Duality, Nonduality & Spooky Things That Happen At A Distance

Duality: The world of form, which is characterized by seeming separation of objects (reflected in conceptual dichotomies such as "this/that," "here/there," "then, now," or "you, me"). This perception of limitation is produced by the senses because of the restriction implicit in a fixed point of view. Science has finally gone beyond the artificial dichotomy of observer and observed characteristic of 17th-century Cartesian duality, and now assumes that they're one and the same. The universe has no center, but is continually expanding equally and simultaneously from every point. Bell's Theorem* helped to demonstrate that this is a universe of simultaneity -- rather than Newtonian cause and effect over distance in an artificial time frame. Both time and space themselves are merely the measurable products of a higher implicit order.

*Bell's Theorem expresses the non-local quality of reality, something Einstein called "spooky action at a distance."

Nonduality:[...]When the limitation of a fixed location of perception is transcended, there's no longer an illusion of separation, nor of space and time as we know them. All things exist simulatneously in the unmanifest, enfolded, implicit universe, expressing itself as the manifest, unfolded, explicit perception of form. In reality, these forms have no intrinsic, independent existence but are the product of perception (that is, man is merely experiencing the content of his own mind). On the level of nonduality, there's observing but no observer, as subject and object are one. You-and-I becomes the One Self experiencing all as divine. [...] The physical body is a manifestation of the One Self who, in experiencing this dimension, had temporarily forgotten its reality, thus permitting the illusion of a three-dimensional world. The body is merely a means of communication; to identify one's self with the body as "I" is the fate of the unenlightened, who then erroneously deduce tht they're mortal and subject to death. Death itself is an illusion, based on the false identification with the body as "I." In nonduality, consciousness experiences itself as both manifest and unmanifest, yet there's no experiencer. In this Reality, the only thing that has a beginning and an end is the act of perception itself. In the illusory world, we're like the fool who believes that things come into existence when he opens his eyes and cease to exist when he closes them.

Definitions from the Glossary section of Power vs. Force, The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior by David R. Hawkins, MD, Phd

Comments

[Robert]

I've heard about these measurements as giving in the Bell paper to which you linked. I didn't understand them very well, the link gives a good explanation. Thanks for posting it.

I've recognized that often on the macro level, "Observing something changes the observed" which I have egotistically named Robert's Rule. This is true of measurements taken of, say, voltage and current in an electric circuit, because there is no way to passively measure these quantities. In practise, the measuring instruments can be made to minimize this disturbance, and thus the change can be so small as to be insignificant. However, a change does occur.

The same thing happens when observing people; when they know they are being watched, their behaviour changes. In some cases, the observer can somehow transmit to the observed information, hence the need for double-blind tests of medicines.

Having said that, it is important to point out that properties of matter at the quantum level do not necessarily translate to properties on a macroscopic level. For example, Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle states that you cannot know both when and where an electron is at the same time; the more you know of one, the less you know of the other. (While this principle should call such experiments such as those in the Bell paper into question, the actual experiments do not make measurements on individual particles, but on a multitude of them.) However, on the macroscopic level, we can make determinations of when and where quite accurately.

Finally, it is not true that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light. For reasons I won't go into, microwave radiation (i.e., radar signals) cannot be efficiently propagated via a wire like lower frequency signals can (i.e., the electricity in your house). Instead, such signals are propagated via something called a "waveguide." Basically, this is a square metal tube. It just so happens that a wave traveling through a waveguide moves faster than the speed of light. This does not violate relativity, however, because only the wave potential moves so fast; nothing physically does. A way to think about this is to watch waves as they move...the water itself does not move (much) in the direction of the wave, only the wave itself does.

[mahala]

Robert, I am positively awe-struck. I understand this stuff not at all and always wonder if the insights I quote are twisted forms of truth. Making things enhance a particular spiritual view, for example.

[Robert]

It's the link between what science says quantitatively and Buddhism says qualitatively that drew me toward the latter anyway. Certainly there are phenomena in quantum physics (which I can't claim to really understand much) which lead us to question our understanding of causality. I think these insights do enhance our understanding of spiritual views, if for no other reason than that they provide another way of looking at things.