By: +David Herron; Date: Thu Dec 30 2021 03:31:49 GMT+0200 (Eastern European Standard Time)
I had the privilege of meeting Dr. Goswami several years ago. He gave a lecture to the Parapsychology Research Group (of San Francisco), and I want to talk about what he said. It was a very small gathering, and he gave such a beautiful and enlightening message.
Unfortunately in What the Bleep he wasn't able to present most of the message. Looking over the reviews of his books, I see that they contain the message he gave in the PRG lecture that night.
What Dr. Goswami described to us is the core question of Quantum Physics, and his answer to that question. That core question is this: "What causes a probability wave to become 'matter'"? Along the way effortlessly danced between Quantum Physics and spiritual teachings reaching back thousands of years.
Let's back up a little first and explain the phrase probability wave.
Every particle of every atom of every molecule is observed by Physicists to be not solid matter at all. Instead it is all energy dancing in patterns. You may have heard of this claim that photons are both "particle" and "wave" where wave means that it is energy moving about in some pattern. One pattern of energy dancing forms an electron, another pattern forms protons, and yet another forms neutrons. It's even more than this, because what's really there is a "probability" or "probability wave". That is, in quantum physics they say that the energy patterns only have a probability of existing in the pattern that makes them appear to be solid matter. At other times these energy patterns are not solid at all.
In the energy pattern that forms these particles, the particles go through several states, one of which is a really small collapsed state that we see as the subatomic particle, and in another state the particle is in a different universe where people there are wondering what happens to the particle, and in yet another state the particle is the size of the universe. It's purely probability that governs the state each particle is in. There are probability waves that do not collapse to form matter, and there are probability waves that do (or else we wouldn't have a world to live in).
What causes matter to exist? That is, what causes these probability waves to collapse to form matter? Dr. Gashwari's answer is this: Intention. That some form of consciousness has the intention for the probability waves to collapse, thus causing the 'matter' of the material world to form.
Let's pause for a second, and let that sink in.
Intention causes the quantum probability waves to collapse into the pattern that appears to be physical matter. Something is holding the intention for each particle to exist. The next question is, what causes intention? Why, it's consciousness that causes intention. Well, that's Dr. Goswami's theory, and I understand quantum physicists are hardly united in this view.
In the beginning all was void and formless, and then there was the word. By speaking the word the world was separated into light and dark, and on and on until the rocks, trees, rivers, oceans, fishies, birds, and everything else we experience in the world came into being. Who spoke that word? And isn't that the same as saying that a "consciousness" had an "intention" that the material world would exist?
It's not just that the world exists because consciousness has the intention for the world to exist, but that the conscious intention also caused each subatomic particle to exist. The consciousness that holds the intention that the world exists, holds this intention in such extreme detail down to the fomulation of subatomic particles into atoms, molecules, biology, and all the higher order systems of ordering material stuff into the world we inhabit.
Which gets to the other half of Dr. Goswami's lecture, the interweaving of spiritual teachings with modern quantum physics. He made such an effortless dance between those two points of view.
I only wish that his work had received greater attention in the movie. It is such an amazing point of view to consider the conscioussness that holds the intention for all the particles in the universe, what a magnificent being that would be.