A
friend asked this good question:
>Bhante
does physical matter actually exist, when not observed
by the mind?
Answer:
'Matter'
can only be perceived by mind. Matter without mind
involved is thus a dogmatic belief,
an idea, an incomplete & unverifiable view
philosophically called Naïve realism, Materialism or
simple Physicalism:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naive_realism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Materialism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physicalism
However the Buddhist knows that the physical world 'out
there' is only an internal mental
representation! The Buddha thus said:
"This World both Begins and Ends within this 2 fathom
frame of bones..." SN I 62
"The ALL is thereby actually just a sensed & experienced
representation..." SN IV 15
"When consciousness stops then solidity, fluidity, heat
and motion also ceases without trace..."
It does therefore not give any rational meaning to speak
of a world not
observed
by mind,
since any 'real=empirical=not hypothetical world' has to
be verified by the observing mind!
When we speak about a 'material world', what really is
present and real, right there and then,
is a duality
of a mental mind observing a physical object.
That is:
Consciousness & it's object!
These two = mind-matter = nama-rupa
are utterly inseparable...!
http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/Out_in.htm
http://what-buddha-said.net/drops/V/The_Fact_of_No-Self_Anatta.htm
Interestingly is this fact supported by orthodox
contemporary Quantum-Mechanics
which rejects the principle
of a “local reality” 'out there' independent of
observation:
The
False Principle of local reality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality
The
Fact of Non-locality:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_nonlocality
Non-locality: Stapp on Implications of the Bell
Experiment:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFkaGlrBJR8&NR=1
The Non-Local Universe: The New Physics and
Matters
of the Mind.
By:
Robert Nadeau,
Menas Kafatos
http://www.amazon.com/Non-Local-Universe-Physics-Matters-Mind/dp/0195144082
Assuming
the existence and properties of objects, before they
have been observed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counterfactual_definiteness
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schroedinger%27s_cat
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wigner%27s_friend
American physics grand old man
John Archibald Wheeler
said:
"No phenomenon is a phenomenon, until it is an Observed
Phenomenon...!"
"We are participators in bringing into being, not only
the near, but also the
far away both in time and space! Symbolic
representation of the Universe is
a self-excited system brought into being by
self-reference or auto-creation
by consciously selecting
observers over an immensely long period of time...
Such a recursive-reflecting creative concept is similar
to the endless series
of receding reflections one sees in a pair of
mirrors facing each others....”
Reference:
J.A. Wheeler in Isham et al., eds., Quantum
Gravity
(Clarendon, Oxford, 1975), pgs.
564-565. (Edited Extract.)
"The path of the electron comes into existence,
only when we observe it."
John S. Bell
“Observations not
only disturb, what has to be measured,
they produce it!
We compel
[the
electron] to assume a definite position! We - ourselves
-
produce the results of the measurements.” Pascual
Jordan quoted by in:
Max Jammer: The Philosophy of Quantum Mechanics, Wiley,
1974 p. 161.
"Fundamental to contemporary Quantum Theory is the
notion that there is
no phenomenon until it is observed! This is known
as the 'Observer
Effect'.
The implications of the 'Observer
Effect'
are profound because, if true,
it means that before anything can manifest in the
physical universe it must
first be observed! This
Observer Effect
clearly implies that all the
physical
Universe is the direct result of consciousness
itself!"
Alex Paterson.
The
stuff of the world is mind-stuff.
(Eddington, The Nature of the Physical
World)
The old dualism of mind and matter... seems likely to
disappear ...
through substantial matter resolving itself into a creation
and
manifestation of the mind.
(Jeans, The Mysterious Universe)
The only acceptable point of view appears to be the one that
recognizes
both sides of reality—the quantitative and the qualitative,
the physical
and the psychical—as compatible with each other, and can
embrace them
simultaneously. (Pauli, Writings on
Physics and Philosophy)
The conception of the objective reality of the elementary
particles has
thus evaporated not into the cloud of some obscure new
reality concept,
but into the transparent clarity of a mathematics that
represents no longer
the behaviour of the particle but rather our knowledge of
this behaviour.
(Heisenberg, The Representation of
Nature in Contemporary Physics)
Further ramifications of no mind-observer-independent
reality:
Do Physicists bid farewell to reality?
http://www.nature.com/news/2007/070416/full/news070416-9.html
Bruce
Rosenblum,
Fred
Kuttner
+
Mind, Matter and Quantum Mechanics
Henry P. Stapp
Springer, 2009 - Science - 300 pages "Scientists other
than quantum physicists
often
fail to comprehend the enormity of the conceptual change
wrought by quantum
theory
in our basic conception of the nature of matter," writes
Henry Stapp. Stapp
is
a leading quantum physicist who has given particularly
careful thought to the
implications
of the theory that lies at the heart of modern physics.
In this book,
which
contains several of his key papers as well as new
material, he focuses on the
problem
of consciousness and explains how quantum mechanics
allows causally
effective
conscious thought to be combined in a natural way with
the physical brain
made
of neurons and atoms. The book is divided into four
sections. The first consists
of
an extended introduction. Key foundational and somewhat
more technical papers
are
included in the second part, together with a clear
exposition of the "orthodox"
interpretation
of quantum mechanics. The third part addresses, in a
non-technical
fashion,
the implications of the theory for some of the most
profound questions that
mankind
has contemplated: How does the world come to be just
what it is and not
something
else? How should humans view themselves in a quantum
universe? What will
be
the impact on society of the revised scientific image of
the nature of man? The
final
part contains a mathematical appendix for the specialist
and a glossary of
important
terms and ideas for the interested layman.
+
Mindful universe:
Quantum mechanics and the participating observer
Henry P. Stapp
4 Reviews
Springer, 2007 -
Science - 198 pages
The classical mechanistic idea of nature that prevailed
in science during the
eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries was an essentially mindless conception: the
physically described aspects
of nature were asserted to be completely determined
by prior physically described
aspects alone, with our conscious experiences entering
only passively. During the
twentieth century the classical concepts were found to
be
inadequate. In the new
theory, quantum mechanics, our conscious experiences
enter
into the dynamics in
specified ways not fixed by the physically described
aspects alone.
Consequences of this radical change in our understanding
of the connection between
mind and brain are described.
