Mind Power

Written by Administrator

The Matrix, the Law of Attraction, and Quantum Physics

The Law of Attraction asserts that you can change the objective reality around you simply by cultivating the right mental attitude. For example, with a positive mental attitude supported by thoughts of wealth, you could bring into motion a series of positive coincidences that will bring money into your hands. Although many dismiss this ideology as New Age mysticism, its claims are not dissimilar to the claims that Jesus made about the power of faith. More recently, discoveries in the field of quantum physics provide at least some support to the world view underlying these claims.

Quantum physics holds that microscopic elementary particles such as quarks are particles and waves at the same time, and that they behave either as waves or as particles depending on the way they are measured. It also holds that the movement of subatomic particles is inherently random, and that it is impossible as a matter of scientific principle to simultaneously determine the exact location and exact momentum of an elementary particle. Subsequent discoveries established that elementary particles are bound together in a fundamental unity throughout the entire universe. This means that the activity of one particle can affect the behavior of another particle located on the other side of the universe, and that the speed of this reaction occurs instantaneously – that is, far faster than the speed of light. This is possible only because there is nothing traveling between the two particles – their bonding is fundamental, and it is completely independent of the distance between them.

The most astonishing discovery of quantum physics, however, is called the Observer Effect. The Observer Effect holds that the physical state of an elementary particle is determined only at the exact moment of observation by the scientist, and that its physical state of the particle is in a nebulous undetermined state of reality until the act of observation occurs. This phenomenon was experimentally proven in 1972 by John Clauser at the University of California-Berkeley, and has been corroborated at least three times since then. This finding indicates that the consciousness of the observing scientist can directly affect physical reality.

But there is a big difference between determining the momentum and location of a quark or an electron and affecting reality on a macroscopic level - by bringing wealth into your hands through the law of attraction, for example. Or is there? During the last century, physicist Erwin Schroedinger came up with a “thought experiment” in which the decay of a subatomic particle would kill a cat placed inside a sealed container. Since the exact timing of the decay of the particle would depend on the act of observation by the scientist, there would be no way for the scientist to know whether or not the particle had already decayed until he opened the container and found the cat either alive or dead. What is mind-blowing about this experiment is that, according to the Observer Effect, since the exact timing of the particle’s decay would be determined only at the exact moment of observation by the scientist, the cat would be both alive and dead at the same time until the container was opened.

The implication of this experiment is that an undetermined state at the microscopic level is capable of being translated into an undetermined state at the microscopic level of day-to-day reality. If consciousness can determine the life of death of a cat placed in a sealed container, then why couldn’t consciousness create opportunities for wealth or love in the manner asserted by the law of attraction? 

Critics of this viewpoint advance two principal objections to the claims made by the Law of Attraction. The first objection is that the act of “observation” that determines the physical state of an elementary particle need not be carried out by a conscious being – a clock, for example, can act as an observer. A possible response to this objection is that the time that the clock reads cannot be determined until the clock itself is observed by a conscious being.
 
The second major objection advanced by critics of the use of quantum theory to support the Law of Attraction is that the motion of subatomic particles is fundamentally random, which is a claim far stronger than the claim that current technology has not yet devised a way to determine this motion. One way of illustrating this idea would be to rhetorically assert that even God could not determine the motion of an elementary particle before it actually occurs. Because of this, critics argue, even though the act of observation by a scientist determines whether Schroedinger’s cat is alive or dead at the moment the container is opened, it is impossible for the scientist to choose whether the cat will be alive or dead when the container is opened.

However, when a scientist speaks of a “random” system, he means that no mathematically describable pattern exists that can enable the scientist to predict the future behavior of the system. A scientist would refer to such a system as “undetermined”, meaning that there is no cause for the variations in its motion. This last assertion can be called into question. For example, the exact split second that John Smith begins brushing his teeth every day could be recorded for years without discovering a mathematically describable pattern. Even if no such descriptive formula exists that can predict when John Smith will begin brushing his teeth tomorrow, it is not undetermined - because John Smith determines what time he will brush his teeth every day out of his own free will. Physics would deny the existence of any such thing as “free will”, and that is the crux of the Law of Attraction debate – radically differing assumptions about the nature of reality.

Add Comment