Rulers of the Universe – Part Two
Classical scientists began their search for an understanding of the universe believing that it was possible to study the outer world of objects without affecting what it was they were studying. The findings of quantum mechanics however, have demonstrated that this point of view is false. Not only does the act of observation alter what it is that is being observed, but it is impossible to see the world “as it really is”, or as it would be if no one was looking at it.
The new physics, quantum mechanics, tells us clearly that it it is not possible to observe reality without changing it. It does not matter what experiment we set up to investigate nature. Everything we observe affects what we observe in a way which alters it. As Werner Heisenberg pointed out at the time, what we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.
This was the reason why former Princeton University physicist John Wheeler proclaimed that the word “observer” in classical physics needed to be be replaced by the word “participator”. As Wheeler wrote at the time: “Nothing is more important about the quantum principle than this, that it destroys the concept of the world as ‘sitting out there’, with the observer safely separated from it. In some strange sense, the universe is a participatory universe.”
The corollary to this conclusion was inescapable. For if what we see is not what is really out there, but merely nature altered by our way of looking at it, then what exactly is it that we are seeing. Quantum physicists were faced with the unpalatable truth that there might in fact be nothing “out there” at all. As Physicist Henry Stapp of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory concluded:
“If the attitude of quantum mechanics is correct, in the strong sense that a description of the substructure underlying experience more complete than the one it provides is not possible, then there is no substantive physical world, in the usual sense of this term. The conclusion here is not the weak conclusion that there may not be a substantive physical world but rather that there definitely is not a substantive physical world.”
Whenever we see, or hear, or smell, touch or taste any object, it is our interaction with that object that determines what we know. And that is all we know. Whatever we do in life, we (the witnessing consciousness) are the vital participant in that interaction. So in seeking to understand the mystery of matter, nuclear physicists have been led to the recognition that the secret of matter lies not in any basic particles, but in the nature of the observer involved in this investigation.
Everything that scientists can tell us about the world around us is defined in terms of their interaction with the world, rather than the world itself. Over the course of four centuries of investigation into the nature of matter, scientists have been drawn inexorably away from things that are seen and sensed, back to the consciousness that detects them As Fritjof Capra has explained:
“In modern physics, the question of consciousness has arisen in connection with the observation of atomic phenomena. Quantum theory has made it clear that these phenomena can be understood only as links in a chain of processes, the end of which lies in the consciousness of the human observer.” (The Tao of Physics)
Or, as the American physicist Henry Margenau has trenchantly remarked: “Consciousness is the primary medium of all reality. Even the external world is initially a posit, a projection of consciousness.”
When scientists began their quest for an understanding of the world around them, they developed a model of the universe as a Giant Machine that functioned according to pre-ordained laws. Man’s place in this Giant machine was that of a tiny cog in a mechanism that ground remorselessly on. Man was as much subject to the forces of his environment as he he was bound by the genes that formed his physical body. He was a victim of his fate.
But scientists have now found, hidden in the heart of the atom, a vision that bids fair to change our entire universe. For instead of being the victims of daunting destiny, they have discovered the keys of creativity. The discoveries of quantum mechanics have freed humanity from the cloying chains of classical physics. For we stand on the threshold of a new era of creative understanding. The posssibilities are breathtaking! As Gary Zukav reveals:
“The tables have been turned. The exact sciences no longer study an objective reality that runs its course regardless of our interest in it or not, leaving us to fare as best we can while it goes its predetermined way. Science, at the level of subatomic events, is no longer “exact”, the distinction between objective and subjective has vanished, and the portals through which the universe manifests itself are, as we once knew a long time ago, those impotent passive witnesses to its unfolding, the “I’s” of which we, insignificant we, are examples.”
“The Cogs in the Machine have become the Creators of the Universe” (The Dancing Wu Li Masters)
