The Quantum Worldview and its principles

What Exactly Is the Quantum Worldview?

The discoveries in the field of Quantum Physics provide a solid basis for integrating the ancient spiritual wisdom traditins including those of the East with the advancements of modern science and technology and also provide the context for creating tools and frameworks to achieve equitable progress on both a personal and societal level.

The Quantum Worldview, in contrast to scientific materialism, is based on an inclusive and egalitarian science; everyone without exception “resides” and participates in the field of the oneness that we call consciousness. And lest one worries, this worldview is also solidly based on scientific data. You can call it scientific idealism if you like.

The Quantum Worldview is grounded in the following 12 principles; if you educate yourself to understand these principles, you will grasp their power, and even be able to use the power in living and transform yourself and the society you live in.

1. The Dual Nature of a Quantum Object

Quantum objects are both waves and particles. In the beginning, this seems paradoxical; indeed, for decades quantum physicists used to call this the wave particle duality a paradox: how can the same object be a wave that spreads out, be at more than one place at the same time, and also be a particle that is destined to be only at one place at a time? But there is no paradox. Quantum objects are waves in a “domain of potentiality” outside of space and time and when measured, they are revealed as particles inside of the domain of space and time or domain of actuality or manifestation. In other words, the quantum waves are waves of possibility; their wave nature is revealed by experiments only after a little analysis.

How do you discern between the two domains? In the domain of actuality, space and time, objects communicate with signals. Signals can move only a finite speed. In other words, there is a speed limit, the speed of light, 300, 000 km/sec. In this way, in space and time, communication is local, going through space taking time. In the domain of potentiality, objects communicate without signals, taking no time at all. What does that mean? Think about it. If everything is instantly interconnected, isn’t that what we call oneness. So there is oneness beyond our separateness that we experience. Does that knowledge empower you? It should. Spiritual traditions are telling you about oneness for millennia except that they make it a question of faith. And now that oneness is scientific fact: both theory and experimental data backing the idea. Scientific faith! Integration of science and spirituality! Isn’t that empowering?

2. Consciousness is the ground of all being

This Oneness is consciousness. Consciousness is the ground of all being and all our experiences in the domain of actuality or manifestation originate from this ground. How does this follow? You notice that whenever there is a manifest object in your experience, there is also a co-arising subject, you, looking at the object. So the domain of potentiality must also have the potentiality of being that we call subject. A being that manifests as both subject and object is what we call consciousness.

Material possibilities are of two types. Most of them are reductive; they can be reduced to their base level, the elementary particles. They give rise to the part of the world that we find nonliving and insentient. But there are also material possibilities in consciousness - namely, the living cell and the brain—that contain irreducible circular wholes, called “tangled hierarchies” with which consciousness identifies as it changes possibility into actuality. In this way, the living cell and the brain make manifest representations of consciousness in space and time acquiring a self. Consciousness identifies with these systems while changing their possibility into actuality. As a result these systems have the self-experience of “life” separate from environment and “subject” separate from objects respectively.

In this way, this aspect of the quantum worldview gives a basis for understanding biology - the science of life as different from non-life, and psychology - the science of the our self and its experiences as different from robots and computers.

I hope you see the empowering thought here. You are not a robot; you cannot be reduced to your parts and constructed in the lab from nonliving molecules or controlled in any other way.

In psychological terms, the unmanifest ground is your unconscious, but don’t be confused. The quantum unconscious is much broader in scope than what Freud or even Jung envisioned for our unconscious. Also, the causal power of the unconscious is now explicit, not implicit as it was in Fred’s thinking. This causal power of choice we call downward causation.

Do you see the potential power this knowledge gives you? Your subjective free will is not the ornamental epiphenomenon of the brain that materialists tell you; it has freedom to say “no” to your conditioning that makes you mechanical and determined. This is how you open up to the real freedom of choice that lies in your unconscious ground of being.

3. Paths of Reconnection and the Connection with Religions

You, we all, are instantly interconnected through our unconscious; however only in potentiality. To actualize our connectedness, we can meditate together with intention to be connected, we can make a relationship that is not hierarchical but circular, or we can engage in a creative venture by ourselves or even better, in collaboration with others.

These three “paths” for reconnecting to the One from the separateness we live are called nonlocality (connection through signalless communication), tangled hierarchy (connection through circularity of relationships), and discontinuity (abrupt “quantum jump” from the domain of space and time to the domain of interconnectedness without going through the intervening “space”), respectively. When you reconnect and access the ground of being, you also get access to its power, its freedom to choose. And most importantly you taste joy, happiness that comes with being the whole.

One way religions differ from one another in their emphasis on one path to reconnect over another. Christianity emphasizes reconnection through relationship - love and selfless service to others. Buddhism emphasizes nonlocality via the concept of sangha or community; Zen Buddhism also emphasizes discontinuity of quantum jumps of enlightenment to wisdom. Hinduism emphasizes all three paths. But you, a human being of modern times will largely not see religions as necessary for following a path to “enlightenment.” Indeed, religions come with other baggage that you see unnecessary for you. Quantum worldview not only legitimizes the religions to a degree but also frees you to pursue spiritual transformation even as an atheist. Does that not empower you?

4. Multiplicity of Human Experiences

The quantum worldview opens the door to a science of all our experiences. An experience has two poles: the experiencer (subject) and the experienced (object). Each of our experiencing (sensing, thinking, feeling, and intuiting) of objects begins as quantum possibility of consciousness to choose from; choice actualizes the multifaceted possibility into a unique actuality. There is the experience of the subject also.

How does this knowledge empower you? Materialists see the human being as capable of processing sensory experiences and mental information, processing that even a robot can do given powerful enough computing capacity. Today’s materialist culture emphasizes sensing and thinking, undervalues feeling (“emotions don’t exist”), and ignores intuition. This is a chain you wear when you succumb to this false news. But you know what? You have the key to unchain yourself: your feelings and your intuitions. Explore them and be free!

5. We have not one but five bodies

Each of our experiences (the four mentioned above plus the experience of the whole making a total of five) comes from a quantum world of potentiality. As we manifest experiences with the help of our physical embodiment, we develop a “body” in each of the potential worlds. In this way, we have not one - the physical - body, but five bodies: physical, vital, mental, supramental/archetypal (also called soul), and the whole (also called spirit).

With a science of experience in your vocabulary you can see how your concept of health must include all these bodies, not just the physical body. As you learn to do this, your concept of health changes from “absence of illness” to “presence of wellness.” This positive attitude is empowering, you will see.

When you grasp the multiplicity of our experiences, you also begin to see that our educational system must emphasize all four different kinds of human experiences each with the idea of exploring the huge potentialities of transformation, intelligence, and happiness: Sensing (Physical Objects); Feeling (Vitality); Thinking (Meaning); Intuiting (purposive archetypal or spiritual values such as Truth, Love, Abundance, etc.). The happiness that comes with sensing is gross pleasure. The other experiences lead you to increasingly subtler and subtler forms of happiness. The exploration of the self too leads you to happiness; in fact to the most joyful and satisfying kind of happiness.

Right now, your education is way unbalanced toward material sensing and mental thinking. To make the situation worse, mental thinking which should involve meaning, is reduced to information processing making the happiness content worse. This emphasis on the gross has led to a neglect of your artistic and humanistic dimensions, the part of you that seeks feeling, meaning, and purpose. In this way, unbeknownst to you, you are being shortchanged. Instead of joy and happiness, you are experiencing boredom; instead of living enchanted, you are living in dullsville. The quantum worldview revives the arts and humanities in your educational system opening the door to your reenchantment with the subtle wonders of the world.

6. The Three Faces of the Self

The core of our self-experience is the tangled hierarchical quantum self of dependent co-arising of the event of quantum collapse. However, the vehicles of self making - the cell and the brain - make memory as experiences happen. This has the effect called conditioning - a tendency for the self of these vehicles to respond to a stimulus in the same way as in previous encounters with it. For us humans, the conditioned self is what we call our ego-character. However, our brain is constructed in such a way, that the memory can be reconstructed for a period; this phase is called short term memory. This ability to reconstruct memory coupled with the ability to be “conscious of being conscious (of our past)” enables us to act with various personas - programs of personality—in various situations. In this way we develop a simple hierarchical ego-character-persona, the head honcho of our personality programs. How does this knowledge empower you? You now can be aware how the personalities can be used in “inauthentic” ways by many people, even you. And then you can begin your journey to be as authentic as practicable. Authenticity helps your relationship to grow and your creative ability.

7. Creativity and Spirituality

Quantum Creativity consists of a “discontinuous” leap from the known arena of the ego to the unknown arena of new quantum possibilities of the unconscious that then manifests in the primary experience of an unconditioned “quantum self” beyond ego as a creative insight to which the ego gives form. The creative exploration of new mental meaning, archetypal purpose, and spiritual wholeness, is fundamental to being Human, it elevates human free will to say “no” to conditioning to real freedom of choice from new quantum potentiality. Empowering, yes, “but how do I do it, how do I explore creativity and arrive at the fulfillment of my human potential?” you say. Using the creative process, that’s how.

8. The Creative Process - do-be-do-be-do, in essence - is the real secret of manifestation

The quantum worldview comes with a creative process that agrees with empirical data and provides a viable universally usable technique for both outer novel accomplishments and inner psychological and spiritual transformation. The essence of the creative process, do-be-do-be-do is this. “Do” means focused engaging with the object of your exploration. “Be” is relaxing, doing nothing, so the “divergent thinking” you generate in the “do” phase is processed in the unconscious. Alternative “do” and “be” results in convergent thought, an insight. However, the insight comes as a discontinuity of thought, a quantum leap, which you follow through with manifestation of an outer product or an inner new you. In this way, I hope you now see that your intuitions and following them up with quantum creativity is the real secret of manifestation. Now you can really “create your own reality.” You can choose health instead of illness, you can choose happiness instead of suffering; you can choose wholeness instead of fragmentation in yourself.

9. Hierarchy of Needs

Human enterprises must involve satisfying the needs of all human experiences, from the most basic survival needs to the pinnacle of the need for self-realization - the awakening of the idea that the self does not exist apart from wholeness. In this way the quantum worldview supports Maslow’s work in the 1960’s. This hierarchy includes but transcends material sensing and artificial computer information-centered thinking.

Why is this important? Under the aegis of scientific materialism, our life today is mostly centered around the economy and the field that supposedly governs it - economics. In most of the world, the economic theory used is capitalism in which there are two systems - production and consumption. The basic assumption of capitalism is this: if both the producers and the consumers are guided by their “numero uno” - homo economicus - interest, then if the market is free from any other influence (such as government), the invisible hands of the free market will establish equilibrium between production and consumption, stable prices, and even allocation of resources among the various sectors of the economy.

The problem is this: our “numero uno” selfishness often collides with the interests of the whole society - homo communus. Total disaster can happen if the interests of homo communus is ignored for long; the current global climate change is an example of that. One more step gives us a new paradigm of economics: extend Adam Smith’s capitalism from the material domain to all other domains of human needs - the vital, the mental, the archetypal, and even wholeness itself. Production and consumption of these subtle needs changes the economy from a transactional “zero sum” game, give and take economy to a transformational economy. What does that mean? We focus on the archetype of abundance instead of material wealth and that makes all the difference and includes homo communus in the economic equation.

10. Reincarnation and the importance of character

Quantum physics indicates that the part of our ego that we call our character - the ability to learn specific tasks and especially learning to learn - is nonlocal; it is stored outside space and time and can be inherited as part of a universal law of karma by subsequent “reincarnations.” Through these various human incarnations our capacity to creatively explore feeling, meaning and purposeful archetypes increases manifold. When we realize and fully grasp this aspect of the quantum worldview, we recognize death for what it is: a way station for the purpose of renewal.

Note also that besides nature and nurture, there are propensities from past lives that you can manifest in this one. Through memory retrieval and past life regression techniques, you can also get a sense of the purpose of your lives that the Indians call dharma and live your life with the bliss of purposeful exploration. Having a purposive life in the form of following dharma, to quote the mythologist Joseph Campbell, is to “follow your bliss.” You will see.

11. Evolution of Consciousness

In the quantum worldview, evolution is evolution of consciousness in manifestation. Conscious evolution is purposive consisting of both homeostasis and discontinuous (quantum) leaps. In the past, evolution of how you engage your mind has given you the instinctual brain circuits of pleasure and pain and the collective unconscious (of Jungian vintage) that you share with all of humanity. But evolution does not stop there. Its objective right now is to transform our rational mind to produce greater and greater embodiment of archetypal (spiritual) values. Moreover, the embodiment of the archetypes also happens in the body organs of the navel and the heart chakra and beyond, and involves noble feelings we can experience. When these feelings are integrated with the meanings we generate via the pursuit of the archetypes through our mind and brain, we develop what traditionally is called the soul in the West (which Aurobindo called Supramental body). Actively it is our special responsibility to align ourselves to the evolutionary movement of consciousness and contribute to more supramental awareness on the planet.

Currently we are stuck with the materialist concept of the material body as all that our embodiment entails, and intelligence as measured by our IQ. Quantum worldview, in addition to the structural physical body gives us the concepts of a functional vital body, a functional mental body, and a functional soul body. The idea of evolutionary transformation from the current stage of the rational mind to the intuitive mind introduces us at the personal level to the concepts of emotional and supramental intelligence. In essence, this leads to the spiritual concept of integrating the brain - the seat of the rational mind - with the heart - the seat of love, except that the quantum worldview also gives us practical ways of achieving this integration. Arriving at supramental intelligence brings us the highest satisfaction and sustenance. Quantum worldview recognizes only one other state of more wholeness than this, but that state of mystical enlightenment is not an achievement, it is a liberation from all achievements.

12. Social Relationships and the Vision of a Transformed Quantum Society

In the past 60 years of scientific materialism, our individuality has gained prominence over our community consciousness to a pathological extent. According to the quantum worldview, our simple hierarchical individuality must be supplemented by the “WE” of relationships, the “WE” of quantum nonlocality and “tangled hierarchy.” In economics, as discussed above this translates as the integration of homo economicus (the selfish human of Newtonian vintage) and homo communus (the nonlocal human of quantum vintage).

Politics, representative democracy, the problem is of how our elected representatives use their power. Do they use power simply to serve their constituents who elected them (which, of course, keeps them perpetually in power) or use their power to empower everyone including the people who did not vote for them. If we are transactional, then we want quid pro quo, give and take. This is a sure fire way to polarize the society as we now are seeing in America and elsewhere.

In transactional politics, minorities and the traditionally powerless suffer. This perpetuates racism, sexism, the perpetually poor, etc. In this country, even the party of the “others” - the democratic party, because of the influence of scientific materialism, try to solve the problem of discrimination via political correctness. This is still transactional; instead, this party, true to progressive liberalism, must opt for transformational politics.

The Vision of the Quantum Worldview and Transformative Education Finally, we now can tell the vision of the quantum worldview for you and our society. As you practice quantum living and transform, the society around you transforms through your example and through protracted use of quantum activism. As the use of quantum nonlocality, discontinuity, and tangled hierarchy become commonplace in our living, the whole society changes to a participatory community of personal growth oriented creative individuals, a quantum society. The government still has a function, but it is reduced to minimum; in that way the polarization as we witness today, between the two parties disappear.

Within this vision, the teaching of consciousness can now begin in earnest with all its facets, gross, subtle, and causal, integrating science and spirituality. Because of this new understanding, we are in a position to teach spiritual transformation, and nothing less, to our students. We will be first educational institution to call itself an Institute of Transformative Education, but we will not be the last.

Today, we need creative and transformed people to solve the problems that the last few decades have caused through a polarized worldview. We have to transform higher education from its current emphasis on information to an emphasis on meaning, purpose, and transformation. And this is what we plan to do in our Consciousness Studies, Health and Healing, Psychology, and Economics and business programs.

by Amit Goswami

 Official website of Center For Quantum Activism (click the link):

Center For Quantum Activism

 Coming Quantum Physics events in Bologna (click the link):

Appuntamenti dedicati alla Fisica Quantica a Bologna

 Photo credits:

The cover photo is taken from the website of Center For Quantum Activism