Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Wage Slaves Escape the Matrix Masters!


Hey all, I just wanted to update everyone on my progress toward escaping the matrix and manifesting my dream life.  The good news is First on Fire and I have finally quit our day jobs and traded in our wage-slave employee lifestyles to commit full-time to our passions!  Freeeedoooom! It is so important and under-appreciated that when you wake up each morning, you should be able to create your day however you like.  Waking up to an alarm clock five days a week to work for somebody else is absolutely the most soul-constricting way to sell your life short.  If schools teach us anything it should be how to develop our personal passions into sustainable careers.  In a free, loving world schools would teach students to be self-reliant independent entrepreneurs, but as George Carlin said, "the owners of this country don't want that, they want obedient workers."



And so we're forced into public indoctrination centers from Kindergarten to Post-Doctorate all for a shiny piece of paper to give to our masters certifying that we'll be a good wage-slave.  Of course, masters don't need diplomas because they don't go begging someone else for a paycheck.  Masters create their own businesses, manufacture their own product, deliver their own service, and the success or failure of their job depends wholly upon them.  Wage-slaves, on the other hand, instead of taking responsibility for creating their own wealth, find an already well-established master and hope to impress master with their certificates, résumés, bells and whistles.  The problem with this is that you will always be selling your time wholesale to someone who is profiting from you retail.  No boss ever pays their employee the amount of money which that employee brings to the company, as that would cause the business to bankrupt.  The only way to run a successful business is to pay employees less than they're worth, usually far less.  So if you're working hard pursuing someone else's passion, slaving Monday-Friday 9-5 for someone who's buying your time wholesale, really think about what your passion is, save up some of that slave-money, then make a break and follow the entrepreneurial underground railroad to financial freedom and responsibility.


So now even though we could wake up at noon and spend all day relaxing if we wanted, that is no way to manifest a sustainable self-reliable lifestyle.  We only have a precious little amount of slave-money saved up to support us during this interim, so we have been diligently working non-stop at cultivating our conscious creations.  First is working 10-15 hours a day making her own line of non-toxic organic cosmetics starting with her initial product which will be a water-based, odorless, non-toxic nail polish.  I've also been spending 10-15 hours a day every day pursuing my two greatest life-long passions: writing and fighting!  Right now I'm concentrating on promoting and advertizing my new book Spiritual Science as well as expanding my martial training kwoon, Bangkok Wing Chun.  I currently have half a dozen dedicated students and it really is my dream come true.  Ever since being a kid watching Bruce Lee movies, I always wanted to know the secrets of martial arts and effective combat.  Now at age 30, I spend most of my days teaching people the very martial art(s) that earned Bruce Lee his international fame, Wing Chun / Jeet Kune Do.  I'm still looking for more students however and would like to start group classes as well.  If anyone lives in Bangkok and is interested in private self-defense, yoga, pranayama, qigong and/or meditation lessons please contact me at ericdubay@hotmail.com





As for my writing career, unfortunately, despite unanimous positive reviews and an expensive online ad campaign, my new book Spiritual Science is well on it's way to becoming this year's most highly-acclaimed international worst-seller!  If anyone can help me out I promise you won't be disappointed with this book.  Buy a copy for yourself, donate one to your local library, or gift a few as presents to your friends and family.  You'll be supporting my escape from the matrix and helping others awaken to their inner spirituality (feeding two birds with one worm  ;-).  Lastly if you're not into martial arts or spiritual science, you can still help me out greatly during this crucial interim by connecting with me and sharing my articles on your social networks.  Below are links to my personal YouTube channel, Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, and fanpages.  If you could add, subscribe, like, favorite, share and retweet my work on your social networks I'd really appreciate it!  Thanks so much to everyone for your continued support and readership.  Peace!

Eric Dubay - YouTube                                  Atlantean Conspiracy
Eric Dubay - Facebook                                 Spiritual Science
Eric Dubay - Twitter                                    Eric's Esoterics
Eric Dubay - LinkedIn                                  Bangkok Wing Chun
 

Sunday, September 16, 2012

The Measurement Problem, The Observer Effect, and The Uncertainty Principle

The peculiar discovery known as “The Quantum Measurement Problem” ultimately shows the inseparability of the observer from the observed.  All quantum experiments have confirmed that there is no measurable, solid reality “out there” independent of the measurer.  What is “out there” when we’re not looking is an infinite wavy cloud of criss-crossing possibilities.  Then when we focus our attention on something, the wave function collapses into a defined particle in a definite location for us to observe.

If you want to see fear in a quantum physicist’s eyes, just mention the words, ‘the measurement problem.’  The measurement problem is this: an atom only appears in a particular place if you measure it.  In other words, an atom is spread out all over the place until a conscious observer decides to look at it.  So the act of measurement or observation creates the entire universe.”  -Jim Al-Khalili, Nuclear Physicist

An electron is not a precise entity, but exists as a potential, a superposition, or sum, of all probabilities until we observe or measure it, at which point the electron freezes into a particular state.  Once we are through looking or measuring, the electron dissolves back into the ether of all possibilities.”  -Lynne McTaggart, “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,” (102)

Physicist Fred Alan Wolf uses the term “popping the quiff” (QWF for Quantum Wave Function) to describe the role of the observer in creating reality.  Before being consciously observed, quanta (the “building blocks” of all matter) exist only as a boundary-less wave of undifferentiated quantum energy.  In this state there is no matter as such, no particles or “things” with attributes and definite locations - just an infinite expanse of energy, Zero-Point, The Field.  However, when a conscious observer focuses attention, they “pop the quiff,” collapse the quantum wave function into a solid particle of experience with definable attributes and location.


One of the fundamental laws of quantum physics says that an event in the subatomic world exists in all possible states until the act of observing or measuring it ‘freezes’ it, or pins it down, to a single state.  This process is technically known as the collapse of the wave function, where ‘wave function’ means the state of all possibilities … Although nothing exists in a single state independently of an observer, you can describe what the observer sees, but not the observer himself.  You include the moment of observation in the mathematics, but not the consciousness doing the observing.  There is no equation for an observer … According to the mathematics, the quantum world is a perfect hermetic world of pure potential, only made real …when interrupted by an intruder.”  -Lynne McTaggart, “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,” (103)

These findings are so significant because they prove that the classical Newtonian model of physics (now being termed “the old physics”) is fundamentally flawed.  The old physics described a mechanistic material universe “out there” existing regardless of whether or not there was a conscious being alive to perceive it.  The new physics shows that matter doesn’t even exist without consciousness.  Without a conscious observer to “pop the quiff,” there is no substance, no “materiality” to that which is – just an unlimited, undifferentiated field of energy.  As stated in the excellent quantum physics documentary, What the Bleep Do We Know, “When you are not looking, there are waves of possibility.  When you are looking, there are particles of experience.

What is real depends on whether I look and the way I look.  This is not just a philosophical question.  We can see this in experiments.  -Anton Zeilinger, Quantum Physicist

Cause-and-effect relationships no longer hold at the subatomic level.  Stable-looking atoms might suddenly, without apparent cause, experience some internal disruption; electrons, for no reason, elect to transit from one energy state to another.  Once you peer closer and closer at matter, it isn’t even matter, not a single solid thing you can touch or describe, but a host of tentative selves, all being paraded around at the same time.  Rather than a universe of static certainty, at the most fundamental level of matter, the world and its relationships are uncertain and unpredictable, a state of pure potential, of infinite possibility.” -Lynne McTaggart, “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,” (10-11)

Another interesting anomaly of the quantum world is known as “The Uncertainty Principle” discovered by German physicist Werner Heisenberg.  Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle states that a particle’s position and its momentum can never be precisely measured simultaneously.  We can obtain precise information about a particle’s position as long as we ignore its momentum, or we can obtain precise information about its momentum as long as we ignore its exact position, but in no way can we obtain precise knowledge about both quantities, and this limitation has nothing to do with our measuring techniques; it is a fundamental limitation inherent in atomic reality. 

The crucial feature of atomic physics is that the human observer is not only necessary to observe the properties of an object, but is necessary even to define these properties. In atomic physics, we cannot talk about the properties of an object as such. They are only meaningful in the context of the object’s interaction with the observer. In the words of Heisenberg, ‘What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.’  The observer decides how he is going to set up the measurement and this arrangement will determine, to some extent, the properties of the observed object. If the experimental arrangement is modified, the properties of the observed object will change in turn.”  -Fritjof Capra, “The Tao of Physics” (140)

Again, the uncertainty principle, as in the double-slit studies, shows the importance of the observer in determining the outcome of quantum experiments.  Another such example of this is often termed the “Watched Quantum Pot” experiment.  Just as the old proverb states, “a watched pot never boils,” likewise in the quantum world this strangely proves true as verified by physicists Wayne Itano, Yakir Aharonov and M. Vardi.  They state that, If one checks by continuous observations, if a given quantum system evolves from some initial state to some other final state along a specific trajectory … the result is always positive, whether or not the system would have done so on its own accord. 

If a quantum system is monitored continuously, we could say vigilantly, it will do practically anything.  For example, suppose you are watching a quantum system in an attempt to determine just when it undergoes a transition from one state to another.  To make this concrete, think of an imaginary subatomic ‘quantum pot of water’ being heated on a similarly sized stove.  The transition occurs when the water goes from the calm state to the boiling state.  We all know pots of water boil, given a few minutes or so.  You would certainly think the watched quantum pot would also boil.  It turns out, because of the vigilant observations, the transition never occurs; the watched quantum pot never boils.  Another example is the decay of an unstable system.  On its own the system would decay in a few microseconds.  But if it is watched continuously, it will never decay.  All vigilantly watched ‘quantum pots’ never boil, even if they are heated forever.”  -Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., “The Spiritual Universe” (217-8)

So a watched quantum “pot” (particle) will “boil” (transition states) if you intently observe it to do so, and a watched quantum pot will never boil if you intently observe it not to do so.  Even the radioactive decay of subatomic particles which normally have the lifespan of microseconds can be prolonged indefinitely as long as we are watching. 

This implies there is a deep connection between the observer and the observed.  So deep, in fact, that we really cannot separate them.  All we can do is alter the way we experience reality.  This is where intent comes in.  If the system were unobserved, it would certainly undergo the physical transition.  The pot would boil.  The observer effect causes the anomaly to occur.  Let me explain.  When the system is first observed, it is seen to be in its initial state.  When it is observed just a smidgen of time later, well before the time in which it should change, the system is observed with more than 99.99 percent chance to be in its initial state.  In other words, the system is found to be exactly where it was initially.  Now repeat this measurement again and again, each time just a tiny bit of time later, and with a very high probability, the same observation occurs: The system is found in its initial state.  But time marches on, and eventually we pass all reasonable time limits for the transition to occur, yet it still doesn’t happen.  The system ‘freezes’ in its initial state.  The only requirement to freeze the motion is that the observer must have the intent to see the object in its initial state when he looks.  This intent is determined by the frequency of his observations.”  -Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., “The Spiritual Universe” (218-9)

We, the observers, cannot be ignored.  Our consciousness and our bodies are integral parts of the universe and thus exhibit measurable effects on whatever aspects of the universe we turn our attention to.  Scientists try to observe the world “objectively” but they, subjectively performing the experiment, are already an integral part of any “objective” measurement being taken.  Specifically, it is their consciousness, their attention and intention which affect the results.

It’s important to remember that the equations of quantum physics don’t describe the actual existence of particles.  In other words, the laws can’t tell us where the particles are and how they act once they get there.  They describe only the potential for the particles’ existence – that is, where they may be, how they might behave, and what their properties could be like.  And all of these characteristics evolve and change over time.  These things are significant because we’re made of the same particles that the rules are describing.  If we can gain insight into the way they function, then maybe we can become aware of greater possibilities for how we work.  Herein lies the key to understanding what quantum physics is really saying to us about our power in the universe.  Our world, our lives, and our bodies exist as they do because they were chosen (imagined) from the world of quantum possibilities … Which of the many possibilities becomes real appears to be determined by consciousness and the act of observation.  In other words, the object of our attention becomes the reality of our world.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (70-71)

"Quantum physics calculates only possibilities, but if we accept this, then the question immediately comes, who/what chooses among these possibilities to bring the actual event of experience?  So we directly, immediately see that consciousness must be involved."  -Amit Goswami Ph.D., "What the Bleep Do We Know?"

If the underlying unity of energy in the universe exists as an “infinite anything of possibilities,” and it is consciousness which chooses and experiences all manifestations of the infinite anything, then it would seem that consciousness is much more fundamental and primary than classical physics espouses.  If consciousness is what changes waves of possibility into particles of experience, then how could consciousness be some emergent property of the material universe?  The “material universe” doesn’t even exist yet without immaterial consciousness existing to have that experience!

The doctrine that the world is made up of objects whose existence is independent of human consciousness turns out to be in conflict with quantum mechanics and with facts established by experiment.”  -Physicist Bernard d’Espagnat, Scientific American, 1979
 
Leading physicist Lee Smolin has estimated that from its inception, had the primary forces and physical attributes of our universe varied by more than an unimaginably precise one part in 1027 – that’s one part in a thousand trillion trillion! – our complex universe of chemistry, galaxies, and biological life could not have evolved.”  -Ervin Laszlo and Jude Currivan, “Cosmos” (20)

The odds of our universe containing these precise forces and physical attributes are 1 in 1,000,000,000,000,
000,000,000,000,000 without which matter and life could not have emerged.  If that’s not a strong case for intelligent design, I don’t know what is.  The old physics claims that life, consciousness, the incredible beauty and diversity of nature is all the result of chance – even though the odds against chance are a thousand trillion trillion to one.  Personally, for me, the idea that our universe exists due to non-intelligent, random, mechanical forces is utterly laughable.  Just by sitting in meditation, smelling a flower, watching an eclipse, hearing children’s laughter, tasting ice-cream, or feeling an orgasm, it is quite clear to me that the universe was intelligently and purposefully designed.

In his 2005 Nature Magazine article, The Mental Universe, Johns Hopkins physics professor Dr. R.C. Henry bluntly recommends we “get over it” and accept the logical conclusion that “the universe is immaterial - mental and spiritual.” In the same article, Cambridge physicist Sir James Jeans is quoted as saying, “The stream of knowledge is heading toward a non-mechanical reality; the universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter . . . we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter.

"Matter is not what we have long thought it to be.  To the scientist, matter has always been thought of as sort of the ultimate in that which is static and predictable ... We like to think of space as empty and matter as solid but in fact, there is essentially nothing to matter whatsoever.  It's completely insubstantial ... The most solid thing you can say about all this insubstantial matter is that it's more like a thought - it's like a concentrated bit of information."  -Physicist/Psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Satinover, "What the Bleep Do We Know?"

British astrophysicist Sir Arthur Eddington said that “physics is the study of the structure of consciousness.  The ‘stuff’ of the world is mindstuff.  Even Nobel Prize winning physicist Max Planck, the “father” of quantum physics, before his passing in 1947 conceded that, “As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear-headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as the result of my research about the atoms, this much: There is no matter as such!  All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particles of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together … We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent Mind.  This Mind is the matrix of all matter.

With these words, Max Planck, the father of quantum theory, described a universal field of energy that connects everything in creation: the Divine Matrix.  The Divine Matrix is our world.  It is also everything in our world.  It is us and all that we love, hate, create, and experience.  Living in the Divine Matrix, we are as artists expressing our innermost passions, fears, dreams, and desires through the essence of a mysterious quantum canvas.  But we are the canvas, as well as the images upon the canvas.  We are the paints, as well as the brushes.  In the Divine Matrix, we are the container within which all things exist, the bridge between the creations of our inner and outer worlds, and the mirror that shows us what we have created.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (Introduction)


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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

The Double-Slit Experiment and Particle / Wave Duality in Quantum Physics

One of the most important and mind-bending findings in quantum physics which has helped us to better understand the nature of matter was first demonstrated in what is known as the “double-slit” experiment.  This experiment involves projecting photons, electrons, or other quanta through a barrier with two small holes and measuring the way they are detected before, during, and after their travels.  Common sense suggests that if they begin as particles, they will travel as particles and end up as particles, but the evidence shows something quite different. 

Scientists have found that when an electron, for example, passes through the barrier with only one opening available, it behaves in just the way we’d expect it to: It begins and ends its journey as a particle.  In doing so, there are no surprises.  In contrast, when two slits are used, the same electron does something that sounds impossible.  Although it definitely begins its journey as a particle, a mysterious event happens along the way: The electron passes through both slits at the same time, as only a wave of energy can do, forming the kind of pattern on the target that only an energy wave can make.”  -Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (71-2)

In the classic double-slit experiment, a stream of photons (or electrons or any atomic-sized object) are shot at a screen with two tiny slits in it.  On the other side of the screen, a photographic plate or sensitive video camera records where each photon lands.  If one of the slits is closed, then the camera will see a smooth distribution of photons with the peak intensity directly opposite the open slit.  This is what common sense would predict if the photons were individual particles.  But if you open both slits, the camera sees a different pattern: an interference pattern with varying bands of high and low intensity.  That is consistent with the photons being a wave.”  -Dean Radin, “Entangled Minds” (215-6)

Furthermore, when physicists lower the light intensity to shoot only one photon at a time, somehow, they get the same results.  With one slit open, each photon shoots through and lands on the screen evenly distributed, peak intensity perfectly aligned.  So with two slits open, firing one photon at a time, you might likewise assume to see two even distributions perfectly aligned behind each slit.  However, just like when firing a flood of photons through, somehow the photons “know” the second slit is open, pass through both slits simultaneously, and end up on the screen as a wave-like interference pattern.  This experiment and many similar replications have produced the same results every single time: The quanta begin as single particles, shoot through the apparatus, register going through both slits simultaneously, and then show up interfered with themselves on the screen.  Each individual particle is somehow interfering or entangled with itself as a wave.  This phenomenon has come to be known as “particle-wave duality.”

The electron, like some shape-shifter out of folklore, can manifest as either a particle or a wave.  This chameleon-like ability is common to all subatomic particles.  It is also common to all things once thought to manifest exclusively as waves.  Light, gamma rays, radio waves, X rays – all can change from waves to particles and back again.  Today physicists believe that subatomic phenomena should not be classified solely as either waves or particles, but as a single category of somethings that are always somehow both.  These somethings are called quanta, and physicists believe they are the basic stuff from which the entire universe is made.”  -Michael Talbot, “The Holographic Universe” (33-4)

This particle-wave duality is a significant discovery because it shows that the basic “building blocks” of our physical reality, not only are they 99% empty space, but they constantly fluctuate between being precise, definable particles and unlimited probability waves.  Thus the philosophical questions arise: What determines whether they are particles or waves?  How can something be in two states at one time?  How can the building blocks of matter be so immaterial? 

With the development of quantum theory, physicists have found that even subatomic particles are far from solid. In fact, they are not much like matter at all – at least nothing like matter as we know it. They can’t be pinned down and measured precisely. Much of the time they seem more like waves than particles. They are like fuzzy clouds of potential existence, with no definite location. Whatever matter is, it has little, if any, substance.”  -Peter Russell, “From Science to God”

Matter at its most fundamental level can not be divided into independently existing units or even be fully described.  Subatomic particles aren’t solid little objects like billiard balls, but vibrating and indeterminate packets of energy that can not be precisely quantified or understood in themselves.  Instead they are schizophrenic, sometimes behaving as particles – a set thing confined to a small space – and sometimes like a wave – a vibrating and more diffuse thing spread out over a large region of space and time – and sometimes like both a wave and a particle at the same time.”  -Lynne McTaggart, “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,” (10)

Using the example of water, we see an illustration of how something can be both a particle and wave simultaneously.  If you separate a drop of water from the ocean then it is an independent, distinct particle with definite location.  However, put that same drop of water back in the ocean and it becomes part of an integral, undifferentiated wave with no definite location.  From the perspective of the individual H2O molecules, nothing changes regardless of whether they are a drop or an ocean wave.  The wave/particle distinction comes from us, the conscious observers, which brings us to another question: In the double-slit experiment, how does the particle “know” whether or not the second slit is open?  Why does it act like a particle when one slit is open, but act like a wave when two slits are open?

The only explanation here is that the second opening has somehow forced the electron to travel as if it were a wave … To do so, the electron has to somehow perceive that the second opening exists and has become available.  And this is where the role of consciousness comes in.  Because it’s assumed that the electron cannot really ‘know’ anything in the truest sense of the word, the only other source of awareness is the person watching the experiment.  The conclusion here is that somehow the knowledge that the electron has two possible paths to move through is in the mind of the observer, and that the onlooker’s consciousness is what determines how the electron travels.”  –Gregg Braden, “The Divine Matrix” (72-3)

It seems the particles themselves are somehow conscious of the slits, or the scientists’ consciousness is informing the particles.  Either way, two amazing things are happening here which rock the foundations of classical physics.  Firstly, photons, electrons, and all quanta are expressing the properties of both particles and waves simultaneously.  Secondly, the quanta are essentially conscious and/or reading our minds!

This rather simple experiment raises a central question about the role of the observer in quantum reality.  This is known as the quantum measurement problem: We infer that the photon acts like a wave when we’re not looking, but we never actually see those waves.  So what causes the photon to ‘collapse’ into a particle when we do decide to look at it?  In classical physics, objects are regarded as objectively real and independent of the observer.  In the quantum world, this is no longer the case.”  -Dean Radin, “Entangled Minds” (218)

The quantum pioneers discovered that our involvement with matter was crucial.  Subatomic particles exist in all possible states until disturbed by us – by observing or measuring – at which point, they settle down, at long last, into something real.  Our observation – our human consciousness – is utterly central to this process of subatomic flux actually becoming some set thing.”  -Lynne McTaggart, “The Field: The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe,” (XXVI)



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