“The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.” – Werner Heisenberg, father of quantum physics
When I was a child, I wanted to be an astronaut. I remember many summer nights when my grandfather, my cousins, and I would go out to the garden with the telescope to see Jupiter’s moons or Saturn’s rings. The Milky Way was probably my first object of contemplation: I could observe that family of stars crossing the night sky as something flat, as if it were painted on a dark vault. But with a twist of imagination, knowing that what I was looking at was my galaxy floating in the void, suddenly that path of stars took on depth, and the infinite silenced my mind, leaving it speechless, filled with wonder.
So many ways of seeing.
I grew up, and my interest in mechanics and astronomy led me to study engineering. At that time, I was a fierce defender of science, on a crusade against anything that went against logic and scientific rigor.
Then I discovered God and began to peer into the spiritual dimension. My mind was once again left speechless with wonder. After having discovered that other world, I looked again at my precious logic and science, and I saw them with different eyes. Where I once saw the ultimate authority, I now saw a powerful but limited tool. I gradually understood that science can observe and explain how things work, but not what it is that it observes, or what its meaning is. That is spiritual territory, and science cannot enter there; it is beyond its field of action, in a completely different paradigm.
There really is no conflict between both spheres. Faith and reason are not enemies, but each deals with its own. Both serve their purpose: without science, I probably wouldn’t be alive; without the connection to the spirit, I wouldn’t know why I live, and I wouldn’t be writing this letter.
Historically, this apparent incompatibility has been the cause of endless battles. For a long time, religion maintained its hegemony, and people like Galileo, who seemed to contradict what the Bible said, didn’t have much success sharing their ideas. However, science began to accelerate. Newton described with such precision how things moved that his laws were adopted as the truth governing the cosmos. With the Enlightenment, reason rose as humanity’s savior and pushed faith off the stage. “God is dead,” Nietzsche said shortly afterward. Freud declared that God was nothing more than a mental projection, an image constructed by humans to satisfy their longing for security in a hostile world. The world voted in favor and science remained alone and proud in its messianic mission to solve humanity’s problems.
But Truth remained untouched, of course. God is not something you can kill, no matter how many humans vote in favor. All we can do is reject it and obscure it, and that’s what we did. Our vision of the Universe became (very) limited to something called reductionist materialism, which says that matter is all there is. Realities like love and peace are mere psychological effects of substances secreted in the body. Most importantly, this “scientific” philosophy holds as one of its tenets that consciousness is a product of the brain’s electrical activity. This, of course, has not been scientifically proven; it’s a dogma, really. This is what is known in the scientific community as “the hard problem.” However, they assume that it is so, using not reason but faith, paradoxically. This leaves us with an inert, deterministic universe devoid of meaning. It also leaves us without free will. The universe is a vast billiard table.
About 100 years ago, a new light was lit in the very heart of science. It was the dawn of quantum mechanics, and some of the physicists developing the theory began to realize that human consciousness played a role beyond mere observation. It seems that by observing, human consciousness altered what was being observed. This caused quite a stir in the henhouse. The implications of this discovery are tremendous. If it is true that human consciousness has an impact on what happens, it means that there is really no objective universe outside of our minds, but rather our mind and the universe are an inseparable continuum, in constant interaction. Einstein refused to accept this possibility, preferring to maintain belief in an objective universe. Others, however, accepted this possibility and developed an interpretation that goes something like this:
The way things happen follows a triple process (The von Neumann/Stapp Approach):
Process 1: This has been called the “Heisenberg’s choice.” The experimenter decides what he wants to do. That is, in his mind, he declares an intention. No one has been able to determine what causes that decision. Certainly, it is not the result of what happens at the physical level. This is where free will kicks the door open and enters the scientific building, saying “I’m back!”.
Process 2: This is the quantum equivalent of Newton’s laws of motion. It refers to what is happening at the physical level. It is deterministic and local. Like a small billiard table where the next possible plays are superimposed in a cloud of probability.
Process 3: This has been called “choice on the part of Nature.” The experimenter declares an intention about how he wants to act (Process 1), but that is one variable among many within the physical system (Process 2). Ultimately, it is Nature that decides what happens, and that is Process 3.
I have taken this information from this paper, in case you want to delve into it further. Although it is more accessible to listen to Henry Stapp himself talk about it on YouTube.
Quantum mechanics is then at the intersection between the world of science and the spiritual realm. It’s like a bridge between one world and another. It’s the mechanics of Creation. In fact, if I’ve approached it at all, it hasn’t been out of my interest in science, but out of my interest in the spiritual. I wanted to deepen my understanding of what intention is and how it affects the course of my life.
I’ll share with you two perspectives, one on prayer and the other on meditation. And with that, I’ll end the letter, as the topic of quantum mechanics is not taboo, but almost.
Regarding prayer, here’s a transcript I made from watching a lecture by Dr. Hawkins (“Perception & Positionality – June 2004”). Someone asked him about prayer, and this was his response.
“Prayer is a declaration of intention. It has a certain energy of its own. It collapses the wave function. From the viewpoint of quantum mechanics, there is even a mathematics to it. It’s a statement of intention. If you pray for God’s will in a matter and surrender to God, then you’re not looking for an answer. So, you wouldn’t know if you got one because you’re surrendered already. But the likelihood, the potentiality of that which is prayed for, becomes higher. That which you hold in mind tends to manifest. So, it’s just holding in mind what would be the most desired thing, but without adding desire to it. And then you surrender. You see, you’re not trying to force God to give you this, that’s not really prayer. Prayer is really surrendering your vision to Divinity and if it’s karmically appropriate, and Divinity is in a good mood, it happens.”
As you can see, it’s the same mechanism described earlier, but with different terms: Process 1: I pray, holding in my mind what I would like to happen. Process 2: Among all the things that could happen, my prayer increases the likelihood of what I have prayed for. Process 3: Nature, The Universe, God, decides the final outcome.
“Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.”
Jesus Christ (Mark 11:24)
A deeper option, only for the brave, is this: realize how limited your mind is, that in reality you know nothing (Socrates) and therefore you cannot know what is best for you. Process 1: Trusting that God knows you perfectly and does know what is best for you, your intention is simply to step aside and surrender. What happens next is mysterious, and often miraculous, depending on how deep the surrender is.
“You will receive everything you need when you stop asking for what you do not need.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj
Second perspective, on meditation. We’ve said that Process 1 is your intention. How effective your intention is will depend, in part, on your ability to sustain an intention over time. It’s not the same to declare “I’m going to eat while paying attention to what I eat” and then forget about it, as it is to maintain that intention in your mind throughout the entire meal without getting distracted. That’s what you train when practicing meditation. You close your eyes and declare the intention “I’m going to pay attention to the sensations that the breath produces in my nose.” Then, when you realize you’ve been distracted, you return to that intention. And so, through repetition, you strengthen your Process 1, that is, how much your intention weighs on the scale that decides what happens.
And that’s the theory. All these mechanisms have been explained before, in other terms, by both Western and Eastern spiritual traditions. Now, also backed by science! So, now, I invite you to experiment with it. Declare an intention for your week, for your day, for the next action you’re going to take after reading this letter. Then observe.
Ah, one last pearl, which may serve as inspiration when choosing an intention:
“Wisdom consists in doing the next thing you have to do, doing it with your whole heart, and finding delight in doing it.”
Meister Eckhart
That’s all for today. I hope this information will be useful to you. Have a beautiful week. I love you.
A.
