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Kuantum Benlik : Yeni Fiziğin Işığında İnsan Doğası ve Bilinci
“Kuantum fiziği”, yalnızca fizikçileri ilgilendiriyormuş gibi görünen, gündelik hayatımızın basit kaygılarıyla kafa yoramadığımız, bu nedenle de deyim yerindeyse “yorucu” bir kavram. Oysa bu kavram Britanyalı fizikçi Danah Zohar’ın ellerinde, kendimizle, dünyayla ve başkalarıyla olan ilişkimizi açıklayabilecek bir alet kutusuna dönüşüyor. Bu alet kutusunun yardımıyla Zohar, yeni bir insan bilinci hipotezi sunuyor.
Zohar’ın zihin açıcı tezi şu: Öznel farkındalık dolaysız olarak kuantum süreçlerden doğar ve kuantum kuramındaki dalga-parçacık ikiliği zihin-beden ikiliğinin temelini oluşturur. Elinizdeki kitabın önemi, Zohar’ın bu tezi yalnızca fizik dünyasına ait olmaktan çıkararak; felsefi, toplumsal ve varoluşsal sorunlara bu tezin ışığında bakabilmesinde saklı.
Zohar’ın teorisiyle artık kendimize ve yaşadığımız dünyaya modern hayatın birbirinden bağımsız adacıkları olarak bakmaktan vazgeçebilir ve modern dünyaya özgü yabancılaşmadan kurtulabiliriz. Evreni, kaynaklarının emrimize amade olduğu bir tüketim nesnesi olarak değil, insan bilincinin ifadelerinden biri, yani bir bilinç durumu olarak görebiliriz. Yaşayan varlıklara yaşamın ortak yazarları olarak bakabiliriz. Kuantum Benlik kendimizle, birbirimizle ve dünyayla barışı tesis etme mücadelesinde, kuantum fiziğin zorlu yollarından geçmiş değerli bir katkı.
Zohar’ın zihin açıcı tezi şu: Öznel farkındalık dolaysız olarak kuantum süreçlerden doğar ve kuantum kuramındaki dalga-parçacık ikiliği zihin-beden ikiliğinin temelini oluşturur. Elinizdeki kitabın önemi, Zohar’ın bu tezi yalnızca fizik dünyasına ait olmaktan çıkararak; felsefi, toplumsal ve varoluşsal sorunlara bu tezin ışığında bakabilmesinde saklı.
Zohar’ın teorisiyle artık kendimize ve yaşadığımız dünyaya modern hayatın birbirinden bağımsız adacıkları olarak bakmaktan vazgeçebilir ve modern dünyaya özgü yabancılaşmadan kurtulabiliriz. Evreni, kaynaklarının emrimize amade olduğu bir tüketim nesnesi olarak değil, insan bilincinin ifadelerinden biri, yani bir bilinç durumu olarak görebiliriz. Yaşayan varlıklara yaşamın ortak yazarları olarak bakabiliriz. Kuantum Benlik kendimizle, birbirimizle ve dünyayla barışı tesis etme mücadelesinde, kuantum fiziğin zorlu yollarından geçmiş değerli bir katkı.
156 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1990
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April 9, 2020
Kitap kabaca, hem bilimin hem felsefenin yüzyıllardır sorduğu insan nedir, bu evrendeki var olma amacı nedir gibi yanıtlanması güç soruları kuantum fiziği ışığında yorumluyor. Fizikte Newton fiziği'nin; mekanik, determinist ve soğuk bir nesnellikte olup evreni ve insanı açıklamakta yetersiz kaldığını vurgulayıp Kuantum mekaniğinin evrenin işleyişini daha doğru tasvir ettiği belirtiliyor.
Düşünsel anlamda ise Descartesçı düşünüşün zihin ve bedeni topyekün ayıran dualist anlayışın yine insanı ve insan bilincini açıklamada yanlış bir yola saptırdığı düşünülüyor.
Kitabın ilk bölümlerinde biraz biraz kuantum prensibi anlatılıyor. Bu bölümlerde en son lise 1. sınıfta Fizik dersi görmüş benim gibi biri için bile kafada bir şeylerin canlanmasını sağlayan örnekler mevcuttu. Uzay-zaman, evrenin oluşumu ve az biraz kuantum fiziğine merak duyan biri kitabı rahatça okuyabilir.. Tabii bazı bilimsel kavramları çok yüzeysel olarak anlamayı kabul etmek şartıyla..
Bölümler ilerledikçe insan bilincinin de kuantum mekaniği yasalarınca işliyor olabileceği önermesi ortaya atılıp tüm kitap boyunca hem evreni hem insanı anlamada daha doğru bir yöntem olabileceği gündelik pratiklerimizden de örneklerle açıklanmaya çalışılıyor.
İnsan bilincini maddenin oluşturduğu matyeryalist çıkış noktası tam olarak yadsınmamakla birlikte, beyinde bulunan madde parçacıklarının bir kısmının parçacık bir kısmının dalga özelliği göstermesi ile ve kuantum dalga fonksiyonu çöktüğü noktada bilincin meydana geldiği idda ediliyor. ( Bu çökme noktası açıklanamadığı için maddeci anlayışın yetersiz kaldığı idda ediliyor)
Bazı bölümler hiç bilmeyen biri için (kuantum mekaniği) kafa açıcı evet ama yine de bir bilene okutup dinlemeyi istedim çoğu kez. Hatta nörolog, fizikçi, psikiyatr, biyolog.. hepsine okutup dinlemeyi.. Kitabı edinirken yazarı hakkında çok bilgim yoktu . Bir yerlerde okuduğum kariyer yönetimi seminerleri verdiği bilgisi kitabı biraz ön yargılı okumama neden oldu aslında.. Bu bilgi ışığında Okurken rahatsız olduğum, yazarın özellikle kauntum süreçlerle ilgili farkındalığının arttığı dönemi hamilelik dönemi olarak tanımlaması ve bu hissiyatı mistik bir şekilde tasvir etmesi oldu. Tam böyle düşünürken daha bilimsel tasvirlerle devam eden satırlara atladıkça ikna olmaya başladım.... Ve hoop yine vıcık vıcık bir insan türü güzellemesi ve kabaca güzellik içimizde saçma iyimserliği yine kitaptan soğumama neden oldu...
Ayrıca Descartes'ı yerden yere vururken Platon güzellemesi yapmak da ne bileyim.. Gerçi yazar bu çelişkiyi açıklıyor hakkını da yememek lazım :) Ne kaba materyalizm ne kaba idealizm diyor..Diyor da sanki mevzu bilimsel anektodlardan psikolojik ve felsefi anekdodlara geçince biraz kavramlar karışıyor bildiğimiz kavram setlerinin bir anlamı kalmıyor.
insan bilincinin kuantum mekaniği prensibince çalışıyor olabileceği önermesi ne kadar ilgimi çekip okumaktan keyif almama neden olduysa da ilerleyen bölümlerde evrende insanın varoluşunun bir amacı olduğu iması ışığındaki kişisel gelişim soslu cümleler biraz soğutmadı değil. Yine de bir çırpıda okunabilecek ve okudukça keşke ileri fizik hakkında bir şeyler bilseydim diyebileceğiniz bir kitap..
Düşünsel anlamda ise Descartesçı düşünüşün zihin ve bedeni topyekün ayıran dualist anlayışın yine insanı ve insan bilincini açıklamada yanlış bir yola saptırdığı düşünülüyor.
Kitabın ilk bölümlerinde biraz biraz kuantum prensibi anlatılıyor. Bu bölümlerde en son lise 1. sınıfta Fizik dersi görmüş benim gibi biri için bile kafada bir şeylerin canlanmasını sağlayan örnekler mevcuttu. Uzay-zaman, evrenin oluşumu ve az biraz kuantum fiziğine merak duyan biri kitabı rahatça okuyabilir.. Tabii bazı bilimsel kavramları çok yüzeysel olarak anlamayı kabul etmek şartıyla..
Bölümler ilerledikçe insan bilincinin de kuantum mekaniği yasalarınca işliyor olabileceği önermesi ortaya atılıp tüm kitap boyunca hem evreni hem insanı anlamada daha doğru bir yöntem olabileceği gündelik pratiklerimizden de örneklerle açıklanmaya çalışılıyor.
İnsan bilincini maddenin oluşturduğu matyeryalist çıkış noktası tam olarak yadsınmamakla birlikte, beyinde bulunan madde parçacıklarının bir kısmının parçacık bir kısmının dalga özelliği göstermesi ile ve kuantum dalga fonksiyonu çöktüğü noktada bilincin meydana geldiği idda ediliyor. ( Bu çökme noktası açıklanamadığı için maddeci anlayışın yetersiz kaldığı idda ediliyor)
Bazı bölümler hiç bilmeyen biri için (kuantum mekaniği) kafa açıcı evet ama yine de bir bilene okutup dinlemeyi istedim çoğu kez. Hatta nörolog, fizikçi, psikiyatr, biyolog.. hepsine okutup dinlemeyi.. Kitabı edinirken yazarı hakkında çok bilgim yoktu . Bir yerlerde okuduğum kariyer yönetimi seminerleri verdiği bilgisi kitabı biraz ön yargılı okumama neden oldu aslında.. Bu bilgi ışığında Okurken rahatsız olduğum, yazarın özellikle kauntum süreçlerle ilgili farkındalığının arttığı dönemi hamilelik dönemi olarak tanımlaması ve bu hissiyatı mistik bir şekilde tasvir etmesi oldu. Tam böyle düşünürken daha bilimsel tasvirlerle devam eden satırlara atladıkça ikna olmaya başladım.... Ve hoop yine vıcık vıcık bir insan türü güzellemesi ve kabaca güzellik içimizde saçma iyimserliği yine kitaptan soğumama neden oldu...
Ayrıca Descartes'ı yerden yere vururken Platon güzellemesi yapmak da ne bileyim.. Gerçi yazar bu çelişkiyi açıklıyor hakkını da yememek lazım :) Ne kaba materyalizm ne kaba idealizm diyor..Diyor da sanki mevzu bilimsel anektodlardan psikolojik ve felsefi anekdodlara geçince biraz kavramlar karışıyor bildiğimiz kavram setlerinin bir anlamı kalmıyor.
insan bilincinin kuantum mekaniği prensibince çalışıyor olabileceği önermesi ne kadar ilgimi çekip okumaktan keyif almama neden olduysa da ilerleyen bölümlerde evrende insanın varoluşunun bir amacı olduğu iması ışığındaki kişisel gelişim soslu cümleler biraz soğutmadı değil. Yine de bir çırpıda okunabilecek ve okudukça keşke ileri fizik hakkında bir şeyler bilseydim diyebileceğiniz bir kitap..
June 16, 2024
In the first half of the book, Zohar provides a primer on the quantum world. In a nutshell, ultimate reality is neither a particle nor a wave, but both. It’s a “package deal.” One implies the other. “Each is a way that matter can manifest itself, and both together is what matter is…both are necessary to give us a complete picture of reality,” though…”only one is available at any given time.” (1) In the quantum world, we cannot predict specialized outcomes, but only probabilities.
In this way, Zohar sees ultimate reality as indeterminate being. Being is one – particle and wave, though its two prongs of behavior are not specifically determinable. Particle and wave are united by something transcendent so that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. Particles are like individuals. Waves are relational and group-like and, this way, there’s a “oneness of being,” a field instantaneously linked across space-time. Oneness she says has a self-organizing quality, like cheerios in a bowl of milk. It’s what they do. But what she really says is that waves, functioning as a whole, govern particles.
As with all of life, if not before, (2) her argument is that we ourselves function as quantum selves. We are particle and wave, but we particularly function as waves. We are relational, to the wider whole, and the whole, via consciousness, governs the parts. Wave-like consciousness relates us to others and the whole. “Our living bodies,” she says, "are in a constant, dynamic interchange with other bodies and with the inanimate world around us.” This is Zohar’s “relational holism.”
Then from here, Zohar extends oneness to a universal field of sorts, the whole of reality. Oneness is this “metaphor of the Great Chain of Being, which portrays everything as belonging to one unified and complete chain extending from man to the smallest particles of inanimate matter." Unlike eastern mysticism where the individualized ego is negated by the whole, Zohar recreates the individual self as Self, as a part that relates to this whole, holistically. As particles, we are static entities, but as waves we are particles that move in a field involving other particles and toward the whole. Quantum consciousness expands by forming ever-greater wholes that can extend to cosmic knowing. In her quantum language, she calls this movement toward the whole the Bose-Einstein condensate – quantum particles that, at a critical level, vibrate in unison, and create a harmonic (organized) field. The “condensate” is “a thing-in-itself, a new thing with qualities and properties not possessed by its constituent parts.” Then she quotes Plato’s Timaeus about this organized coming together in the human sphere, which is Plato’s point also in the Symposium. It’s about love. It’s Buber’s “binding force that draws and (sic) I and a Thou into an I-Thou.” It’s Heidegger’s Being. It’s us, via becoming (relational movement), as “cosmic being.” It’s Jung’s “transpersonal psychology,” not Freud’s particles. It’s female (relationship) not male (particle). It’s togetherness, not individualism. It’s intimacy, not alienation.
This is Zohar’s worldview. Zohar contrasts this oneness of Being with the prevailing view, emanating from the philosophy of Plato, and running through Descartes and Newton. Plato splits mind from the body or, rather, subsumes the body to mind. Descartes splits mind and body into the mental and the physical. Both are dualists in this way. (3) That separation, “alienation” as she calls it, (4) culminated with Newtonian physics that forgot mind altogether and turned reality into particles that operate via deterministic mechanism. And that’s where we are today. Newtonian physics cannot explain consciousness. The mind is just a computer, a “mind machine” with “no central self-organizer,” a whole that is just the sum of its parts, all in accord with “an entirely lifeless design.”
Zohar should be given credit for trying to discuss the physics of Being. She, an excellent writer, weaves together a wide range of philosophical and scientific material to tell a good story. But I think it is wrong. She strays too far from the materialist principles that she covers in the first part of her book. “If we want to combat materialism and its whole reductionist ethos,” she writes, “this insight allows us to argue that the mind is not some mere offshoot of brain function.” Phrasing it this way suggests that she looking for an alternative to reductionism and materialism and finds it with the quantum self. This becomes clearer with her pejorative critique of the gestalt prayer which she says celebrates the “I” at the expense of the other and the whole. Others, in contrast, can interpret that prayer as a Nietzsche-like assertion of self, breaking away from the shackles of conformity, creating a self that is in harmony with itself. In other words, separation from the whole is a healthy thing.
Zohar wants us to drop the particle side to focus on the Zen-like wave side, yet her argument at the beginning of the book does not split us up that way. (5) We are both particle and wave. We are individualized ego and relational wholes and here too we bump into the inherent tension between id and superego, and a Jungian struggle to find a harmony between the two. And isn’t this the way we function as evolutionary beings? We are selves, trying to survive, yet that survival depends on adapting to the environment, including social groups. Also, while some individuals are more particle than a relational wave, Zohar does not talk about this point.
Zohar wrongly argues that evolution is about particles in motion, individuals, and not the relational whole that is her quantum consciousness. (6) That skips over Darwin’s whole treatment of our tribal nature – where we, as “particle,” are fundamentally designed to be social beings, to merge with and support “relational wholes” because this was the key to individual survival. Even a global feeling of oneness can be explained, plausibly, in alternative ways, such as Hume’s reference to our “robust imaginations” that serve the passions. In this case, it might be the hope that we survive beyond death or a Jungian yearning to be part of a greater whole (God as oneness or a transcendent tribe).
Zohar believes she transcends the “mind-body problem (the idealism-materialism split) with what she calls “panpsychism.” “If bodies without minds are too brute,” she writes,” and minds without bodies too ethereal, perhaps there is really no way they can be separated after all. Perhaps the mental is really a basic property of the material and vice versa. Perhaps the basic, underlying ‘stuff’ of the universe is just one ‘thing’ that possesses two aspects.” I suppose she means that we as static particles (and points of time) do not exist. Particles function as mental energy that move relationally, outside of itself, and toward the self-organized whole of which she writes. Possibly, we even become “a microcosm of cosmic being.”
Zohar might be onto something if her argument was reframed to leave out her quantum notions. We are one entity, an integrated self, designed to survive. Zohar says that “unless consciousness is something that just suddenly emerges, just gets added on with no apparent cause, then it was there in some form all along as a property of the constituents of all matter.” Here, she is probably correct at least as it applies to life at its lowest levels (see Piaget’s Biology and Knowledge), where mind is an adaptive tool that operates dialectically by incorporating information from the outside, and transforming behavior within the limits of the instinctive program based on that information.
With survival and replication as evolution’s (non-purposeful) goal, mind in the sense of abstract consciousness is an exceptional tool that helps with adaptation. Though complex and often confused, the self somehow sits at the center of who we are as biological beings and pulls together, or attempts to do so, all of our semi-autonomous parts, to promote the body’s interest. Whereas Zohar’s self becomes the panpsychic Self, Darwin’s self is just that. It’s an individual trying to do its job, however mundane those tasks are. Biologically, it’s adaptation. Philosophically, Being is Becoming (i.e., Becoming -- changing/adaption -- leads to the survival of Being). And, sometimes, the individual’s consciousness can soar to great heights and see Big History, but it is as self, not Self.
(1) “Either we can measure the exact position of something like an electron when it manifests itself as a particle, or we can measure its momentum (its speed) when it expresses itself as a wave, but we can never measure both, exactly, at the same time….While we can measure wave properties, or particle properties, the exact properties of the duality must always elude any measurement we might hope to make.”
(2) The “sharing of information, this mutual ‘knowing,’ may represent elementary conscious awareness on the part of the electron.”
(3) This dualistic split is clearer with Descartes than with Plato where I think it’s fair to say that Plato’s Forms illustrate her point that the whole governs the parts. Earlier, for example, Zohar states that the Great Chain of Being metaphor originated in Plato’s Timaeus; later she argues that Plato’s Republic was a model for training its citizens to think holistically. But this is not her perspective on mind-body dualism. “Ever since Plato,” she writes, “the West has stressed the rational and the analytic, the rules by which we form thoughts and make decisions, the ‘component parts’ of our conscious life. The logic of this has led naturally to the computational, or computer, model of the brain. The cost of this model, however, has been the overlooking of another side to human knowing and experience, what might be called the intuitive side, the side that draws on wisdom, imagination, and creativity. In modern neurophysiological terms, these two sides of our mental life have been spoken of as the right-brain/left-brain split, and our culture as a left-brain culture. Using an equally good metaphor from quantum physics, we might speak of this situation as a particle/wave split and say that our culture has emphasized the particle aspect of the mind.”
(4) “The roots of this alienation run deep in our culture, going back at least as far as Plato’s philosophy with its distinction between the realm of Ideas and the world of experience, and later drawing on Christianity’s denigration of the body in favor of the soul.”
(5) “In any quantum system of two or more particles, each particle has both a ‘thingy-ness’ and ‘relating-ness,” the first due to its particle aspect and the second to its wave aspect. It is because of the wave aspect and what it allows to happen that quantum systems display a kind of intimate, definitive relationship among their constituent members that doesn’t exist in classical systems.” Of course, this whole argument of hers could be so much hocus-pocus. It could be that, while cells operate quantumly as she says, our bodies and minds operate more or less linearly: e.g., in basic means-end fashion, we define an objective and then outline the steps that lead to it. We are, in other words, Newtonians in a quantum world.
(6) “Darwinian biology, whether in its original brutish and determinist form (survival of the fittest) or in its neo-Darwinian emphasis upon random evolution, has little to say about why we are here or how we relate to the unfolding of material reality, never mind about the purpose and meaning of any evolution of consciousness beyond the simple, utilitarian conclusion that consciousness seems to confer ‘some evolutionary advantage.” It has a lot to say, i.e., there’s no evidence that our existence is anything more than surviving-replicating-surviving, with love and war in between; it’s literally the Great Chain of Life and nothing more than this.
In this way, Zohar sees ultimate reality as indeterminate being. Being is one – particle and wave, though its two prongs of behavior are not specifically determinable. Particle and wave are united by something transcendent so that a whole is more than the sum of its parts. Particles are like individuals. Waves are relational and group-like and, this way, there’s a “oneness of being,” a field instantaneously linked across space-time. Oneness she says has a self-organizing quality, like cheerios in a bowl of milk. It’s what they do. But what she really says is that waves, functioning as a whole, govern particles.
As with all of life, if not before, (2) her argument is that we ourselves function as quantum selves. We are particle and wave, but we particularly function as waves. We are relational, to the wider whole, and the whole, via consciousness, governs the parts. Wave-like consciousness relates us to others and the whole. “Our living bodies,” she says, "are in a constant, dynamic interchange with other bodies and with the inanimate world around us.” This is Zohar’s “relational holism.”
Then from here, Zohar extends oneness to a universal field of sorts, the whole of reality. Oneness is this “metaphor of the Great Chain of Being, which portrays everything as belonging to one unified and complete chain extending from man to the smallest particles of inanimate matter." Unlike eastern mysticism where the individualized ego is negated by the whole, Zohar recreates the individual self as Self, as a part that relates to this whole, holistically. As particles, we are static entities, but as waves we are particles that move in a field involving other particles and toward the whole. Quantum consciousness expands by forming ever-greater wholes that can extend to cosmic knowing. In her quantum language, she calls this movement toward the whole the Bose-Einstein condensate – quantum particles that, at a critical level, vibrate in unison, and create a harmonic (organized) field. The “condensate” is “a thing-in-itself, a new thing with qualities and properties not possessed by its constituent parts.” Then she quotes Plato’s Timaeus about this organized coming together in the human sphere, which is Plato’s point also in the Symposium. It’s about love. It’s Buber’s “binding force that draws and (sic) I and a Thou into an I-Thou.” It’s Heidegger’s Being. It’s us, via becoming (relational movement), as “cosmic being.” It’s Jung’s “transpersonal psychology,” not Freud’s particles. It’s female (relationship) not male (particle). It’s togetherness, not individualism. It’s intimacy, not alienation.
This is Zohar’s worldview. Zohar contrasts this oneness of Being with the prevailing view, emanating from the philosophy of Plato, and running through Descartes and Newton. Plato splits mind from the body or, rather, subsumes the body to mind. Descartes splits mind and body into the mental and the physical. Both are dualists in this way. (3) That separation, “alienation” as she calls it, (4) culminated with Newtonian physics that forgot mind altogether and turned reality into particles that operate via deterministic mechanism. And that’s where we are today. Newtonian physics cannot explain consciousness. The mind is just a computer, a “mind machine” with “no central self-organizer,” a whole that is just the sum of its parts, all in accord with “an entirely lifeless design.”
Zohar should be given credit for trying to discuss the physics of Being. She, an excellent writer, weaves together a wide range of philosophical and scientific material to tell a good story. But I think it is wrong. She strays too far from the materialist principles that she covers in the first part of her book. “If we want to combat materialism and its whole reductionist ethos,” she writes, “this insight allows us to argue that the mind is not some mere offshoot of brain function.” Phrasing it this way suggests that she looking for an alternative to reductionism and materialism and finds it with the quantum self. This becomes clearer with her pejorative critique of the gestalt prayer which she says celebrates the “I” at the expense of the other and the whole. Others, in contrast, can interpret that prayer as a Nietzsche-like assertion of self, breaking away from the shackles of conformity, creating a self that is in harmony with itself. In other words, separation from the whole is a healthy thing.
Zohar wants us to drop the particle side to focus on the Zen-like wave side, yet her argument at the beginning of the book does not split us up that way. (5) We are both particle and wave. We are individualized ego and relational wholes and here too we bump into the inherent tension between id and superego, and a Jungian struggle to find a harmony between the two. And isn’t this the way we function as evolutionary beings? We are selves, trying to survive, yet that survival depends on adapting to the environment, including social groups. Also, while some individuals are more particle than a relational wave, Zohar does not talk about this point.
Zohar wrongly argues that evolution is about particles in motion, individuals, and not the relational whole that is her quantum consciousness. (6) That skips over Darwin’s whole treatment of our tribal nature – where we, as “particle,” are fundamentally designed to be social beings, to merge with and support “relational wholes” because this was the key to individual survival. Even a global feeling of oneness can be explained, plausibly, in alternative ways, such as Hume’s reference to our “robust imaginations” that serve the passions. In this case, it might be the hope that we survive beyond death or a Jungian yearning to be part of a greater whole (God as oneness or a transcendent tribe).
Zohar believes she transcends the “mind-body problem (the idealism-materialism split) with what she calls “panpsychism.” “If bodies without minds are too brute,” she writes,” and minds without bodies too ethereal, perhaps there is really no way they can be separated after all. Perhaps the mental is really a basic property of the material and vice versa. Perhaps the basic, underlying ‘stuff’ of the universe is just one ‘thing’ that possesses two aspects.” I suppose she means that we as static particles (and points of time) do not exist. Particles function as mental energy that move relationally, outside of itself, and toward the self-organized whole of which she writes. Possibly, we even become “a microcosm of cosmic being.”
Zohar might be onto something if her argument was reframed to leave out her quantum notions. We are one entity, an integrated self, designed to survive. Zohar says that “unless consciousness is something that just suddenly emerges, just gets added on with no apparent cause, then it was there in some form all along as a property of the constituents of all matter.” Here, she is probably correct at least as it applies to life at its lowest levels (see Piaget’s Biology and Knowledge), where mind is an adaptive tool that operates dialectically by incorporating information from the outside, and transforming behavior within the limits of the instinctive program based on that information.
With survival and replication as evolution’s (non-purposeful) goal, mind in the sense of abstract consciousness is an exceptional tool that helps with adaptation. Though complex and often confused, the self somehow sits at the center of who we are as biological beings and pulls together, or attempts to do so, all of our semi-autonomous parts, to promote the body’s interest. Whereas Zohar’s self becomes the panpsychic Self, Darwin’s self is just that. It’s an individual trying to do its job, however mundane those tasks are. Biologically, it’s adaptation. Philosophically, Being is Becoming (i.e., Becoming -- changing/adaption -- leads to the survival of Being). And, sometimes, the individual’s consciousness can soar to great heights and see Big History, but it is as self, not Self.
(1) “Either we can measure the exact position of something like an electron when it manifests itself as a particle, or we can measure its momentum (its speed) when it expresses itself as a wave, but we can never measure both, exactly, at the same time….While we can measure wave properties, or particle properties, the exact properties of the duality must always elude any measurement we might hope to make.”
(2) The “sharing of information, this mutual ‘knowing,’ may represent elementary conscious awareness on the part of the electron.”
(3) This dualistic split is clearer with Descartes than with Plato where I think it’s fair to say that Plato’s Forms illustrate her point that the whole governs the parts. Earlier, for example, Zohar states that the Great Chain of Being metaphor originated in Plato’s Timaeus; later she argues that Plato’s Republic was a model for training its citizens to think holistically. But this is not her perspective on mind-body dualism. “Ever since Plato,” she writes, “the West has stressed the rational and the analytic, the rules by which we form thoughts and make decisions, the ‘component parts’ of our conscious life. The logic of this has led naturally to the computational, or computer, model of the brain. The cost of this model, however, has been the overlooking of another side to human knowing and experience, what might be called the intuitive side, the side that draws on wisdom, imagination, and creativity. In modern neurophysiological terms, these two sides of our mental life have been spoken of as the right-brain/left-brain split, and our culture as a left-brain culture. Using an equally good metaphor from quantum physics, we might speak of this situation as a particle/wave split and say that our culture has emphasized the particle aspect of the mind.”
(4) “The roots of this alienation run deep in our culture, going back at least as far as Plato’s philosophy with its distinction between the realm of Ideas and the world of experience, and later drawing on Christianity’s denigration of the body in favor of the soul.”
(5) “In any quantum system of two or more particles, each particle has both a ‘thingy-ness’ and ‘relating-ness,” the first due to its particle aspect and the second to its wave aspect. It is because of the wave aspect and what it allows to happen that quantum systems display a kind of intimate, definitive relationship among their constituent members that doesn’t exist in classical systems.” Of course, this whole argument of hers could be so much hocus-pocus. It could be that, while cells operate quantumly as she says, our bodies and minds operate more or less linearly: e.g., in basic means-end fashion, we define an objective and then outline the steps that lead to it. We are, in other words, Newtonians in a quantum world.
(6) “Darwinian biology, whether in its original brutish and determinist form (survival of the fittest) or in its neo-Darwinian emphasis upon random evolution, has little to say about why we are here or how we relate to the unfolding of material reality, never mind about the purpose and meaning of any evolution of consciousness beyond the simple, utilitarian conclusion that consciousness seems to confer ‘some evolutionary advantage.” It has a lot to say, i.e., there’s no evidence that our existence is anything more than surviving-replicating-surviving, with love and war in between; it’s literally the Great Chain of Life and nothing more than this.
April 29, 2010
Orang Barat gengsi banget yak kalo ngakuin hal-hal yg berasal tradisi Timur? :D
buktinya, sepanjang isi buku ini, ngomong muter-muter, tapi intinya cuma beberapa:
- Alam semesta adalah proses transfer energi dari vakum kuantum ke vakum kuantum lain
- Ada dua bentuk energi : fermionik (individu) dan bosonik (kolektif)
- Kesadaran tertinggi adalah meleburnya kesadaran diri dan kesadaran alam semesta
hal2 di atas kan sebenernya dah ditemukan ratusan bahkan ribuan tahun lalu oleh Budha, Zen, Tao. ide yang terkahir bahkan jelas-jelas memiliki kemiripan kentara dengan konsep "baqa" dan "fana"-nya Bayazid Bastami yang menggegerkan jagat Teologi Islam.
Tapi, karena buku ini sangat fasih dalam bertutur, dan yang terutama, berhasil memformulasikan sufi dalam persamaan fisika, saia kasih 5 bintang :D
btw, buku ini rada2 mirip dg Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics) bahkan Ervin Laszlo (Science and the Akashic Field An Integral Theory of Everything") --> ya iyah lah, secara mereka adalah tokoh-tokoh Holisme Sinergetik
apa itu vakum kuantum? apa itu holisme sinergetik? baca ajah lah bukunya atau gugling :D
buktinya, sepanjang isi buku ini, ngomong muter-muter, tapi intinya cuma beberapa:
- Alam semesta adalah proses transfer energi dari vakum kuantum ke vakum kuantum lain
- Ada dua bentuk energi : fermionik (individu) dan bosonik (kolektif)
- Kesadaran tertinggi adalah meleburnya kesadaran diri dan kesadaran alam semesta
hal2 di atas kan sebenernya dah ditemukan ratusan bahkan ribuan tahun lalu oleh Budha, Zen, Tao. ide yang terkahir bahkan jelas-jelas memiliki kemiripan kentara dengan konsep "baqa" dan "fana"-nya Bayazid Bastami yang menggegerkan jagat Teologi Islam.
Tapi, karena buku ini sangat fasih dalam bertutur, dan yang terutama, berhasil memformulasikan sufi dalam persamaan fisika, saia kasih 5 bintang :D
btw, buku ini rada2 mirip dg Fritjof Capra (The Tao of Physics) bahkan Ervin Laszlo (Science and the Akashic Field An Integral Theory of Everything") --> ya iyah lah, secara mereka adalah tokoh-tokoh Holisme Sinergetik
apa itu vakum kuantum? apa itu holisme sinergetik? baca ajah lah bukunya atau gugling :D
April 26, 2015
I became aware of this book when it was prominently displayed on a bookshelf in the office of a psychiatrist on a forgettable TV series. It drew my attention. In trying to wrap my mind around the concepts of quantum physics, I became interested in if and how quantum physics informed my mind. I started reading the book but put it down wondering if its argument was rigorous enough. I went off and read other quantum related tomes. I came back to The Quantum Self satisfied with its plausibility.
"Once we have made the connection, once we have seen that the physics of human consciousness emerges from quantum processes within the brain and that in consequence human consciousness and the whole world of its creation shares a physics with everything else in this universe - with the human body, with all other living things and creatures, with the basic physics of matter and relationship, and with the coherent ground state of the quantum vacuum itself - it becomes impossible to imagine a single aspect of our lives that is not drawn into one coherent whole." p. 236
"Once we have made the connection, once we have seen that the physics of human consciousness emerges from quantum processes within the brain and that in consequence human consciousness and the whole world of its creation shares a physics with everything else in this universe - with the human body, with all other living things and creatures, with the basic physics of matter and relationship, and with the coherent ground state of the quantum vacuum itself - it becomes impossible to imagine a single aspect of our lives that is not drawn into one coherent whole." p. 236
June 9, 2008
There was a time when everything in my life was quantum. I had reached a level of understanding of the theory that was good enough to talk the talk, but poor enough to be completely unable to walk the walk. Having learned more since then, I have shut up about quantum theory for fear that someone expose me as a hapless dabbler. I really think, the author of this book should've taken that bit of advice. If you want to write a self help book, just do it, don't dress it up like something else...
December 18, 2021
I can’t go back to 1997 here which is when I read this book. It completely thrilled me and started my inquiry into the nature of reality. Since then I’ve read a lot more but Danah Zohar was the inspiration for it all. Thank you!
July 16, 2018
Daha iyi bir çeviriyi, düzenlemeyi ve baskıyı hak ediyor. Bilimin insanı ve uçarı bilincini anlamaya / anlatmaya en yakın durduğu nokta kuantum fiziği olabilir.
June 27, 2022
This is the best book I’ve ever read in the genre that could loosely be called “quantum mysticism”. It’s fascinating reading, and the metaphors it makes drawing on a quantum view of the self and the world without are worth pondering, and often quite beautiful. It doesn’t hold up at the level of a scientific theory however, as in the chapter where it argues that the brain is a Bose-Einstein condensate (it is not).
The strength of the book is in its reminders that you “can only hope to survive (death) to the extent that you have lived”, or that it’s never too late to heal from past traumas or forgive past transgressions. It’s wonderful and thought-provoking prose, just don’t take it too literally.
The strength of the book is in its reminders that you “can only hope to survive (death) to the extent that you have lived”, or that it’s never too late to heal from past traumas or forgive past transgressions. It’s wonderful and thought-provoking prose, just don’t take it too literally.
December 25, 2016
Written by a credible physicist in 1990, this book looks at the nature of consciousness, bridging a mechanistic universe (Newtonian/materialism) and a spiritual one (religious) by way of quantum physics. She does an admirable job without falling into religious reasoning. Had she spent more time studying Jewish mysticism she would have found more parallels to her work where we find the middle road is essential between the physical world and the spiritual world. Judaism understand both the interconnectedness of everything (the oneness of the universe) and the role of individual free will.
January 18, 2013
It is obvious that the mind and the material world are connected. I decide to move my arm and it moves. But what is the nature of the mind/matter interaction? Where is the interface between the two? Where better to look for these answers than at the quantum level? This is what TQS is about. How can it not be fascinating?
October 29, 2012
disappointing, other than chapter 6
December 19, 2023
Discoveries in quantum physics in the last decades are enough to make me regret shirking science as much as possible in my education. That wildly damaging rift between science and religion, now basic to our secular societies, will inevitably be bridged as our quantum reality wends its way into our collective consciousness--thank goodness. Bosons, which are indeterminately both wave and particle, are our evolutionary ancestors; our brains are receptors to quantum particles; our biology behaves as though quantumly entangled; consciousness makes the world.
Zohar asks, "To what extent does our conscious involvement influence the unfolding of material reality, and in turn, how much does the surrounding material world leave its mark on the unfolding of our own?" The thesis of THE QUANTUM SELF is that "quantum physics, allied to a quantum mechanical model of consciousness, gives us a perspective from which we can see ourselves and our purposes fully as part of the universe and from which we might come to understand the meaning of human existence—why we conscious human beings are here in this material universe." While I'm certainly unqualified to evaluate her science, she's spot on about psychology and human creativity, and I appreciate her bold attempt to pioneer a path into a new, more dynamic and hopeful cosmology based on what we now know about the universe.
Zohar asks, "To what extent does our conscious involvement influence the unfolding of material reality, and in turn, how much does the surrounding material world leave its mark on the unfolding of our own?" The thesis of THE QUANTUM SELF is that "quantum physics, allied to a quantum mechanical model of consciousness, gives us a perspective from which we can see ourselves and our purposes fully as part of the universe and from which we might come to understand the meaning of human existence—why we conscious human beings are here in this material universe." While I'm certainly unqualified to evaluate her science, she's spot on about psychology and human creativity, and I appreciate her bold attempt to pioneer a path into a new, more dynamic and hopeful cosmology based on what we now know about the universe.
January 14, 2024
Obra excepcional onde o adjetivo "quântico" não tem o sentido místico e espiritualista que, de uns tempos para cá, faz a alegria e o bolso dos coaches. Não é um livro de autoajuda! Ao mesmo tempo, não é um livro que se limite a reproduzir cálculos e conceitos já bem firmados e aceitos cientificamente. A autora (que também é física, e não uma coach) tem a sua própria interpretação sobre o aspecto físico da consciência, a nossa relação com o outro e com o Universo. De fato, a partir da realidade que emerge da física quântica, ela sugere uma correlação entre todas as coisas vivas e até mesmo as inanimadas (que teriam também certo grau de "consciência"), em uma abordagem que parece a um só tempo revolucionária e, vá lá, consoladora. Questões como a nossa possível liberdade de escolha também são abordadas.
December 19, 2021
I read this when it was first published in the 1990s so it was due a reread in the Lockdown particularly as the whole concept of consciousness is still debated widely now. The first half is an excellent primer on quantum physics if you did Physics O Level when there were only 3 atomic particles... The second half seemed a little less convincing: I was not entirely taken with her definition of human creativity but perhaps this is semantics. The idea of the global link between all living systems, environment or globe contributing to our consciousness and the need for order and coherence is an excellent one and should certainly inform Man’s relationship with animals, the environment, Everyone. Fascinating read.
May 5, 2025
a book that everyone should read. a delicate balance between philosophical questioning around the nature of self and the way that relates to quantum mechanics and sub atomic particle physics. at times the book gets quite in depth but Zohar does an excellent job of describing highly complex and abstract ideas in a way that feel accessable and understandable for the reader. highly recommend for anyone interested in philosophy of self and physics.
January 21, 2021
Engin Geçtan'ın Hayat adlı kitabında sıkça bahsettigi Zohar ı merak ettiğim için elime aldığım kitap benim için fazlasıyla bilimseldi;ama insan benliğinin fiziki dünyayla olan ilişkisine getirdiği açıklamalar akla yatkın ve ilgi çekiciydi.
May 1, 2012
One of my favourite non-fiction books. Zohar seamlessly blends quantum physics, psychotherapy and spirituality into an every day guide for living your life. It is packed full of wisdom and as book I re-read every few years.
May 9, 2010
casi casi casi... didn't like it
Algunas cosas no me convencieron
Algunas cosas no me convencieron
July 14, 2015
This book doesn't make any sense to me. I read a self-help book for advice, and this one didn't do it for me. The only thing I liked is the Bertrand Russell quote about the meaningless of life ;-)
December 26, 2008
So far illuminating,practical and insightful.
Want to read
November 2, 2012p.58 quantum mechanical model comment from davud bohm...also read p. 57
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