Quantum mysticism

Quantum mysticism is a set of metaphysical beliefs and associated practices that seek to relate consciousness, intelligence, spirituality, or mystical worldviews to the ideas of quantum mechanics and its interpretations.[1][2][3][4][5][6] Quantum mysticism is considered by most scientists and philosophers to be pseudoscience[7][8] or quackery.[9][10][11]

Early controversy and resolution

Olav Hammer stated that Werner Heisenberg was so interested in India, that he got the nickname "The Buddha". However, states Hammer, in Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy (1959) there is no substantial trace of quantum mysticism and adds "In fact, Heisenberg discusses at length and endorses the decidedly non-mystical Copenhagen interpretation." Hammer also states "Schrödinger’s studies of Hindu mysticism never compelled him to pursue the same course as quantum metaphysicists such as David Bohm or Fritjof Capra." Hammer quotes Schrödinger's biographer, Walter J. Moore, according to whom these two interests (quantum physics and Hindu mysticism) were "strangely dissociated".[12]

Wigner

In 1961 Eugene Wigner wrote a paper, titled "Remarks on the mind–body question", suggesting that a conscious observer played a fundamental role in quantum mechanics,[13][14]:93 a part of the von Neumann–Wigner interpretation. While his paper would serve as inspiration for later mystical works by others,[13] Wigner's ideas were primarily philosophical and are not considered "in the same ballpark" as the mysticism that would follow.[15]

Appropriation by New Age thought

In the early 1970s New Age culture began to incorporate ideas from quantum physics, beginning with books by Arthur Koestler, Lawrence LeShan, and others which suggested that purported parapsychological phenomena could be explained by quantum mechanics.[14]:32 In this decade the Fundamental Fysiks Group emerged, a group of physicists who embraced quantum mysticism while engaging in parapsychology, Transcendental Meditation, and various New Age and Eastern mystical practices.[16] Inspired in part by Wigner,[13] Fritjof Capra, a member of the Fundamental Fysiks Group,[16] wrote The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (1975),[17] a book espousing New Age quantum physics that gained popularity among the non-scientific public.[14]:32 In 1979 came the publication of The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav,[18] a non-scientist and "the most successful of Capra's followers".[14]:32 The Fundamental Fysiks Group is said to be one of the agents responsible for the "huge amount of pseudoscientific nonsense" surrounding interpretations of quantum mechanics.[19]

Modern usage and examples

In contrast to the mysticism of the early twentieth century, today quantum mysticism typically refers to its New Age incarnation that claims to combine ancient mysticism with quantum mechanics.[10] Called a pseudoscience and a "hijacking" of quantum physics, it draws upon "coincidental similarities of language rather than genuine connections" to quantum mechanics.[8] Physicist Murray Gell-Mann coined the phrase "quantum flapdoodle" to refer to the misuse and misapplication of quantum physics to other topics.[20]

An example of such misuse is New Age guru Deepak Chopra's "quantum theory" that aging is caused by the mind, expounded in his books Quantum Healing (1989) and Ageless Body, Timeless Mind (1993).[20] In 1998 Chopra was awarded the parody Ig Nobel Prize in the physics category for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness".[21]

The 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!? dealt with a range of New Age ideas in relation to physics. It was produced by the Ramtha School of Enlightenment which was founded by J.Z. Knight, a channeler who said that her teachings were based on a discourse with a 35,000-year-old disembodied entity named Ramtha.[22] Featuring Fundamental Fysiks Group member Fred Alan Wolf,[19] the film misused some aspects of quantum mechanics—including the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the observer effect—as well as biology and medicine.[23] Numerous critics dismissed the film for its use of pseudoscience.[24][25]

I love that in quantum physics for some reason it's become an excuse to mock all of science. See it's nothing real, nothing true and whatever you think, that's how the world is. So if you think positively you remake the world positively according to this pseudo scientist explanation.

— Barbara Ehrenreich, Royal Society of Arts[26]

See also

Notes
  1. Athearn, D. (1994). Scientific Nihilism: On the Loss and Recovery of Physical Explanation (S U N Y Series in Philosophy). Albany, New York: State University Of New York Press.
  2. Edis, T. (2005). Science and Nonbelief. New York: Greenwood Press.
  3. Stenger, Victor (2003), Has Science Found God? The Latest Results in the Search for Purpose in the Universe, Prometheus Books, p. 373, ISBN 978-1-59102-018-9, archived from the original on October 19, 2014
  4. Edis, T. (2002). The Ghost in the Universe: God in Light of Modern Science. Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books.
  5. Crease, R. P. (1993). The Play of Nature (Indiana Series in the Philosophy of Technology). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
  6. Seager, W. (1999). Theories of Consciousness: An Introduction (Philosophical Issues in Science). New York: Routledge.
  7. Grim, Patrick (1982). Philosophy of Science and the Occult. SUNY Press. p. 87. ISBN 9781438404981. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  8. Collins, Tim (2 March 2010). Behind the Lost Symbol. Penguin Group US. p. 87. ISBN 9781101197615. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  9. Pigliucci, Massimo (2010-05-15). Nonsense on Stilts: How to Tell Science from Bunk. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226667874. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
  10. Stenger, Victor J. (January 1997). "Quantum Quackery". Skeptical Inquirer. Vol. 21. no. 1.
  11. Shermer, Michael (January 2005). "Quantum Quackery". Scientific American.
  12. Hammer, Olav (1 September 2003). Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. BRILL. p. 279. ISBN 90-04-13638-X.
  13. Zyga, Lisa (8 June 2009). "Quantum Mysticism: Gone but Not Forgotten". Phys.org.
  14. Leane, Elizabeth (2007). Reading Popular Physics: Disciplinary Skirmishes and Textual Strategies. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. ISBN 9780754658504.
  15. Schweber, Silvan (September 2011). "How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival". Physics Today. 64 (9): 59–60. Bibcode:2011PhT....64i..59S. doi:10.1063/PT.3.1261.
  16. Kaiser, David (2011). How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture, and the Quantum Revival. W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 9780393082302.
  17. Capra, Fritjof (1975). The Tao of Physics: An Exploration of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism. Boston: Shambhala Publications.
  18. Zukav, Gary (1979). The Dancing Wu Li Masters. New York: William Morrow And Company, Inc.
  19. Woit, Peter (July–August 2011). "Fun with Fysiks". American Scientist.
  20. Stenger, Victor J. (2009). Quantum Gods: Creation, Chaos and the Search for Cosmic Consciousness. Prometheus Books. p. 8. ISBN 9781615920587.
  21. The 1998 Ig Nobel Prize Winners
  22. Gorenfeld, John (16 September 2004). ""Bleep" of faith". Salon.
  23. Hobbs, Bernie (30 June 2005). "What the bleep are they on about?". Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  24. Wilson, Elizabeth (2005-01-13). "What the Bleep Do We Know?!". American Chemical Society. Retrieved 2007-12-19.
  25. "Britain's best scientific brains give us their verdicts on a film about quantum physics". The Guardian. 16 May 2005. Retrieved 12 August 2014.
  26. Ehrenreich, Barbara (2010). "Smile or Die". Royal Society of Arts. Retrieved April 20, 2018.

Further reading
Publications relating to quantum mysticism
Criticism of quantum mysticism
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