© 2005 Kenneth Glasziou
© 2005 The Christian Fellowship of Students of The Urantia Book
| Toward Spiritual Fellowship | Spring 2005 — Index | A Careful Examination of the “Not Inspired” Disclaimers of The Urantia Book (Part I) |
(Emphasis in paper is by author)
“The Universe of universes, in toto, is mind planed, mind made, and mind administered.” UB 42:11.2
In the experiments of Chaio, et al., presented the basic set-up utilized a down converter, an instrument that splits a photon into twins having equal energy. These then went to a beam splitter that presented two alternative pathways to a detection system measuring the simultaneous arrival of the twin pair-an event that signaled wave-like behavior.
The addition of a polarizer to only one of the alternative pathways labeled that pathway and immediately destroyed all wave-like properties of the photons. The question then asked was: “what would happen if the information about the marked pathway was left intact while the photon went through polarizer P1, but was destroyed by the P2 polarizer just before arriving at the detection system?” The answer was unequivocal-wave behavior was restored.
Amore elaborate version of this type of experiment was carried out at the University of Rochester which demonstrated that even when there was no observable difference in the photons arriving at the detection system, if it was even theoretically possible that their pathway could be retraced then that was sufficient to collapse the wave function and bring about particle-like behavior.
The Aspect experiments which confirmed the theoretical results predicted by Bell demonstrated that any signals passing between the twin pair of correlated photons emitted by radio-active calcium must exceed the speed of light.
High tech optical experiments have confirmed this conclusion. To do so, twin photon pairs were raced against one another. After adjusting their tracks to be identical, a barrier was placed across one path to take advantage of the tunneling effect — an effect long used in electronics with the tunneling diode in which the probability relations for energy distribution permit the occasional electron to surmount “impossible” energy barriers.
Interestingly the photon tunneling through a barrier arrived at its target before its unimpeded twin, the average velocity over many trials being 1.7 times the velocity of light. It was also found that, in the process of tunneling, a photon is somehow able to sense the far side of the barrier and cross it in the same amount of time no matter how thick the barrier may be. Strange, is it not? Is a photon in some way conscious?
The empirical evidence deriving from quantum theory research has shown that at molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels, prior to observation, objects are composed of something indeterminate that is neither wave nor particle, is neither here nor there but is distributed "who knows where’ as a probability distribution that will materialize instantaneously at the request of an observer. And it does so either as a wave or particle, or a conglomeration of particles depending upon the methodology of the observer.
In their indeterminate format of “neither wave nor particle,” such objects may be distributed in, even throughout, the world of space-time, or alternatively, in a dimension beyond space-time that some refer to as “non-local.”
Non-local is a zone, dimension, or whatever, in which time appears to be non-existent, a zone of reality that is instantaneously accessible on demand from within space-time.
We look at the brain-mind’s quantum system as a complex macro-quantum system consisting of many components.
We can represent the states of a complex quantum system by its so-called normal modes of excitation, its quanta, or more generally, by conglomerates of the normal modes. Suppose these normal modes represent mental archetypes of mental objects (much like Plato’s shadows on the cave wall). Call these states of the brain’s system pure mental states.
Suppose also that the bulk of the brain is the classical analogue of a measurement apparatus and this classical apparatus of the brain amplifies and records the quantum mind objects.
In this quantum model, the mental states are states of the quantum system which, with measurement, become correlated with the states of its measuring apparatus.
Thus in every quantum event the brain-mind state that is collapsed and experienced represents a pure mental state that the classical brain measures, amplifies, or records.
The concept that most of the brain is simply a measuring apparatus leads to a new and useful way to think about the brain and conscious events.
So could it be that a quantum mechanism in our head opens the way for the supervention of non-local consciousness?
Definitive experimental evidence for a non-local quantum system in the brain-mind comes from Grinberg-Zyllerbaum and co-workers in which two subjects maintain their direct contact while each is in a Faraday cage at a distance from one another. When the brain of one responds to an external stimulus with an evoked potential, the other’s brain also shows a potential, in form, similar to that evoked potential.
This is interpreted as an example of quantum nonlocality due to correlation between two brain-minds that is established through their non-local consciousness.
Classical concepts about the brain-mind system mostly treat the brain itself as computer-like hardware with mind being the software. In the idealist model the mental states we experience are derived from the interaction of both the classical and quantum systems.
Importantly, in any individual the causal potency of the brain-mind quantum system arises from non-local consciousness that both collapses the mind’s wave function and experiences the outcome. Objects appear from a transcendent domain of possibility into the domain of manifestation when non-local unitive consciousness collapses their wave function.
However for the collapse to be completed it must be in the presence of an awareness of the train-mind in order that “measurement” is made. Thus we have a circularity situation-there is no completion of measurement without awareness, but there is no awareness without completion of measurement.
To see our way clear of this circularity we can apply quantum measurement theory to the brain-mind. According to von Neumann, the state of quantum system changes in two ways. The first is by spreading as a wave to become a coherent superpositioning of all the allowed potential states. The second is a discontinuous change in state produced by a measurement thereby reducing the multifaceted existing state to a single actualized facet. That first step is a development of a pool of possibilities and the second, the choice of one of them.
Is there a way out from circularity and self-reference? The answer is yes but we must choose to take it. It is the recognition that our consciousness is the same consciousness that is beyond the subject-object split-the consciousness of the source of all consciousness. Some call it “Being,” others call it “God.”
Most physicists view this as a random choice, but according to the idealist interpretation, it is consciousness that does the choosing — a consciousness with awareness, that can transcend locality to become both non-local and unitive.
Whereas it is our consciousness that chooses this outcome of the collapse of the quantum state of our brain-mind, nevertheless we remain quite unconscious of the underlying process. And it is the same unconsciousness that leads to our feeling of separateness — the “I” of circularity, self-reference, and tangled hierarchy rather than the “we” of unitive consciousness.
Is there a way out from circularity and self-reference? The answer is yes but we must choose to take it. It is the recognition that our consciousness is the same consciousness that is beyond the subject-object split-the consciousness of the source of all consciousness. Some call it “Being,” others call it “God.”
Of inestimable value for humanity is the fact that quantum physics has provided incontrovertible empirical proof for the existence of transcendent orders of reality about which materialism was in total denial. And in doing so we mortals have been liberated from the rigidity of determinism — and had our minds freed to explore the pathway to belief in a First Cause which, in turn, can lead us to discover God who is love.
All universe mind is derived initially from the third person of the Trinity — the Infinite Spirit. The general distribution of mind to the universes is a Cosmic Mind, but to an individual universe it is via the Universe Mother Spirit.
The exception is for non-teachable mechanical mind present in the most primitive forms of material life — which is ministered to by the Master Physical Controllers. This mind-level may also be functional at some level, even among the most advanced forms of animal life.
Animal life, including human beings, is ministered to by the seven Adjutant Mind Spirits which are nonpersonal derivatives of the Universe Mother Spirit. These are known by names that reflect their functionality — the adjutants of intuition, understanding, courage, knowledge, counsel, worship, wisdom.
Mortal man first experiences the ministry of spirit in conjunction with mind when the purely animal mind of evolutionary creatures develops reception capacity for the adjutants of worship and of wisdom. This ministry of the sixth and seventh adjutants indicates mind evolution crossing the threshold of spiritual ministry.
But for the reception of a so-called Thought Adjuster, the indwelling Spirit of God, creature mind must exhibit worship outreach and indicate wisdom function by exhibiting the ability to choose between the emerging values of good and evil-moral choice.
Since the feast of Pentecost following Jesus’resurrection, all normal-minded individuals have been recipients of an indwelling Spirit of the Father. Most commonly this has occurred following the individual’s first moral decision-presently averaging at around 6 years of age.
This indwelling Spirit obviously forms a direct bond linking both the mind and the consciousness of each individual with the consciousness of God. This Spirit of God, because it occupies a central place in the brainmind of the individual, forms a link by which the Spirit of Truth and other spirit forces can gain access to the human brain-mind.
Thus we conclude that the concepts of monistic idealism and the thoughts presented to us in the Urantia revelation are complementary.
Cosmic consciousness implies the recognition of a First Cause, the one and only uncaused reality. God, the Universal Father, functions on Deity-personality levels of sub-infinite value and relative divinity expression:
1. Pre-personal — as in the ministry of the Father fragments, his indwelling Spirit.
2. Personal — as in the evolutionary experience of created and procreated beings.
3. Super-personal — as in the eventuated existences of certain absonite and associated beings. (UB 0:2.3-5)
God is possessed of unlimited power to know all things, his consciousness is universal. His personal circuit encompasses all personalities, and his knowledge of even the lowly creatures is supplemented indirectly through the descending series of divine Sons and directly through the indwelling Thought Adjusters. Andfurthermore, the Infinite Spirit is all the time everywhere present. (UB 3:3.3)
The Universal Father is the only personality in all the universe who does actually know the number of the stars and planets of space. All the worlds of every universe are constantly within the consciousness of God. (UB 3:3.2)
The cosmic mind encompasses all finite-mind levels and co-ordinates experientially with the evolutionary-deity levels of the Supreme Mind and transcendentally with the existential levels of absolutemind-the directcircuits of the Conjoint Actor. (UB 42:10.6)
Human consciousness rests gently upon the electrochemical mechanism below and delicately touches the spirit-morontia energy system above. Of neither of these two systems is the human being ever completely conscious in his mortal life, therefore must he work in mind, of which he is conscious. And it is not so much what mind comprehends as whatmind desires to comprehend that insures survival; it is not so much what mind is like as what mind is striving to be like that constitutes spirit identification. It is not so much that man is conscious of God as that man yearns for God that results in universe ascension. What you are today is not so important as what you are becoming day by day and in eternity. (UB 111:1.5)
God-consciousness, as it is experienced by an evolving mortal of the realms, must consist of three varying factors, three differential levels of reality realization. There is first the mind consciousness-the comprehension of the idea of God. Then follows the soul-consciousness-the realization of the ideal of God. Last dawns the spiritconsciousness — the realization of the spirit reality of God. (UB 5:5.11)
The bestowal of personality is the exclusive function of the Universal Father, the personalization of the living energy systems which he endows with the attributes of relative creative consciousness and the freewill control thereof. (UB 5:6.4)
The Supreme Being did not create man, but man was literally created out of, his very life was derived from, the potentiality of the Supreme. Nor does he evolve man, yet is the Supreme himself the very essence of evolution. From the finite standpoint, we actually live, move, and have our being within the immanence of the Supreme. (UB 117:3.12)
The evolving soul of mortal man is created out of the pre-existent possibility for such experience within the Supreme. In this manner do the manifold experiences of all creation become a part of the evolution of Supremacy. Creatures merely utilize the qualities and quantities of the finite as they ascend to the Father, the impersonal consequences of such utilization remain forever a part of the living cosmos, the Supreme person. (UB 117:5.11)
Time, space, and experience are man’s greatest aids to relative reality perception and yet his most formidable obstacles to complete reality perception. Mortals and many other universe creatures find it necessary to think of potentials as being actualized in space and evolving to fruition in time, but this entire process is a time-space phenomenon which does not actually take place on Paradise and in eternity. On the absolutelevel there is neither time nor space; all potentials may be there perceived as actuals. (UB 106:9.3)
Those who know God have experienced the fact of his presence, such God-knowing mortals hold in their personal experience the only positive proof of the existence of the living God which one human being can offer to another. The existence of God is utterly beyond all possibility of demonstration except for the contact between the God-consciousness of the human mind and the God-presence of the Thought Adjuster that indwells the mortal intellect and is bestowed upon man as the free gift of the Universal Father. (UB 1:2.8)
We are fully cognizant of the difficulties of our assignment; we recognize the impossibility of fully translating the language of the concepts of divinity and eternity into the symbols of the language of the finite concepts of the mortal mind. But we know that there dwells within the human mind a fragment of God, and that there sojourns with the human soul the Spirit of Truth; and we further know that these spirit forces conspire to enable material man to grasp the reality of spiritual values and to comprehend the philosophy of universe meanings. But even more certainly we know that these spirits of the Divine Presence are able to assist man in the spiritual appropriation of all truth contributory to the enhancement of the ever-progressing reality of personal religious experience-Godconsciousness. (UB 0:12.13)
The human mind does not create real values; human experience does not yield universe insight. Concerning insight, the recognition of moral values and the discernment of spiritualmeanings, all that the human mind can do is to discover, recognize, interpret, and choose.
The moral values of the universe become intellectual possessions by the exercise of three basic judgments, or choices, of the mortal mind.
1. Self-judgment-moral choice.
2. Social-judgment-ethical choice.
3. God-judgment-religious choice.
Thus it appears that all human progress is effected by a technique of conjoint revelational evolution. UB 196:3.10-15
Unless a divine lover lived in the mind of man, individuals could not unselfishly and spiritually love. And unless an interpreter lived in the mind, man could not truly realize the unity of the universe. Unless an evaluator dwelt with man, he could not possibly appraises moral values and recognize spiritual meanings. And this lover hails from the very source of infinite love; this interpreter is a part of Universal Unity; this evaluator is the child of the Center and Source of all absolute values of divine and eternal reality. UB 196:3.16
Human survival is in great measure dependent on consecrating the human will to the choosing of those values selected by this spirit-value sorter-the indwelling interpreter and unifier. (UB 196:3.17)
Firstly, we have reviewed the experimental confirmation for the reality of “non-locality” as an established scientific phenomenon, a transcendent dimension existing independently of universe space-time and free from its restrictions such as the limiting velocity imposed in our space-time by the properties of light.
Whereas the strange new properties of non-locality appeared to be confined to the sub-atomic realm, clever technology has now taken quantum strangeness, at the very least, to the molecular level and has fortified the belief of most quantum physicists that it extends to all things including that even ourselves have both “particulate” and wave-like behavior.
Secondly, we have learned that, to be functional, non-locality must often be required to both contain and to make available a wealth of information relevant to the situation under observation. For example, for the delayed choice type of experiment, its originator, Nobelist John Wheeler, suggests that the experiment could be done using light from a quasar (an exceptionally bright star-like object) that is focused into two beams around a galaxy acting as a gravitational lens (several exist). If done it would be with photons emitted billions of years ago but nevertheless able to exhibit particle or wave behavior at the observer’s behest. (Note: It has been done using quasar 0957+516A,B.)
This remarkable potential for a photon to appear to possess information about all of the possibilities presently available to it, or able to become available, is also illustrated by the experiments of Chiao et al. presented in this paper.
Imagine you were a photon having to behave in this way. How many pages of instruction would you need to have to be able to fulfill any task liable to be set?
Thirdly, the very complexity of these possible outcomes is such that it appears that the individual photon has insight into the observer’s mind and knowledge of observer intentions-enabling it to either fulfill or frustrate them.
Could a mere photon have such information and ability? Surely most of us would draw a negative conclusion. So what is our explanation?
Philosophically and scientifically, the Urantia revelation accords well with what many consider to be the most advanced human thought of the 21st century (i.e. monistic idealism). Which, after all, is what most readers should expect.
Following the Occam’s Razor principle of selecting the simplest hypothesis, we could do far worse than to go along with the idealist assumption that the whole universe is made from consciousness, and is existent only in consciousness. Or the parallel Urantian revelation that the universe of universe is mind made, mine planned, and mind administered.
Philosophically and scientifically, the Urantia revelation accords well with what many consider to be the most advanced human thought of the 21st century (i.e. monistic idealism). Which, after all, is what most readers should expect.
Monistic idealists (MI) posit the primacy of consciousness, with mind and body being epiphenomena.
The Urantia Revelation (UR) states the universe of universes is mind planned, mind made, and mind administered.
The whole universe is made from consciousness and is existent only in consciousness. (MI)
All the worlds of every universe are constantly within the consciousness of God (UR)
Consciousness is the ground of all being. (MI)
The Universe is neither mechanical nor magical; It is a creation of mind. (UR)
In the idealist philosophy, consciousness is fundamental; thus our spirituality and spiritual experience are meaningful. (MI)
God, being self-existent is also self-explanatory, God actually lives within every rational mortal, wherein his purpose is to be self-revealing. (UR)
Ken T. Glasziou, M. Sc., Ph. D., is a research scientist, retired, who is active in church work in Australia. He is author of “Science and Religion: The New Age Beyond 2000 A. D.,” and “Christ or Chaos: The Evolution of a Revelation.”
He also publishes “Interface International,” from which this article is taken, with the author’s permission.
| Toward Spiritual Fellowship | Spring 2005 — Index | A Careful Examination of the “Not Inspired” Disclaimers of The Urantia Book (Part I) |