We Are Co-creators in the Cosmos
Chris: This has reminded me of something you talked about in regard to physical substance — matter. You said that modern physics has shown that we change it by looking at it. What are the implications of that?
Tony: That is an amazing idea isn’t it?
Considering that quantum physics now assures us that subatomic particles can change their very nature simply by us observing them, I often wonder if, when we look at a flower and feel how beautiful it is, we in some way change it.
In his book Holographic Universe, Michael Talbot gives an understandable description of this. He says that, ‘Physicists have found compelling evidence that the only time electrons and other “quanta” manifest as particles is when we are looking at them. At all other times they behave as waves. This is as strange as owning a bowling ball that traces a single line down the lane while you are watching it, but leaves a wave pattern every time you blink your eyes.’
We usually see the world as bounded by time and three dimensions. But another extraordinary statement about the world around us is one put forward by Irish physicist John Stewart Bell. It is a quantum theorem that has revolutionised the way reality is considered. In brief, the theorem states that when two sub-microscopic particles are split and moved to a distance from each other, the action on, or of, particle ‘A’, is instantaneously reproduced with particle ‘B’. This interaction does not rely on any known link or communication and is considered to stand above normal physical laws of nature, as it is faster than light. Prior to such findings it was thought nothing could transcend the speed of light. See Feature by Talbot.
Despite these findings we still hear scientists talking about the solid and time bound world in which nothing can move faster than light. I guess we all live in the past in one way or another, and in fact our world view, considering these new findings, is still dragging somewhere in the 19th century.
Chick
The everyday events in life are still miraculous
Newtonian physics, in which the atom was the fundamental and immutable particle in the universe, gradually robbed us of a magical view of our environment that existed previously, and still exists in many tribal cultures.
This reminds me of something I read in Lyle Watson’s book Supernature. He said that having written about some of the strange things that could be observed, which many scientists would never investigate because they appear to be completely impossible from their present view of the universe, a man in Italy wrote to him asking for Lyle to come and witness something his young son did. Lyle followed through on the request, and while observing the young boy of about four years old, the father rolled a tennis ball to his son. The son played with it for a while, and without any apparent struggle rolled the ball back. But now the ball was inside out without any break in its surface.
Lyle then took another ball and wrote his name on the outside of it. He rolled the ball to the boy and in a few minutes it was rolled back inside out.
Later, with witnesses, Lyle cut the second ball open and there was his signature on the inside of what had been an unbroken ball.
What Lyle says is that our present scientific view sees what he witnessed as completely impossible. It is against most of the fundamental things that our science states are laws of our universe, making what happened out of the question.
Having said that, here we are living in the world where it seems impossible for us to turn tennis balls inside out without cutting them in some way; distances have to be crossed physically by some means of transport; people appear to be completely separate from us in mind and body; death appears to be a final end; we feel hemmed in by the limits of our ability to know — so what does it mean that a four year old boy turned a tennis ball inside out?
Well, the new physics begins to give us evidence that we live in the midst of a universe that is far more amazing than we have ever previously thought. We live in some ways as co-creators of this universe. But my deepest feelings about what this means is that we each have a phenomenal potential. We each have possibilities beyond anything we can imagine. As human beings we haven’t even begun to really explore that potential and to use it in our everyday life. To me that is the most important path forward for each of us.
Personally I find it amazing that many Christians, who profess deep belief in their Bible, can’t see and accept that. In Genesis it says, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness …. And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” That means we have the potential of being godlike. Miracles are part of our nature!