Integral Science

In the second programme of his two-part series "The Secrets of Quantum Physics" on  BBC 4, Jim Al-Khalili dealt with several interesting examples from biology, showing how modern interpretations have become intrinsically based on principles from quantum mechanics. For example he explained how the navigation of the robin is seemingly based on the quantum entanglement, or what Einstein famously referred to as "spooky action at a distance". This enables the robin to detect minute changes with respect to the Earth's magnetic field associated with distinctive types of quantum entanglement associated with paired electrons. He then went on to explain how the modern explanation of smell relates - in a manner akin to sound - to the vibrations of the chemical bonds holding molecules together. The previous explanation based on the structure of component molecules neatly locking into appropriate sense receptor molecules (associated with a characteristic scent) could not...

I enjoyed watching Professor Jim Al-Khalili's account of the development of quantum physics "The Secrets of Quantum Physics"with the first episode "Einstein's Nightmare" shown last night on BBC 4. Though I had both read about and listened to the discussion of these ideas many times before, I always welcome a new imaginative way of presentation, which can lead one to seeing the issues involved in a new light. What was discussed last night culminated with the Einstein-Podolsky Paradox, which though formulated in 1935 could only be satisfactorily tested much later (largely due to the original theoretical contribution of John Bell). As we know, Einstein was deeply unhappy with the philosophical implications of quantum mechanics, where sub-atomic events seemingly were based on chance and probability. He believed that acceptance of non-local causation would imply communication between particles faster than the speed of light, which thereby would violate a ke...

I was struck by this following quotation when looking through once more Marcus du Sautoy's very readable "Music of the Primes". "When we observe an event in the quantum world, it is though we are not seeing the event itself in its natural domain, but a shadow of the event projected into our 'real world' of ordinary numbers." From a Jungian perspective this lends itself to a direct complementary comparison with the nature of unconscious experience from a psychological perspective. In other words we cannot observe what pertains to the unconscious mind directly. Rather when we observe an event in the unconscious world, it is as though we are not seeing the event in its natural (i.e. unconscious domain) but a shadow of the event projected into our 'real world' of conscious experience. The implications here are highly important as it entails that we cannot hope to understand the sub-atomic quantum nature of reality within the current scientifi...