none of it is real and that things exist only if and when I decide to believe that they do.

Fascinating? I agree.

Interested in exploring it in depth?

Absolutely. And that's one of the main reasons why I started the now famous:

"Every Other Thursday Night Group in NYC!"

 

We initially called ourselves "The End of Suffering Group", but that sounded too Buddhist, so we decided for "The Power of Ciao", and hopped over to the side of silliness, just to cover all of our bases, with one  single, graceful leap (which, among other results, accomplished the goal of scaring away anyone who might have joined us in order to attain any kind of spiritual development).

But that name doesn't really explain why we gather.

And so, even though at the moment we don't have a permanent name, we persist, convinced as we are that we don't need a clever name in order to continue in our explorations. All we need is coherence of intention, and that, we seem to have plenty of.

Join us, if you dare, tomorrow night, Thursday February 19th, from 7 to 10 PM, at 301 West 55th Street, in NYC, buzzer # 4. After watching a video of entertaining Quantum Physics experiments, we'll continue our journey of self-directed self-discovery, in honor of our true selfhood, and motivated by entirely selfish motives.

Our current goal?

Understanding and mastering human intentionality, a study based on the work of Lynne McTaggart, author of The Field.

I really hope you'll join us, tomorrow and in the future.

What future?

Yes, I know. That's for another post.

rma

 

Quantumbytz: who's observing whom