Is Quantum Theory 'Comforting'?

I have to tell you, I often find myself walking on egg shells when I hear someone has lost someone dear. What do I say? And will I somehow say the wrong thing, at this touchy time?

Anyways, enter quantum mechanics. Every possible outcome of every experience that could exist, does exist. Therefore, your loved one isn't really gone. They are just part of some alternate universe.

So should I bring this up, the next time someone tells me they have lost a friend or relative? Seems comforting to me. But as I said, you just never know.

Of course, the only drawback is that there is no way to get to these alternate realities (Star Trek episodes notwithstanding). But hey, it may be possible to talk to them. Just send a graviton with a message. Gravity particles and waves can traverse the barriers between the various dimensions. Or so I have heard. Tell me if I am wrong, in any event.

 

Not necessarily. Even in an infinite Universe some things are just infinitely impossible. Think about it. No way does everything you can possibly imagine exist in alternate realities. Thank God.

 

Because then, you know, you would be torturing me for eternity in some parallel dimension and I cannot allow that.

 

In my experience, no.

Not unless you know the person thinks about these things. Otherwise people just find it more frightening than comforting. Too big.

 

My hunch is that interpretation of Quantum Mechanics is wrong and there is only this reality. But a hunch ain't a proof plus I ain't no theoretical physicist. I wish they'd combine QM with gravity already.

 

There was a time when it was hip to talk about cosmic consciousness, vibes, and karma and stuff. I too, back in those days searched for truth, and proof, and a spiritual home that was not tainted with hypocracy and dogma. Years later, having never found proof of such things, and in the depths of agnosticism, I would be embarassed when I heard such talk in old tapes and news reels dug up from the 60's and 70's---ashamed that I talked that way too.

But then along came my first experience that hinted to a nonphysical reality while I was living in the Philippines. It involved the death of my wife's first husband--the biological father of my stepkids. It was quite profound and involved a cultural context that seemed totally alien to me. Though the impact of this experience lessened over the following years, it was instrumental in putting me back on that path to search for meaning, truth, and proof. Eventually I found myself following indigenous spirituality, and I found my PROOF that a nonphysical reality does exist. It was soon after that that I was able to connect with Natives and actually participate in ceremony. Native ceremony is filled with what we in the West would call, magic---not tricks and illusions---actual nonphysical forces acting upon the physical world to change reality---shape it based on intention. And there is a whole different connection to those who have gone on to the other world. It is nothing like sitting in a church and praying for a miracle. Or the coincidental ways that so many religious believe god answers ones prayers. In fact, very, very often it goes way beyond what we can dismiss as coincidence (particularly depending on the type of ceremony).

Experiencing these things has caused me to reassess my ontology---to make sense of a world that includes such realities. (This is my philosophy of Archephenomenalism.)

What is physical existence---what does it mean for something to exist in our physical reality? For one thing it has to have a presence, which means that it has a position in space-time. Space represents the 3 physical dimensions that we understand as our reality so it has to have some kind of position in physical space. Actual physical existence always implies the present time. Because any existence outside of the present, and even any time outside of the present, represents only a mental reality (it is purely conceptual), and anything mental by definition is nonphysical (if you don't believe me, look it up in the dictionary). Therefore actual physical existence requires a present position within what we can define as the physical dimensions. Time beyond the present, whether past or future, is not physical in this sense. In fact, even Einstein required the use of what are called imaginary numbers, which have a different mathematical value than those of real numbers, in order to mathematically represent the 4th dimension---what we refer to as time.

If we were able to take an object, and somehow stick it somewhere in another dimension, outside of our physical dimensions it would no longer have a physical existence--in other words, it would no longer exist within our physical reality. It would still be in the same universe, but it would no longer have any physical existence for us. If we use the 4th dimension as an example of this, if we could somehow place an object in the past, or in the future, it would no longer have any physical existence, because it is no longer physically present in the present.

The birth of Quantum Mechanics basically ocurred when it was discovered that every particle has a reality as both a wave and a particle. As a wave it is superpositioned, for a wave really has no beginning and no end from our perspective. And as it has no beginning and no end, it is simultaneously present across the whole continuum of that wave---in other words it is superpositioned. A superpositioned wave has infinite positions---but infinite positions is the same as having no position. Our physical clue to what a superpositioned reality represents is provided by zero-mass particles such as the photon. Because these particles have no mass, they have no relative mass, which means they exist at the speed of light. Einstein's math tells us that at the speed of light, there is zero-time, and therefore zero-space----in other words, they do not really exist in our physical universe. In fact a single photon---as it travels through all of time from the beginning of time till the end of time from one end of the universe to the other, would experience all of it as an infinitely small flash. As a zero-mass particle it is always a wave. But for the briefest instant, we experience it as the particle we percieve---a ghost within our universe from another dimension.

But quantum mechanics demonstrates that all particles are waves. This means that outside of that moment when it has a position in physical space-time as a physical particle within the present, it is a wave, it is superpositioned and therefore has no physical position. Therefore I define the wave as nonphysical. People have a hard time with this, and will point out that we can measure waves, so how can they be nonphysical. The fact is, no matter how you measure or experience a wave---you are only experiencing the phenomena of that wave as it is made present through a physical particle. You do not measure a wave in a wave meter, or a light meter, you are only measuring physical electrons that have been generated through the phenomena of photons. You do not even listen to radio waves---once again the speakers are moving through the action of physical electrons----not the waves that manifest on the antenna as photons and thereby generate the electrons.

In the same way, our whole experience of reality is dependent on the nonphysical thing we call mind. As long as we are here in these physical dimensions, our mind is focused on a position here in the present. But if this universe includes a nonphysical reality, Then it is very likely that the mind can exist beyond the physical. It has been demonstrated by experiments, for example, at MIT, that the mind can nonlocally influence reality through intention. In other words, it does not have to be dependent on a single position in space-time.

Add to this the experience of dealing with those that have passed on in indigenous ceremony, and the nonphysical reality of spirit, and it seems very obvous that the deceased are still here with us in this universe, it is simly a question of dimensions...

And Quantum Mechanics provides the closest thing to a scientific clue that such realities exist.

 

I think you're describing the "Many-Worlds" Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. There are other Interpretations, so no I wouldn't mention that to someone grieving.

 

Mourning is such a personal thing, and I'm not sure everyone would find this comforting, especially people who aren't very familiar with science.
But I certainly find it a little bit comforting.
To think they're OUT THERE, somewhere... hopefully happy.

 

Quantum mechanics doesn't prove their loved ones are still alive, all it proves is that 42 is as good an explanation as anyone is going to get, while the Many Worlds interpretation is considered debatable, although the one that most physicists believe.

 

We have discussed and even had many very heated arguments over Quantum Mechanics for many, many years on this forum.

 

I have lots of books on Quantum Theory.

 

I bet you do

 

Yes, I have lots of unusual scientific books, which are very interesting.

 

Me too.

 

No, I am the one with the books.