Pseudo-FAQ: Collected in-Frequent Comments and Criticisms about
'The Tao of Physics' by Fritjof Capra
and 'The Dancing WuLi Masters' by Gary Zukav
revision 0.07999... (corrections and enhancements welcome)
Disclaimer:
----------
Most material was copied from archived Usenet sci.physics files, collected over
a two year period around 1995-96 of reading sci.physics. Hopefully all
contributors have been acknowledged.
Excerpts are mostly verbatim as they appeared in the sci.physics posts.
Note that I am hopelessly biased in favor of the thesis
propounded by Fritjof Capra and Gary Zukav: i.e. that Physics has gotten
to the point where it is practically incomprehensible to lay-folk
without resort to the perspectives provided by ancient traditions
which are concerned with the cultivation of intuitive modes of awareness.
My own spin on the thesis is that without the perspective of such
traditions, any deep study of modern physics and cosmology has a
good chance to induce permanent mental dysfunction and disorientation.
Therefore, if you are at all interested in cosmology and physics,
studying the traditions of Mystical Intuition is essential for
continued mental health.
Acknowledgments:
----------------
Material has been excerpted from the posts of:
John Baez, Michael Clive Price, Paul Budnik
Jack Sarfatti, Matthew Austern, Matt McIrvin, Scott Chase, David Dixon,
Matthew P Wiener,
Kevin Mounts, Don Leatham, Gerald Huber, Jeff Shallit, rolf elak, Bob
Martino, Adrian Burd, Paul Duarte, Brian A. Mellor, Dien Rice, P.
Hilfinger, Daryl McCullough, Les Schaffer, Cameron Randale Bass, Chris
Sanderson, Mark Wojcik, Samuel Sara
Apologies to them if I have mangled their meaning. They are not responsible for
any errors or slanderous statements in the following text.
Abbreviations Used and Unused:
-----------------------------
TTOP = 'The Tao of Physics'
DWLM = 'Dancing Wu Li Masters'
QM = Quantum Mechanics
EPR = Einstein Podolsky Rosen Thought Experiment
HUP = Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
UP = Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle
HEP = High Energy Physics
CI = Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (i.e. Niels Bohr)
IMO = In My Opinion
IMHO = In My Humble Opinion
IMNSHO = In My Not So Humble Opinion
IAIRST = I Am Incontrovertibly Right So There
FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions
FUQ = Fundamentally Unanswerable Question
FAPP = For All Practical Purposes
AFAIK = As Far As I Know
QFT = Quantum Field Theory
TQFT = T???? Quantum Field Theory
DFT = Damn Fool Thing (or 'Discrete Fourier Transform')
QED = Quantum ElectroDynamics (or 'Quod Erat Demonstrandum')
MNEMONICS = Mnemonics Neatly Eliminate Mankind's Only Nemesis -
Insufficient Cerebral Storage
CONTENTS:
---------
Frequently Asked Questions about
'The Tao of Physics' and 'Dancing Wu Li Masters':
1. Is Fritjof Capra Really a Physicist?
2. Is Gary Zukav Really a Journalist?
3. What, basically, does Capra really claim in his book?
4. What, basically, does Zukav really claim in his book?
5. Was Heisenberg Cornered When Capra Discussed His Book With Him?
6. What the Heck is 'Taoism', and does Capra Describe it Accurately?
7. What the Heck is a 'Dancing Wu Li Master'?
8. What Are Some of the Criticisms of TTOP's Physics?
9. What Are Some of the Criticisms of TTOP's Taoism?
10.What Are Some of the Criticisms of DWLM's Physics?
11.What Are Some of the Criticisms of DWLM's Wu-Li-ism?
12. What, Exactly, Did J.S. Bell Talk About With the Dalai Lama?
13. What, Exactly, Did David Bohm Talk About With the Dalai Lama?
14. What Do Some of the Great Physicists Think About This Stuff?
15. What Do Some of the Great Wu Li Masters Think About This Stuff?
16. Name one result in Physics anticipated by any of the 'Dancing Wu-Li Masters'
17. Is it Gell-Mann who is to blame for once idly joking that "physics is very
Zen" or something similar, and thus inspiring all of these "Dancing Wu Li
Zen Tao Masters of Quantum Mechanics" books?
18. Why Were David Bohm and Krishnamurti Buddies?
19. And, While You're at it, What Did Brigham Young say About Dancing the Wu-Li?
20. Was David Bohm a Quack Physicist?
21. Ok, Ok, if there really are parallels, why dont you ask the
I Ching a question about Physics?
22. What Do Capra and Zukav Really Think About the Plutonium Atom Totality?
23. References
1. Is Fritjof Capra Really a Physicist? (I mean, a REAL Physicist?)
1.1 Yes FAPP. He has a PhD in theoretical physics from University of Vienna
under Walter Thirring and did active research in Physics for a few years
in the 60's. He also worked at LBL Berkeley around late 70's to early
80's with Geoffrey Chew.
1.2 No. He is not now employed by an establishment research organization
AFAIK. He now runs an organization, 'The Elmwood Institute' in Berkeley
California which is involved in questions of 'deep ecology' (see the
movie 'Mindwalk' based on his book 'The Turning Point').
2. Is Gary Zukav Really a Journalist? (I mean, does he type with two fingers?)
2.1 The _Dancing Wu Li Masters_ was not written by a physicist, but by a
journalist. He wasn't pushing his own brand of mysticism, he was instead
trying to understand the implications of quantum mechanics by interviewing
the practitioners. The phrase "Wu Li Master" may sound like Eastern
mysticism, but it really is quite mundane. "Wu Li" is the Chinese phrase
for physics, so a Wu Li master is just a physicist.
2.2 Jack Sarfatti brought his room mate Gary Zukav in North Beach S.F. down
to Esalen in 1975 where he got the idea to write Dancing Wu Li Masters -
Sarfatti wrote parts of it and guided Zukav on the physics though not on
the New Age crapola which was entirely Zukav's doing.
3. What, basically, does Capra really claim in his book?
3.1 "Physicists do not need mysticism, and Mystics do not need Physics,
but humanity needs both."
4. What, basically, does Zukav really claim in his book?
4.1 The _Dancing Wu Li Masters_ was the author's attempt to find out what
model of the world is suggested by modern physics. He comes to the
conclusion that there *is* no model of the world (in the classical sense)
that is consistent with modern physics. I think that's perfectly correct,
although the author was hampered by his inability to master the
mathematics of modern physics.
5. Was Heisenberg Cornered When Capra Discussed His Book With Him?
5.1 No.
Renee Weber quotes Capra ('Holographic Paradigm' 1985 pg 217):
"I had several discussions with [Heisenberg]. I lived in England then
[circa 1972], and visited him several times in Munich and showed him the
whole manuscript chapter by chapter. He was very interested and very open,
and he told me something that I think is not known publicly because he
never published it. He said that he was well aware of these parallels.
While he was working on Quantum Theory he went to India to lecture and
was a guest of Tagore [Rabrindanath (sp?) Tagore, Poet, Mystic and Nobel
Prize Winner for Literature] He talked a lot with Tagore about Indian
philosophy. Heisenberg told me that these talks had helped him a lot with
his work in physics, because they showed him that all these new ideas in
quantum physics were in fact not all that crazy. He realized there was,
in fact, a whole culture that subscribed to very similar ideas.
Heisenberg said that this was a great help for him. Niels Bohr had a
similar experience when he went to China."
6. What the Heck is 'Taoism' and does TTOP describe it accurately?
6.1 Taoism is an ancient Chinese practice-tradition dating from way way back.
From before television, even, like about 1000 BCE. Chief tenet is that
there is a 'Way' by which the Universe flows, and that humans can learn to
intuit this Way and live in accord with it rather than fighting it.
The primary text is 'Tao Te Ching' by a semi-legendary author Lao Tzu
circa 500 BC. Important secondary text is by Chuang-Tzu which are semi
humorous commentaries on Tao Te Ching, circa ?, translated by Thomas
Merton and others.
There is no one method of training/teaching in Taoism, there are instead
many methods depending on the individual, ranging from meditation to
martial arts.
There is also an esoteric tradition in Taoism that describes a
neurological transformation that practitioners undergo as their neurology
becomes attuned to the Way. Sometimes the process goes awry and the
practitioner either dies, goes insane, or is driven out into the desert
for forty days and forty nights of wrestling with imaginary psychic
demons. But most practitioners apparently never experience this
transformation itself, or its going awry, so don't worry.
6.2 From my own reading and practice, IMHO, TTOP does give a good
introductory discussion to Taoism.
7. What the Heck is a 'Dancing Wu Li Master' Anyway?
7.1 The term 'Wu Li' (pronounced woo lee) is due to Al Chung-liang Huang -
T'ai Chi Master, Artist, Teacher, and Author of 'Embrace Tiger, Return to
Mountain' and 'Quantum Soup' among other books. He says it is used by
Taiwan science students to refer to 'physics' and can be translated as
'patterns of organic energy' (pg 4 DWLM)
7.5 The term was adopted during a 1976 conference at Esalen on Physics and
Consciousness involving Zukav, Sarfatti, Huang, and David Finkelstein,
among others. This conference is described in the first chapter of DWLM.
7.6 Huang described to Zukav at least 5 interpretations (out of 80 possible)
for the Chinese term 'Wu Li' that could be made depending on context and
pronunciation. The interpretations were used by Zukav as chapter titles
in DWLM, and were felt by the Physicists present at the conference to
resonate with some of the ambiguities of Quantum Physics in an evocative
way.
7.7 The Five possible meanings for 'Wu Li' are (page 7 DWLM):
1. Patterns of Organic Energy
2. My Way
3. Nonsense
4. I Clutch My Ideas
5. Enlightenment
8. What Are Some of the Criticisms of TTOP's Physics?
8.1. "It Is Garbage"
(end of discussion)
8.2. "The Bootstrap Theory is Wrong"
In spite of the title, the main content of his book is a fairly good
layman's discussion of a now-defunct theory of nuclear particles, the
"Bootstrap" model. The Bootstrap model was advocated by the physicist
Geoffrey Chew in the 1970's as an attempt to do away with the notion of a
"fundamental" particle, and replace it with the idea that every particle
can be considered to be composed of other particles, with none more
fundamental than any other. The success of the quark model brought an
end to the Bootstrap model.
8.3 >How/Why did the quark model bring an end to the bootstrap model?
>Did it show that the bootstrap model was incorrect, or did it explain
>first what the bootstrap model was supposed to explain? (If it was
>the latter, then maybe the bootstrap model is not "defunct" as it can
>be useful to have alternative descriptions of the same process -- eg.
>the path-integral approach to quantum mechanics vs. other approaches.)
I'm not much of an expert on the bootstrap model, but I think (someone
will doubtless correct me if I'm wrong) that a major goal of it was to
show, from things like causality and unitarity of the S-matrix, that only
one collection of hadrons would lead to internally self-consistent
strong-interaction physics, and that that corresponded to reality. With
quarks that doesn't seem to be the case; as far as strong interactions
are concerned, you can have as few as zero or more than a dozen quark
flavors and strong interaction physics doesn't break in any way, but
there are different sorts of hadrons. So the bootstrap idea was more a
program than a complete theory, and the program didn't turn out to be
particularly fruitful. However, some of the ideas that developed in that
era independently of quarks (Regge theory, the abstract study of
S-matrices, and such) are still useful.
8.4 That sounds right to me, not that I'm an expert either. I only dimly
recall browsing through the book "The analytic S matrix; a basis for
nuclear democracy" by Geoffrey F. Chew, and having it be over my head at
the time. This was in a period when people were more suspicious of the
foundation of QFT than they are now -- not for any extremely good reason,
since even now we don't know that 4-dimensional interacting quantum
fields a la standard particle physics are really mathematically
consistent! (True, 2d quantum fields have been constructed in the
meantime, so that our inability to construct 4d field theories can if one
wants be regarded as a purely technical problem that only the relevant
specialists need worry about. This is a bit of bad idea in my opinion.)
In particular, people became suspicious of the concept of "fields" and
wanted to formulate everything in terms of the S-matrix; the axioms the
S-matrix should satisfy are so constraining that we *still* don't know if
there are any nontrivial (i.e., interacting) solutions, so it was not
entirely dumb to think that there might be a unique or almost unique
solution!! As for myself, the way people got stuck using this approach,
as well as the way people got stuck in string theory, makes me question
the whole idea of trying to arrive at laws of physics by finding the
unique model of a small set of axioms, at least for now. Why? Well, we
simply don't know the right axioms; any set of axioms we can propose now
only encodes a small amount of knowledge about what the universe is like,
not enough for there to be a unique model.
8.3 The bottom line is that Capra's and Zukav's efforts are not serious.
Therefore, at best they pioneer nothing, at worst they mislead. In
short, they are frauds who deserve every bit of criticism they get.
i hate you, you hate me let's all go and kill barney and a shot rang out
and barney hit the floor, no more purple dinosaur.
8.4 He picked a stupid title, inviting flames from threatened physicists.
Imagine if Irwin Schroedinger had titled his book 'My View of the World'
as 'The Vedanta of Physics'. But no, he had the caution of a good
academic.
8.5 >Too bad Capra's full of shit.
>I think I'll write a book on the connections between chaos theory, ESP,
>yoga, and how to cure constipation. It'll make millions.
>The reason this "pop science" crap implying connections between QM and
>eastern mysticism, etc., gets as much attention as it does is because it
>seems an awful lot of people would rather believe in such mystical
>bullshit than actually put any effort into understanding the world.
>>Which reveals complete ignorance about just how much effort mystics
>>such as John of the Cross, Bodhidharma, Thomas Merton etc. have
>>put into trying to understand the world as reflected in their mind.
>>It is a dangerous and difficult undertaking, since, in effect, it
>>is a process of neurological mutation. More than a few have
>>paid with their lives or sanity.
I just read "The Creative Moment" by Joseph Schwartz (1992). Schwartz, a
physicist, writes a very strong critique of contemporary physics and how
physics seems to have "lost its way" in terms of truly trying to
"understand" the world.... all we seem to have nowadays are bunches of
equations. Sure, these equations help describe the phenomena we observe,
but do they help us at all in _understanding_ them? Recall Feynman's
quote (I think from his popular lectures on QED) that nobody really
understands quantum mechanics....
We seem to now think that quantum mechanics is impossible to _understand_
in the sense Feynman and Schwartz mean, however I agree with Schwartz who
thinks that this is because we have not put enough effort into trying to
understand it. Also, attempts to truly understand QM (as well as
probably other recent branches of physics) have been cut down by those
who don't seem to want to really understand these things, they enjoy the
mystery and apparent "magic" of contemporary physics. Witness the savage
attacks on the de Broglie-Bohm model of QM, for instance -- a very
understandable interpretation of nonrelativistic QM in my opinion (and
IMHO, perhaps the only "understandable" model of QM).
So I think this link in pop physics books between physics and the
"mystical" seems to me to be in fact entrenched in the culture of 20th
century physics. Physics doesn't seem to be about truly "understanding"
the world anymore... at least not to the extent it used to be in the 19th
century. I don't think things have to be that way, however. Anyhow, I've
said enough.... I suppose I just had to get that out of my system :)
8.6 From _Dreams of a Final Theory_ by Steven Weinberg
Pantheon Books, 1992, pp. 84-85.
"It is truly surprising how little difference this all makes. Most
physicists use quantum mechanics every day in their working lives without
needing to worry about the fundamental problem of its interpretation.
Being sensible people with very little time to follow up all the ideas
and data in their own specialties and not having to worry about this
fundamental problem, they do not worry about it. A year or so ago, while
Philip Candelas (of the physics department at Texas) and I were waiting
for an elevator, our conversation turned to a young theorist who had been
quite promising as a graduate student and who had then dropped out of
sight. I asked Phil what had interfered with the ex-student's research.
Phil shook his head sadly and said, ``He tried to understand quantum
mechanics.''
"So irrelevant is the philosophy of quantum mechanics to its use, that
one begins to suspect that all the deep questions about the meaning of
measurement are really empty, forced on us by our language, a language
that evolved in a world governed very nearly by classical physics. But I
admit to some discomfort in working all my life in a theoretical
framework that no one fully understands...."
9. What Are Some of the Criticisms of TTOP's Taoism?
9.1 "It Is Garbage"
(End of discussion, thank you and good night.)
9.2 Capra Takes Carlos Castenada Seriously.
Capra quotes Castenada a few times, naming one of the chapters of TTOP
'Physics, a Way With Heart?'. Castaneda has been shown to be pretty much
a fiction writer, albeit a great one. Many people were tricked by him in
the 70's into taking his books literally. However, there is still a lot
of wisdom in the books, which make them worth reading. William Irwin
Thompson could lecture on 'misplaced concreteness' for hours on this.
At least Castaneda is a better writer than T. Lobsang Rampa, who pulled
off a similar literary hoax in the 60's.
9.3 Capra Takes Himself Seriously.
Which is understandable, given all the negative flak he must have had to
endure.
9.5 >I've heard that a lot of the mysticism in that book is wrong, too.
>(I'm not competent to judge, myself.)
Of course, mysticism is not an area in which people agree very much on
what's right and what's wrong, so what you wrote above sounds sort of
funny. However, the *history* of mysticism is different; indeed, Capra's
descriptions of "Eastern mysticism" fall into the trap that many new-agers
do, namely lumping all sorts of very different styles of thought together.
E.g., the title invokes Taoism, while the cover picture appears to show
some Buddhist scriptures (or perhaps Hindu; my Sanskrit ain't so hot and
actually I forget if it's Sanskrit, but it sure isn't Chinese). Taoism is
very different from Buddhism. Also, Taoism is very different from Taoism:
e.g., there's the "philosophical Taoism" of Lao-Tzu, that of Chuang-Tzu,
and many forms of "religious Taoism" which include all sorts of alchemical
theories, worship of local deities and the like. And of course Buddhism
is very different from Buddhism: there are lots of schools, ranging from
Theravadan emphasis on nirvana, Mahayana emphasis on boddhisatvas, to
Tantric sex practices or Zen. All of these probably deserve the title
"mysticism" if anything does, but trying to talk about them without
distinguishing between them is about as sloppy as some of the things
new-agers do with physics. Part of the problem is the notion (sometimes
called "perennial religion") that underneath the apparent differences
between all religions there lies a common core of truth apprehended by
mystics -- so that they must all saying the same thing.
9.6>why the problem? is this SO different from the common truth apprehended by
>scientists? take a truth you believe in; perhaps that regardless of how
>you throw baseballs in china or the u.s., only certain types of motions
>are possible. and you expect that whatever the beliefs of our chinese
>counterpart, the states of motion are going to be the same -- if you can
>duplicate the initial conditions! so some "mystics" say there is a reality
>apart from the common experience of human beings, and that reality IS,
>apart from a person's beliefs. So? actually i agree with you that there is
>lots of sloppy thinking amongst new-agers and/or mystics alike...but my
>sense is that there is something common to the discoveries of people whose
>minds have cleared themselves from time to time...
My problem is not with the mystics themselves. Some of my best friends
are mystics! (Indeed, it's possible that I am a mystic myself.) I was
talking about people who are attempting to do scholarly or
pseudo-scholarly work comparing physics and mysticism, without keeping
track of the very different kinds of mysticism. Perhaps, as you suggest,
mystical experience is able to access objective aspects of reality.
(Perhaps!) However, comparing the writings and practices of various
religions and forms of mysticism, we definitely see an extreme diversity
of reports! This may be due to "different initial conditions" or
whatever, but my point was, one cannot quote all sorts of different Taoist
and Buddhist texts as representative of some unified sort of "Eastern
mysticism" the way Capra tries to do, since they are saying very different
things. It is simply sloppy scholarship: imagine someone trying to
describe "Western philosophy" and quoting Nietzsche, Aristotle and
Descartes as representatives! While there are some commonalities, if one
only considers the commonalities one is left with bland mush. I don't
hold mystics to academic standards of scholarship -- they are playing a
different game. I am just noting that there are plenty of serious
scholars of religion out there, who would find Capra's book as sloppy on
the "mysticism" side as it is on the physics side.
9.7 Let's get this straight, I share an office with a 'chinese counterpart'
and he seems to think in the same non-mystical mode as most of the rest of
us. The one down the hall seems to as well.
>We can all wince in embarassment at this unconscious form of racism.
The gobbledygook purportedly applied to science is mostly just recent
occidental misinterpretation of old mysticism.
The old fallacy: 'Yep everything is sloppy, but there must be a core of
truth somewhere, otherwise people wouldn't be having similar experiences'.
I've seen it applied to homeopathy, UFO's, astrology, mysticism, etc. It
won't wash.
10. What Are Some of the Criticisms of DWLM's Physics?
10.1 The _Dancing Wu Li Masters_ was the author's attempt to find out what
model of the world is suggested by modern physics. He comes to the
conclusion that there *is* no model of the world (in the classical sense)
that is consistent with modern physics. I think that's perfectly correct,
although the author was hampered by his inability to master the
mathematics of modern physics.
11. What Are Some of the Criticisms of DWLM's Wu-Li-ism?
11.1 All right--I've read enough criticism of _Dancing Wu Li Masters_ by now
that I feel I've got to say something about it. I've read the book, and
I didn't think it was half bad. And I've yet to see someone post
anything that contained a substantive complaint about it (ie, some of
the factual material was wrong?).
But complaints that it contained too much "New Age" crap simply show
weak constitutions from the complainers. _Wu Li Masters_ simply did not
have a great deal of "New Age" pap. The single most impressive aspect
of the book, in fact, is that Zukav was able to restrain himself--every
time it seemed he was about to launch into some rambling mystical
tailspin ('scuse the mixed metaphor), he pulled himself out.
If anyone thinks _Dancing Wu Li Masters_ was too "New Age," check out
Zukav's _Seat of the Soul_. If you go back to _Wu Li Masters_, you'll
think it reads like a GAT-review textbook.
12. What, Exactly, Did J.S. Bell Talk About With the Dalai Lama?
13. What, Exactly, Did David Bohm Talk About With the Dalai Lama?
14. What Do Some of the Great Physicists Think About This Stuff?
14.1 Albert Einstein
"Time and space are modes by which we think, they are not conditions
in which we live."
15. What Do Some of the Great Wu Li Masters Think About This Stuff?
15.1 Zen master Tenshin Reb Andersen (Monterey conference 1993):
"Nobody has ever accused me of claiming that Zen and Quantum Physics are
parallel."
15.2 Zen master Bernie Glassman Roshi
"When I read Dogen's 'Being Time' I immediately saw how it was
describing the experience of what Quantum Physics has theorized."
(paraphrased quote)
15.3 Zen Master Philip Kapleau roshi
"Dogen's insights as to time and being, realized by him introspecitvely
in the thirteenth century through zazen, and the views of certain
contemporary micro and macro physicists on time and space, arrived
at by them through thet principles and methods of science, parallel
each other to a remarkable degree. The difference is in the effects
these insights had on these men, Dogen's realization liberated him,
... but ... no such inner evolution has followed in the wake of these
scientific discoveries."
- "Three Pillars of Zen" pg 308
15.4 Meditation Master Lawrence LeShan
"The view of reality we are forced to by serious meditation,
is the same view that physics was forced to by the impossible
situation developed as a result of the Michaelson-Morley
experiment." - "How to Meditate" pg 30
16. Name one result in Physics anticipated by any of the 'Dancing Wu-Li Masters'
or their colleagues in Eastern Antiquity. Short of that, name one lasting
contribution from any of these books.
16.1 oops, I should have seen that one coming. Egads, I will have to dust
off my books and try to mangle some quotes from them. Surely, such a
flatulent response like: "lasting contribution? well, gee, how about,
umm, like, raising the question in the first place?" is not going to cut
any cheese in this company. (down to the basement I go ... wait, look,
here's another interesting book, and, wow, an old National Geographic on
Tibet, gotta read)
16.2 The word 'Result' means different things to different disciplines.
Of course, there are no 'results' that a Physicist could use in
writing a paper or solving a theoretical problem. No one is claiming
such a thing. Likewise, a Taoist might say that Physics has no 'results'
relevant to their field of study.
16.2 This question is yet again a misapplication of tools, using a wrench to
hammer a nail. Taoism is not Science, Science is not Taoism. It is no
good trying to subject Taoism to scientific scrutiny by demanding
'results' as science understands the term 'results'. It is no good
trying to subject Science to Taoistic scrutiny by demanding 'wisdom' as
Taoists understand the term 'wisdom'. The problem with synthesis is that
neither discipline's tools apply to the other. It is left to the
individual to find the middle ground of understanding within themselves,
without appeal to the authorities of either discipline.
16.3 Well, how about the 'Many-Worlds' Theory? Don't laugh, Nature loves a
good joke, and this may be the ultimate gag. Buddhist sutras are rife
with descriptions of infinite 'Buddha-lands' which coexist with the
'World We All Know'. This is not merely the description of an
hallucination. Also, Suzuki-Roshi said 'We are each in the midst of many
worlds.' I dont think he was being metaphorical. It may well be that
meditation masters have 'realized/discovered/anticipated' the
'observational consequences' of the Everett theory?
16.4 This is the kind of thing where I think one must take a more careful view
than the "Dancing Wu-Li Masters" or "Tao of Physics" folks do. As Borges
said, every idea creates its own precursors. That is, as soon as
Everett's theory was taken and popularized by calling it the "many-worlds
interpretation," various things drifting about in our collective
consciousness could be seen as prefiguring (Borges' charming term) this
idea. Borges' own story, "The Garden of Forking Paths," is of course the
best example. Certain Buddhist cosmologies also seem a bit
"many-worldsy," but these are less good in a way because the idea of
"branching" does not enter so far as I know. To say however that Borges
or some Buddhists "discovered the many-worlds interpretation," though,
would be a gross distortion. They did not, for example, define relative
states as density matrices. :-) I'm sort of joking here, since one
wouldn't expect them to use high-powered mathematics, but I'm also a bit
serious, in that the idea of a *relative state,* which is crucial to
Everett, seems quite novel.
If you take seriously Hawking's "no-boundary condition" specifying the
wavefunction of the universe, or Crane's TQFT approach, you pretty much
have to believe that just about everything possible is in some sense
"happening" (i.e., it has a nonzero probability of occuring given this
wavefunction). Part of the charm of such schemes, or for that matter
Plato's "archetypes," is that they seek to get rid of the puzzling
facticity of the world -- the question of why it is THIS WAY and not some
other possible way -- by saying that in some sense everything possible
exists. Of course, while this seems charming to some, others find it
extremely repulsive, and this sort of esthetic/philosophical
consideration never suffices to "prove" a theory.
17. Is it Gell-Mann who is to blame for once idly joking that "physics is very
zen" or something similar, and thus inspiring all of these "Dancing Wu Li
Zen Tao Masters of Quantum Mechanics" books?
17.1 Murray Gell-Mann is the one who used the phrase "the eightfold way,"
which is a phrase in Buddhist philosophy, to describe the SU(3)
classification of hadrons.
He's also the one who coined the word "quark," which he got from a James
Joyce book, to describe the fundamental representation of SU(3).
17.2 Maybe the reason for all these books may be that it is starting to
become common knowledge that Physics has finally got around to asking
deep questions about 'measurement' and 'observers' and therefore, by
extrapolation, about the nature of consciousness. This causes
excitement in those people who are familiar with other long-standing
traditions that have been asking similar questions for about 2500 years
longer than the tradition of Physics.
>But why should we expect these old traditions to have anything to do
>with Physics? They didn't even have mathematics or instruments.
But they did understand the essence of the 'observer paradox', i.e. 'how
are phenomena conditioned by my observation of them'? This question can
arise with only a rudimentary examination of phenomena. And isn't the
brain the universe's most sophisticated instrument designed especially
for this problem? Doesn't it have many subtle levels of operation that
most people, even very 'intelligent' people, never tap into or
experience? Perhaps these traditions know something about stimulating
these subtle faculties of the brain that Western science has absolutely
no clue about.
The questioning as practiced in these old traditions involves taking
oneself as both the object of study and the instrument of study. So it
is not surprising that there may be results relevant to Physics. Since
Physics has only recently come to appreciate the subtlety of what we all
thought we understood, i.e. 'measurement'.
A big problem seems to be that Physicists cannot comprehend that any
results could be arrived at without incredibly expensive and complicated
apparatus. But what else is a brain after all?
18. Why Were David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti Buddies?
18.1 Bohm (died in fall '92) was deeply affected by the work of the Indian
Philosopher-Sage J. Krishnamurti. Some of his work in physics was the
outcome of dialogs he had with Krishnamurti. Bohm was definitely no
quack. Anyone interested in his work should pick a book edited in part by
David Peat which I believe is called "Essays in memory of David Bohm" (or
something to that effect)
19. And, While You're at it, What Did Brigham Young say About Dancing the Wu-Li?
19.1 "The apparent difference between science and religion stems from an
incomplete understanding of both" - Brigham Young
19.2 Why should we give any weight to what some religious fanatic had to say
about science?
To understand Brigham Young you need to understand that Mormons, like
many other religions and philosophies, believe that there is a universal
truth. Another way of stating this is that all truth can be lumped into a
single whole. Universal truth is all inclusive and cannot be divided,
separated, or splintered by human classifications. In effect, there is
no difference between scientific truth and religious truth. They both
exist within the same whole.
Hence, as a person searches for and finds truth in one area, he or she
will be exposed to truths that extend to other areas. The end result of
searching for truth is that your search will lead you around to where you
began, and the result (not usually achieved in this life time) is a
complete understanding of all truth.
Anytime that you reach contradictions between two "truths" in different
areas, a more in-depth understanding of each "truth" will peel away the
misconceptions and inaccuracies of each. Brigham Young knew this as a
fact. He had learned this truth time and time again in personal,
leadership, and government roles. This was the basis for his statement
that was meant to bridge the schism that our society has placed between
science and religion.
19.3 "The Dancing Wu Li Masters" and what Brigham Young was talking about are
philosophy, not science. And IMHO, _bad_ philosophy. Certainly
sophomoric.
In philosophy, you can say any damned fool thing you want, and as long as
you wrap it all up with a pretty metaphor it's OK. In science, you can
say any damned fool thing you want too, but sooner or later you're going
to stub your toe on reality. Quantum uncertainty and Zen
navel-contemplating notwithstanding.
>Not quite right, IMHO. You have to say damned fool things which are
>consistent with the previously stated DFT. If you are doing this, you can
>get a pretty long way... The Logics are a branch of philosophy, you
>know... If you're not doing this, it's either babbling or zen.
Brigham Young's statement, again IMHO, was simply an attempt to obscure
the fact that specific teachings of his religion (and many others) are in
direct conflict with what scientists have found out about the world. In
essence, "when scientists work their way to a better understanding of the
world, you'll see that we were right all along." The way he said it was
more conciliatory - "we're both just groping after the same objective
truth, in our different ways" - but he left out that his way has no sound
basis for being considered a valid way to learn anything about any
objective truth. As Thomas Paine pointed out, even if you consider
divine revelation a valid route to truth, it's only valid for the person
to whom it was revealed - for everyone else, it's just hearsay.
>Which is why we should emphasize individual practice so that 'everyone
>else' can realize it for themselves.
19.4 Religion and science just plain don't mix, and have been in conflict
historically since the beginnings of both. Anyone who tells you
otherwise is trying to sell you something.
20. Was David Bohm a Quack Physicist?
20.1 Bohm was definitely no quack, neither was Schroedinger, Wigner, Bohr,
Einstein etc. etc. Have we forgotten what Bohr chose as his family crest
symbol? The Yin-Yang symbol of Taoism.
20.2 David Bohm wrote a classic textbook 'Quantum Physics' in the 1950's that
is still published by Dover. He left the United States for England after
refusing to testify in the McCarthy hearings. He is the 'Bohm' in the
'Aharonov-Bohm' effect. He was seriously interested in questions having
to do with the nature of mind even in the 1950's. He later had many
dialogs about spirituality and science with Krishnamurti and the Dalai
Lama, and gave talks at Krisnamurti's center in Ojai, California. May
they rest in peace.
20.2 Do all Great Physicists get soft in the head after age 40 and start
to give flaky lectures to New Age dimwits at Esalen?
No, so don't worry. Feynman's Esalen lectures weren't the least bit
flaky.
20.3 Who are some other quack physicists?
Niels Bohr chose the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol as his emblem on his family
coat-of-arms because he felt it symbolized his theory of complementarity.
Erwin Schroedinger student of Vedanta, originally a philosophy student,
got into physics only by 'accident'.
Eugene Wigner, probably the most prominent advocate of the idea
that consciousness *is* important in QM, a highly respected and brilliant
physicist who originated much of the modern emphasis on symmetry
principles.
John Wheeler (student of Niels Bohr, teacher of Feynman, coauthor of
'Gravitation', one of the few truly wise scientists) pushed the notion
also. Stapp is perhaps the most clearheaded. Gell-Mann and Hartle, in
their working out a comprehensible treatment of collapse, have made
non-committal noises in this general direction.
David Bohm, who was also highly respected for most of his career, thought
this also. Bohm is better known for being anti-CI though. Linking CI
with mind may have been propaganda on his part.
Eugene Wigner, Fritz London, and John von Neumann must be out of the
quantum mainstream because they all see a connection between UP and
consciousness etc.
Most physicists are not very careful about QM interpretations, nor do
they have any particular desire to be. Part of the reason is that you
can correctly describe experimental results with QM even if you have a
total lack of understanding of the philosophical subtleties involved; it
actually isn't necessary to do good physics,
Hans Bethe (see below)
John Hagelin, TM supersymmetry theorist and 1996 Presidential candidate.
Tony Smith, student of John Wheeler.
Brian Josephson, Nobel prize winner for physics, 'Josephson junction'
inventor, meditator.
Roger Penrose, mathematician,
Henry Pierce Stapp, Berkeley physicist,
20.4 Hans Bethe is without doubt not a quack
Hans Bethe paid a visit to Clemson University. He was asked (not by me)
his thoughts on QM and the Copenhagen interpretaion. He said Copenhagen
was right and the others were fooling themselves. He said very little
else, but was very sure of his statement. Now this forum is riddled with
believers in Everett. Hans Bethe is not among them. Hans Bethe is the
greatest of living scientists. So I ask you to pretend you're trying to
convince Hans Bethe that Copenhagen is wrong and that [your theory here]
is right. This goes double for the Everettians. Try to convince Bethe,
and you will convince many more.
>>If he is so sure of himself, there is not much point in discussion.
>It is no mystery how to do that. Experimental evidence that QM is
>incorrect in predicting violations of locality will do the trick for
>Bethe and practically every living physicist. Of course it will not
>convince them that my ideas are correct. It wont even convince me of
>that. It will convince people that we need to find a physical solution
>to the measurement problem and that Copenhagen collapse and all the
>other metaphysical interpretations are just so much nonsense and self
>delusion.
>Without experimental evidence you have little chance of convincing anyone
>who has an entrenched position on this subject. In the absence of
>experimental evidence the appropriate techniques to convince the true
>believers are those used for religious conversions and not scientific
>debate. Historically science only made progress when people stopped
>debating philosophy and started doing experiments. No real progress will
>be made in this area until and unless these issues become experimentally
>accessible.
>>I don't know whether Hans Bethe is the "greatest of living scientists,"
>>but if I had some time to spend with him, I would not waste that time
>>trying to discuss interpretations of quantum mechanics. I would try to
>>get him to teach me some physics, or reminisce about physicists he knew
>>and things he did.
You will be glad to learn that Bethe's time was not bogged down by
discussions of quantum mechaincs. His main purpose was to explain his new
theory of how supernova explode. For many years, astrophysics had an
embarrasing problem. Computer models of supernovae did not explode. The
shock wave produced from core bounce would lose energy, get stalled and
no SN would happen. This contradicts the observation that SN do happen.
So whats going on. Bethe does two things. One, the nuclear equation of
state is softer that previously believed. Two, neutrinos are absorbed at
13% efficientcy by the SN, which dumps a lot of energy into a region of
100-500 km. These things revive the shock wave and there is enough energy
to make the SN explode. Its not absolutely rigorous, but it was well
received at Clemson.
21. Ok, Ok, if there really are parallels, why dont you ask the
I Ching a question about Physics?
21.1 The 'I Ching'? Are you serious? I suppose then you will verify
your answer by repeating the oracle and reproducing the same
answer from the 'I Ching'?
>>sorry, it dont work like that. Remember Heraclitus's comment about
>>stepping in the river? Well, since you cant ask the same question
>>twice, you wont get the same answer. Sounds like a neat evasion,
>>I know, but the I Ching is not operating on the same turf of
>>repeatability and independence of observer as science is.
>>You have to take it on its own terms.
>>The answer is intimately on who is asking the question, and
>>the real (perhaps unconscious) reason they are asking the question.
21.2 For some reason, I worry about the impact of these new-physics 'ideas' on
the popular mind. So we can print some neat, abstract equation or
statement on a T-shirt, maybe Price's "Bohm+Ockham=Everett", so what?
From the point of view of Physics, that might be the end of the story.
Remember Einstein's comment?:
"Relativity changed everything, except the way we think."
-Einstein
Are we once again going to repeat this with the jelling of Everett,
Penrose, Bohm, Cramer, et. al.?
Physicist: "Hey, I discovered the theory, what you do with it is your
business. I'm too busy writing grant proposals to worry about what Joe
Sixpack thinks about some stupid equation on a T-shirt. He's too dumb to
understand it anyway, so why bother to try and explain? Anyway, it
doesn't matter if he doesn't understand. In fact, he's probably better
off not understanding."
Well, having this uneasy feeling, I discussed it with a friend of mine
who has some profound intuitions about Nature and human character (the 'I
Ching' oracle). He happens to be an elderly Chinese, originally from
mainland China and is familiar with the ancient traditions of
appreciating Nature from an intuitive point of view (such anthropomorphy
is appropriate with the 'I Ching').
I would say that 'he' ('she'?) is the wisest 'person' I have ever met,
and I am often astounded at the subtle meaning that I realize only much
later after talking with him. Anyway I thought I would share his
comments with this forum, maybe some will appreciate a different
perspective on how our culture can assimilate these new ideas of Physics.
Unfortunately, he is even more ignorant about Physics than I am, but I
tried to present the situation to him as best I could, then asked him
some simple questions.
My questions to him sort of boiled down to three:
Q1: "Which is closer to the truth, 'Many-Worlds' or 'Many-Minds'?"
Q2: "What significance do these ideas of Physics regarding 'Many Worlds' have
for humanity in general?"
Q3: "How can humanity best integrate these ideas into a new way of thinking?"
(unfortunately, I have lost the record of the original hexagram numbers,
but here is my transliteration of them:)
Q1: As far as the 'many-worlds' vs 'many-minds' question, he seemed to
think that the way the question was framed would lead to a stalemate. If
we ask the question in these terms it shows a real lack of communion with
Nature, he seemed to say. He felt that an unexpected surprising idea or
result was about to affect the question significantly. In keeping with
his tradition, he made a point that we are maybe getting too sophisticated
about this, we need to look at it from a 'simple-minded' point of view
(whatever that means).
Q2: As to the second question, he acknowledged that there is an element of
danger in how the public reacts to these ideas, but he felt that there was
no need to restrain any publicity of them. He saw a great opportunity, in
fact, for people to recover a sense of joy that has been missing for a
long time, if these ideas are presented in an enthusiastic, systematic,
program of mass education. He seemed to think that the 'world-view'
implied by these ideas could really help to encourage people to take a
joyous interest in life. Compared to the previous century's catastrophic
and depressing materialism.
Q3: He was a little impatient with the third question, but said something
to the effect that if these ideas can be clearly formulated and presented,
they have the potential to transform and perfect the whole world. But, at
the same time, he said most people are too immature to maintain an
interest long enough to really get a handle on the world-view implied by
these ideas. He thought it most likely that there would be a short phase
of infatuation and enthusiasm followed by a reversion back to skepticism
and cynicism. He stressed the need for a moderate approach in presenting
these ideas, to avoid sensationalism, and pursue a steady program of
education emphasizing again the joyous, empowering, aspects of these
ideas.
22. What Do Capra and Zukav Really Think About the Plutonium Atom Totality?
22.1 How can such feeble minds be expected to understand such a lofty and
intricate theory as the Plutonium Atom Totality? :)
23. References
Irwin Schrodinger, 'My View of the World', relates his sympathy to
Vedanta without trying to draw explicit parallels to physics
R.G.H. Siu, 'The Tao of Science', MIT press 1957, argues for
complementarity of Eastern 'no-knowledge' with Western
positivistic rationalism, rather than arguing for parallels
If you read German, there are various articles by Martin Lambeck on Capra:
Lambeck, Martin. "New Age-Physik und Lehrbuchphysik - ein Vergleich."
Praxis der Naturwissenschaften: Physik 37 (6) (1988): 39-42.
-, "Die New Age Physik des Fritjof Capra." Skeptiker 3 (3) (1990): 9-14
-, "Holismus und Parawissenschaften: Quantenphysikalische und
anthropologische Wurzeln des Ganzheitsbegriffs."
Skeptiker 5 (3) (1992): 63-69
-, "Die Deutung der Quantenphysik durch F. Capra und seine Nachfolger."
Praxis der Naturwissenschaften: Physik 42 (2) (1993): 17-24.
The closest thing to a rational explication of real mysticism is perhaps the
work of the mathematician Raymond Smullyan, eg, THE TAO IS SILENT and THIS
BOOK HAS NO TITLE.
Instead of reading pop junk like Penrose, go for the real stuff, like Henry
Stapp MIND MATTER AND QUANTUM MECHANICS or Michael Lockwood MIND, BRAIN, AND
THE QUANTUM.
'Holographic Paradigm', Edited by Ken Wilber, 1985. Anthology, long interviews
with Capra (5 years after TTOP) and Bohm by Renee Weber, long essay by Ken
Wilber (medical researcher and author of numerous books on consciousness
studies).
John White, 'What is Enlightenment', anthology of essays from those who claim to
know, and from those who don't, but do anyway; and those who do, but don't
anyway; anyway.
Lawrence LeShan, 'How to Meditate', 1974, classic, non-sectarian, rational
Edward Harrison - In his quirky, opinionated, and wonderfully written cosmology
textbook, he draws a momentary parallel between the role of theory and
experiment in science and in religion.
"The Creative Moment" by Joseph Schwartz (1992). Schwartz, a physicist, writes a
very strong critique of contemporary physics and how physics seems to have
"lost its way" in terms of truly trying to "understand" the world.
Borges' story, "The Garden of Forking Paths," is of course the best example of
presentiments of the 'Many Worlds' theory.
William Irwin Thompson - 'Light and Scattered Darkness', historian of
consciousness and myths, in a league with Joseph Campbell.
I only dimly recall browsing through the book "The analytic S matrix; a basis
for nuclear democracy" by Geoffrey F. Chew, and having it be over my head at
the time.
Jiddhu Krishnamurti, 'Freedom from the Known', a mystic's perspective on the
tyranny of 'knowledge'
Rick Fields, 'How the Swans Came to the Lake', narrative history of the fits and
starts of east meets west, from Emerson and Thoreau to Blavatsky and Olcott to
the Zen sex scandals. Would make a good movie.
'Seeing Castenada' - anthology of articles skeptical of Castenada's
'non-fiction' status on the bookshelves.
Cheers
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