Archive for October, 2005


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Devotional Nonduality

Published on October 12, 2005

In theology, duality is the doctrine that man has two natures…physical and spiritual. Nonduality is the doctrine that we have only one nature, The Self and we are complete within that state . The nature of human beings cannot be separated from anything else it is being, therefore, we are complete as a spiritual-physical being.

Devotional Nonduality is a direct way to enlightenment. It uses the power of the heart and not spiritual ambition. Followers of Devotional Nonduality seek the “core” of spirituality for its own sake, knowing that the source of our own existence is within. It is the devotion to the essence of Truth itself. This category is dedicated to it’s founder and my teacher, Dr. David Hawkins, MD., PhD. and is devoted to that state of Divine Oneness.
“Straight and narrow is the path…Waste no time! Gloria in Excelsis Dio!”…Dr. David R. Hawkins

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Weekly Consciousness Tune Up…Yehuda Berg 10/30-11/05 ‘05

Published on October 31, 2005

Weekly Consciousness Tune-Up
October 30th – November 5th, 2005

I’m Rubber, You’re Glue

This week begins the month of Scorpio. As Kabbalah teaches, you tend to borrow the characteristics of the sign whose influence you are under. And Scorpios are known primarily for their vindictive nature.

You might know or be a Scorpio and I can hear you thinking, ”I’m not a vindictive person.” But how many times have you said to yourself, “I’m not going to let them get away with this”? How many times have you taken mental note of how someone has hurt you?

As a kid, you learned to “keep score.” What did you do when someone hit you? You hit them back. And if not, you probably kept a tally of who you owed a punch to.

As an adult, you’re no different. It’s your nature to hold onto the slights—while quickly forgetting the good things done to you.

But keeping score is unkabbalistic because it’s not up to you to dole out rewards and punishments. It’s up to the Light. You have a limited time in this Malchut (physical) world. Why waste it hording hatred and resentment?

The lesson this week is: Let it go. When you find yourself stuck on something someone did to you, practice thinking or saying, “Next. Next. Next.” I’m serious. You’ll be amazed by the power this little four-letter word possesses. Besides, the laws of cause and effect are constantly at work—nothing goes unseen.

Conversely, all the good you do doesn’t go unseen, either. However, as the Rav says, “One of the greatest weapons of the Opponent is time.” Meaning, most often the delay between positive cause and effect is enough to put doubt in your mind that the system works.

This week, in the same way that you’ll be successful in letting go (if you want to), you’ll also find it easier to grasp the positive nature of the cause-and-effect relationship that governs all reality. With the right consciousness, your life choices and actions during these next seven days can be motivated by ultimate results, not momentary illusions.

Scorpios are also known for their keen intuition. Use yours this week.

Meditate once a day on the 72 Name below and allow yourself to see more through your eyes, to perceive more through your mind’s eye, and to feel more through your intuition.

All the Best,
Yehuda

72 Name of the Week

I am aware of the divine sparks in every person.

Their true essence is awakened in my heart.

I become wiser in the ways of the world.

I perceive the repercussions of my every word and deed, and I know that sharing acts toward others are always in my own best interest.


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Causality

Published on October 27, 2005

Within the world of non-linearity (spiritual) there is No Thing causing anything else. In order for anything to cause another thing to occur, an infinite number of things has had to go into the occurance. The laws of cause and effect can be debated ad infinitum. The Heisenberg Principle and wave collapse change outcomes. Below are some of the recognized theories on causality. All of the linear theories become inexplicable when confronted with the question,”What came before that?” (See Cosmological argument below)
©Myswizard all rights reserved ‘05

Causality
The philosophical concept of causality or causation refers to the set of all particular “causal” or “cause-and-effect” relations. A neutral definition is notoriously hard to provide since every aspect of causation has received substantial debate. Most generally, causation is a relationship that holds between events, objects, variables, or states of affairs. It is usually presumed that the cause chronologically precedes the effect. Finally, the existence of a causal relationship generally suggests that, all things equal, if the cause occurs the effect will as well (or at least the probability of the effect occurring will increase).

Examples describing causal relationships:

The cue ball colliding with the eight ball causes the eight ball to roll into the pocket.
The presence of heat causes water to boil.
The Moon’s gravity causes the Earth’s tides.
A good blow to the arm causes a bruise.
My pushing of the accelerator caused the car to go faster.
Causation in the history of philosophy

Aristotle
Aristotle suggested four types of cause for a thing which exists: Material, Efficient, Final and Formal.

Take for example the causality involved in creating a silver chalice used in a religious ceremony (this example is from Martin Heidegger). The four causes of the event of its creation are:

The material cause would be the silver used to create the chalice; the raw matter required by the event.
The formal cause would be the chalice design itself—the shape in which to form the silver; the design for the use of the raw matter.
The efficient cause would be the silversmith who took the silver and formed it into shape of the chalice; the actual agent required in turning the raw matter into the desired form.
The final cause would be the religious ceremony which required a silver chalice in the first place; the ultimate reason behind the event, what compels the agent to make the raw matter into its form.
Note that cause here does not imply a temporal relation between the cause and the effect. See supervenience.

Hume
The philosopher who produced the most striking analysis of causality was David Hume. He asserted that it was impossible to know that certain laws of cause and effect always apply - no matter how many times one observes them occurring. Just because the sun has risen every day since the beginning of the Earth does not mean that it will rise again tomorrow. However, it is impossible to go about one’s life without assuming such connections and the best that we can do is to maintain an open mind and never presume that we know any laws of causality for certain. This was used as an argument against metaphysics, ideology and attempts to find theories for everything. A.J. Ayer and Karl Popper both claimed that their respective principles of verification and falsifiability fitted Hume’s ideas on causality.

Causality, nihilism, and existentialism
Nihilists subscribe to a deterministic world-view in which the universe is nothing but a chain of meaningless events following one after another according to the law of cause and effect. According to this worldview there is no such thing as “free will”, and therefore, no such thing as morality. Learning to bear the burden of a meaningless universe, and justify one’s own existence, is the first step toward becoming the “Übermensch” (English: “overman”) that Nietzsche speaks of extensively in his philosophical writings.

Nietzsche’s life provides an object lesson for some wary of nihilism, maintaining that such lives end quite typically in madness and chaos. Existentialists have suggested that people have the courage to accept that while no meaning has been designed in the universe, we each can provide a meaning for ourselves.

In light of the difficulty philosophers have pointed out in establishing the validity of causal relations, it might seem that the clearest plausible example of causation we have left is our own ability to be the cause of events. If this be so, then our concept of causation would not prevent seeing ourselves as moral agents.

Necessary and sufficient causes
A similar concept occurs in logic, for this see Necessary and sufficient conditions
Causes are often distinguished into two types: necessary and sufficient. If x is a necessary cause of y, then y will only occur if preceded by x. In this case the presence of x does not ensure that y will occur, but the presence of y ensures that x must have occurred. On the other hand, sufficient causes guarantee the effect. So if x is a sufficient cause of y, the presence x guarantees y. However, other events may also cause y, and thus y’s presence does not ensure the presence of x.

J.L. Mackie argues that usual talk of “cause” in fact refers to INUS conditions (insufficient and non-redundant parts of unneccessary but sufficient causes). For example, consider the short circuit as a cause of the house burning down. Consider the collection of events, the short circuit, the presence of oxygen, the flammability of the house, and the absence of firefighters. Altogether these are unnecessary but sufficient to the house’s destruction (since many other collection of events certainly have destroyed the house). Within this collection, the short circuit is an insufficient but non-redundant part (since the short circuit by itself would not cause the fire, but the fire will not happen without it). So the short circuit is an INUS cause of the house burning down.

Causality contrasted with logical implication
Logical conditional statements are not statements of causality. Since logical conditional statements and causal statements are both presented using “If…then…” in English they are commonly confused; they are distinct, however. The standard conditional statement expresses a fact about the actual world, while causal statements imply something more. For example all of the following statements are true (interpreting “If… then…” as the logical conditional):

If George Bush was president of the United States in 2004, then Germany is in Europe
If George Washington was president of the United States in 2004, then Germany is in Europe
If George Washington was president of the United States in 2004, then the Moon is made of green cheese
The first is true since both the antecedent and the consequent are true. The second and third are both true because the antecedent is false. Of course, none of these statements express a causal connection between the antecedent and consequent.

Another sort of logical implication, known as counterfactual implication has a stronger connection with causality. However, not even all counterfactual statements count as examples of causality. Consider the following two statements:

If A is a triangle, then A has three sides.
If switch S is thrown, then bulb B will light.
In the first case it would not be correct to say that A’s being a triangle caused it to have three sides, since the relationship between triangularity and three-sidedness is one of definition. Nonetheless, even interpreted counterfactually, the first statement is true. Most sophisticated accounts of causation find some way to deal with this distinction.

Counterfactual theories of causation
The philosopher David Lewis notably suggested that all statements about causality can be understood as counterfactual statements (Lewis 1973, 1979, and 2000). So, for instance, the statement that John’s smoking caused his premature death is equivalent to saying that had John not smoked he would not have prematurely died. (In addition, it need also be true that John did smoke and did prematurely die, although this requirement is not unique to Lewis’ theory.)

One problem Lewis’ theory confronts is causal preemption. Suppose that John did smoke and did in fact die as a result of that smoking. However, there was a murderer who was bent on killing John, and would have killed him a second later had he not first died from smoking. Here we still want to say that smoking caused John’s death. This presents a problem for Lewis’ theory since, had John not smoked, he still would have died prematurely. Lewis himself discusses this example, and it has received subsantial discussion. (cf. Bunzl 1980; Ganeri, Noordhof, and Ramachandran 1996; Paul 1998)


Probabilistic causation
Interpreting causation as a deterministic relation means that if A causes B, then A must always be followed by B. In this sense, war does not cause deaths, nor does smoking cause cancer. As a result, many turn to a notion of probabilistic causation. Informally, A probabilistically causes B iff A’s occurrence increases the probability of B. This is sometimes interpreted to reflect imperfect knowledge of a deterministic system but other times interpreted to mean that the causal system under study has an inherently chancy nature.

The establishing of cause and effect, even with this relaxed reading, is notoriously difficult, expressed by the widely accepted statement “correlation does not imply causation”. For instance, the observation that smokers have a dramatically increased lung cancer rate does not establish that smoking must be a cause of that increased cancer rate: maybe there exists a certain genetic defect which both causes cancer and a yearning for nicotine.

In statistics, it is generally accepted that observational studies (like counting cancer cases among smokers and among non-smokers and then comparing the two) can give hints, but can never establish cause and effect. The gold standard for causation here is the randomized experiment: take a large number of people, randomly divide them into two groups, force one group to smoke and prohibit the other group from smoking (ideally in a double-blind setup), then determine whether one group develops a significantly higher lung cancer rate. Random assignment plays a crucial role in the inference to causation because, in the long run, it renders the two groups equivalent in terms of the outcome (cancer) so that any changes will reflect only the manipulation (smoking). Obviously, for ethical reasons this experiment cannot be performed, but the method is widely applicable for less damaging experiments. One limitation of experiments, however, is that whereas they do a good job of testing for the presence of some causal effect they do less well at estimating the size of that effect in a population of interest. (This is a common criticism of studies of safety of food additives that use doses much higher than what people consuming the product would actually ingest.)

That said, under certain assumptions, parts of the causal structure among several variables can be learned from full covariance or case data by the techniques of path analysis and more generally, Bayesian networks. Generally these inference algorithms search through the many possible causal structures among the variables, and remove ones which are strongly incompatible with the observed correlations. In general this leaves a set of possible causal relations, which should then be tested by designing appropriate experiments. If experimental data is already available, the algorithms can take advantage of that as well. In contrast with Bayesian Networks, path analysis and its generalization, structural equation modeling, serve better to estimate a known causal effect or test a causal model than to generate causal hypotheses.

For nonexperimental data, causal direction can be hinted if information about time is available. This is because causes must precede their effects temporally. This can be set up by simple linear regression models, for instance, with an analysis of covariance in which baseline and followup values are known for a theorized cause and effect. The addition of time as a variable, though not proving causality, is a big help in supporting a pre-existing theory of causal direction. For instance, our degree of confidence in the direction and nature of causality is much clearer with a longitudinal epidemiologic study than with a cross-sectional one.

Manipulation theories
Some theorists have equated causality with manipulability (Collingwood 1940; Gasking 1955; Menzies and Price 1993; von Wright 1971). Under these theories, x causes y just in case one can change x in order to change y. This coincides with commonsense notions of causations, since often we ask causal questions in order to change some feature of the world. For instance, we are interested in knowing the causes of crime so that we might find ways of reducing it.

These theories have been criticized on two primary grounds. First, theorists complain that these accounts are circular. Attempting to reduce causal claims to manipulation requires that manipulation is more basic than causal interaction. But describing manipulations in non-causal terms has provided a substantial difficulty.

The second criticism centers around concerns of anthropocentrism. It seems to many people that causality is some existing relationship in the world that we can harness for our desires. If causality is identified with our manipulation, then this inituition is lost. In this sense, it makes humans overly central to interactions in the world.

Some attempts to save manipulability theories are recent accounts that don’t claim to reduce causality to manipulation. These account use manipulation as a sign or feature in causation without claiming that manipulation is more fundamental than causation (Pearl 2000; Woodward 2003).

Process theories
Some theorists are interested in distinguishing between causal processes and non-causal processes (Russell 1948; Salmon 1984). These theorist often want to distinguish between a process and a pseudo-process. As an example, a ball moving through the air (a process) is contrasted with the motion of a shadow (a pseudo-process). The former is causal in nature while the second is not.

Salmon (1984) claims that causal processes can be identified by their ability to transmit a mark or alternation over space and time. An alteration of the ball (a mark by a pen, perhaps) is carried with it as the ball goes through the air. On the other hand an alteration of the shadow (insofar as it is possible) will not be transmitted by the shadow as it moves along.

These theorists claim that the important concept for understanding causality is not causal relationships or causal interactions, but rather identifying causal processes. The former notions can then be defined in terms of causal processes.

Causality in psychology
The above theories are attempts to define a reflectively stable notion of causality. This process uses our standard causal intuitions to develop a theory that we would find satisfactory in identifying causes. Another avenue of research is to discover how ordinary causal talk is employed by everyday people without challenging them. This is often studied in psychology.

Attribution
Attribution theory is the theory concerning how people explain individual occurrences of causation. Attribution can be external (assigning causality to an outside agent or force - claiming that some outside thing motivated the event) or internal (assigning causality to factors within the person - taking personal responsibility or accountability for one’s actions and claiming that the person was directly responsible for the event). Taking causation one step further, the type of attribution a person provides influences their future behavior.

The intention behind the cause or the effect can be covered by the subject of action (philosophy). See also accident; blame;intent; responsibility;

Causation and salience
Our view of causation depends on what we consider to be the relevant events. Another way to view the statement, “Lightning causes thunder” is to see both lightning and thunder as two perceptions of the same event, viz., an electric discharge that we perceive first visually and then aurally.

Symbolism and causality
While the names we give objects often refer to their appearance, they can also refer to an object’s causal powers - what that object can do, the effects it has on other objects or people. David Sobel and Alison Gopnik from the Psychology Department of UC Berkeley designed a device known as the blicket detector which suggests that “when causal property and perceptual features are equally evident, children are equally as likely to use causal powers as they are to use perceptual properties when naming objects”. More Info

Causation in religion and theology

Cosmological argument
One of the classic arguments for the existence of God is known as the “Cosmological argument” or “First cause” argument. It works from the premise that every natural event is the effect of a cause. If this is so, then the events that caused today’s events must have had causes themselves, which must have had causes, and so forth. If the chain never ends, then one must uphold the hypothesis of an “actual infinite”, which is often regarded as problematic, see Hilbert’s paradox of the Grand Hotel. If the chain does end, it must end with a non-natural or supernatural cause at the start of the natural world — e.g. a creation by God.

Sometimes the argument is made in non-temporal terms. The chain doesn’t go back in time, it goes downward into the ever-more enduring facts, and thus toward the timeless.

Two questions that can help to focus the argument are:

1) What is an event without cause?

2) How does an event without a cause occur?

Critics of this argument point out problems with it.

Karma
Karma is the belief held by some major religions that a person’s actions cause certain effects in future incarnations, positively or negatively.

Reversed causality
Some modern religious movements have postulated along the lines of philosophical idealism that causality is actually reversed from the direction normally presumed. According to these groups, causality does not proceed inward, from external random causes toward effects on a perceiving individual, but rather outward, from a perceiving individual’s causative mental requests toward responsive external physical effects that only seem to be independent causes. These groups have accordingly developed new causality principles such as the doctrine of responsibility assumption.

Causality in science and the humanities
Using the Scientific method, scientists set up experiments to determine causality in the physical world. Certain elemental forces such as gravity, the strong and weak nuclear forces, and electromagnetism are said to be the four fundamental forces which are the causes of all other events in the universe.

However, the issue of to which degree a scientific experiment is replicable has been often raised but rarely addressed. The fact that no experiment is entirely replicable questions some core assumptions in science.

In addition, many scientists in a variety of fields disagree that experiments are necessary to determine causality. For example, the link between smoking and lung cancer is considered proven by health agencies of the United States government, but experimental methods (for example, randomized controlled trials) were not used to establish that link. This view has been controversial. In addition, many philosophers are begining to turn to more relativized notions of causality. Rather than providing a theory of causality in toto, they opt to provide a theory of causality in biology or causality in physics.

Physics

Causality is hard to interpret in many different physical theories. One problem is typified by the moon’s gravity. It isn’t accurate to say, “the moon exerts a gravitic pull and then the tides rise.” In Newtonian mechanics gravity, rather, is a law expressing a constant observable relationship among masses, and the movement of the tides is an example of that relationship. There are no discrete events or “pulls” that can be said to precede the rising of tides. Interpreting gravity causally is even more complicated in general relativity Another important implication of Causality in physics is its intimate connection to the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

History
In the field of history, the term cause has at least two meanings, often mistakenly conflated.

One meaning conforms to Aristotle’s final cause — as a goal or purpose. For example, the abolition of slavery became a Union goal or intended outcome for the American Civil War following the Emancipation Proclamations and so was a cause or reason to continue the war. This meaning is not what is meant by the term causality.
Another meaning treats historic events as agents that bring about other historic events. This is a somewhat Platonic and Hegelian view that reifies causes as ontological entities and the term causality is used sometimes in this manner. In this view, slavery is often said to have inevitably produced the American Civil War as a result. In Aristotelian terminology, this use of the term cause is closest to his efficient cause.

Causality in law
According to law and jurisprudence, legal cause must be demonstrated in order to hold a defendant liable for a crime or a tort (ie. a civil wrong such as negligence or trespass). It must be proven that causality, or a ’sufficient causal link’ relates the defendant’s actions to the criminal event or damage in question.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Causality”.


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Huang Po…Quote

Published on October 12, 2005

The World-Transcendor:

If an ordinary man, when he is about to die, could only see the five elements of his consciousness as void; the four physical elements as not constituting an ‘I’; the real Mind as formless and neither coming nor going; his nature as something neither commencing at his birth nor perishing at his death, but as whole and motionless in its very depths; his Mind and environmental objects as one - if he could really accomplish this, he would receive Enlightenment in a flash. He would no longer be entangled by the Triple World; he would be a World-Transcendor.


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Anger, Ego, and Other Human Emotions

Published on October 11, 2005

Anger is the most favorite of all our emotions. It must be, because we certainly give in to it constantly on a daily or even hourly basis. So is it that we can’t get enough of what we think we don’t want or do we just love to love our anger? We love our anger. To complain and get angry is the favorite sport of nearly all humans. ( I’ll bet you thought it was golfing or fishing.) We love our righteous indignation, jealousies, annoyances, etc ad infinitum. In actuality anger is the stepchild of Fear. I know it’s hard to see how fear becomes anger so I’ll explain.

Our ego, precious little thing that it is, runs the human world as most know it. The ego believes so very many things about itself, all of which are an illusion, but please no one tell it. Ego knows it’s right on many levels (or so it thinks), so it becomes afraid when it’s threatened. Threats to the ego may include such things as, the need to be right, loved exclusively, taken care of, do what it is we want, given security, treated well, respected, etc. When these things arise, ego is afraid of the loss of these needs so it becomes angry instead. After all, ego hates to admit it’s afraid. What would a good ego be if it was a scaredy cat?

So you see how easy it is to explain anger. Explaining it, however, is easier than controlling it. I suppose one can take anger management classes, go to all sorts of spiritual seminars, have massages and get therapy. I recommend all of these. However, unless one gets the root of the issue, none of these modalities will help for long. This could take many lifetimes unless you understand and surrender ones fears and anger to God. The raising up of ones spiritual level is the only way to “see” clearly, and even this will not exclude one from being human at times.

Awareness of our ego and how we feed it, is of utmost importance. As long as we are aware of the anger as it arises, and let it go, consciously, in every moment, we have control, not it. If we can’t do this, we become a slave to our own ego. Our ego by itself is not a bad thing. It runs the animal in us. Our survival depends on it. But…as long as we are aware of it as something we “think” we are, and not what we actually are, we can treat it with love, for that part of us which is human. It is only when we take it seriously as if It is who and what we are, that we get into trouble.


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EBG Excerpt…Life

Published on October 9, 2005

If life is a struggle, you may be ignoring the karmic responsibilities of this lifetime. Surrender the struggle to God.


Reiki

Published on October 6, 2005

Reiki

Reiki calibrates over 200 (Per Dr. Hawkins). It is the intention behind the use of Reiki which may raise or lower the calibration of its application.__Mys

Reiki is said by its practitioners to be a form of complementary or alternative medicine, developed (or rediscovered) during the Meiji period (the late 19th century) by Mikao Usui (usui mikao 臼井甕男) in Japan. It has gained popularity throughout the Western World. Nevertheless, because of the lack of objective evidence for its theories or its results, the scientific establishment considers Reiki to be quackery.

The name Reiki comes from two Japanese characters that describe the energy itself. ‘霊 rei’ (meaning ’spirit’) and 気 ki (meaning ‘life force energy’ in this context). Common translations of the term 霊気 reiki are “aura” and also “universal life force energy.”

The Japanese noun Reiki has been adopted into English and adapted for use as a verb or adjective. In Japan, however, the term is commonly understood as describing a generic term for “ghostly power” and is not interchangeable with the Usui Method of Reiki Healing (in Japanese - usui reiki shiki ryoho).

Practitioners claim that they are able to act as channels for Reiki energy, which they allege flows from the universe through their bodies and primarily from the palms of their hands, to specific parts of their own or others’ bodies in order to facilitate healing. Some claim that Reiki energy can also be channelled through other parts of a practitioner’s body (for example their feet, fingers, or through their eyes) if they wish to. They say the primary method to focus the desired flow of the energy is the practitioner’s intention. It is claimed that using this energy for healing is either physical; i.e. by the positioning of hands in non invasive areas on a fully clothed body, or from a distance. Furthermore, it is claimed that no-one has the ability to give Reiki if they have not been initiated by a Reiki Master. Reiki is purported to be a form of Oriental medicine and it defines full health as total harmony of body, mind and spirit. Some traditions teach the techniques said to address each of the three. Respectively: Reiki I, Reiki II, and Reiki III (see below).

Many scientists, health care workers and others dispute the effectiveness of Reiki, claiming that there are no objective studies confirming the existence of this specific Reiki energy or practitioners’ claims that this Reiki energy has the capacity to facilitate healing beyond that expected from the placebo effect. At the same time, some healthcare workers (medical doctors, nurses, mental health professionals, hospice and nursing home workers, and other healthcare providers) believe that Reiki has some beneficial effect on the recipient and is a worthwhile inclusion in both professional training and patient care (to wit, registered nurses may earn continuing education units, or CEUs, through the American Holistic Nurses Association, accredited by the American Nurses Credentialing Center, for Reiki training.)

Theories and practices
In some traditions, Reiki energy is believed to enter the initiate through the 7th (crown) chakra, fill the initiate’s aura and flow through her or his hands into the body of the recipient. In other traditions, it is said to enter through the 1st (root) chakra, fill the aura, become centered in the 4th (heart) chakra, and flow out through the initiate’s hands. The Reiki energy is said to be “intelligent” energy, which “knows what to do”, or “where it is needed”. Thus, Reiki adherents say, if the recipient needs it, and is ready to heal, the Reiki energy will go where it needs to for healing. They also maintain that if, on the other hand, the intended recipient does not accept the energy on some level, the energy will not be absorbed. Some traditions teach that Reiki “spirit guides” keep watch over Reiki energy and assist the practitioner. Many teach that any intention to do harm will not facilitate the flow of Reiki energy. The doctrine is that Reiki energy is incapable of doing harm.

“Treatment” is traditionally done similarly to the laying on of hands. The clothed recipient is asked to lie down and relax. The practitioner then acts as a channel for Reiki energy, theoretically allowing the energy to be channelled through the practitioner to where the patient requires it. Usually the practitioner applies his hands to various parts of the patient’s body. Some practitioners touch the body or hover their hands above it. Some patients report feeling various subjective and objective sensations: heat, cold, pressure, etc. Practitioners of Reiki attribute these sensations to Reiki energy filling the body and aura of the recipient’s energy deficiencies, repairing and opening their energy channels (meridians), pulling out “negativity” and dissolving the blockages of stale energy. Other recipients report feeling little or no change.

History
ki is claimed to have been “rediscovered” by a Japanese man named Mikao Usui, a Tendai Buddhist. After long meditation, fasting and prayer, Usui claimed to have gained the knowledge and spiritual power to apply and attune others to “Reiki” healing energy through a mystical revelation. While some believers in Reiki claim that access to this energy is fairly limited for the majority of people, they claim that Reiki is available to everyone. Some go so far as to hold that the energy system Reiki flows through and works with is integrated into our basic energy body (or aura) and that every person has the ability to channel this energy. Mikao Usui claimed that he could enable his students to enlarge their access to the energy through certain initiations. Attunement to the energy is said to enhance and refine the ability to connect with this already-occurring natural process. Through such initiations, students become clearer channels for Reiki energy, and this, in turn, enhances the quality of treatments that student (or practitioner) provides to the patient.

It is said that while Mikao Usui was actively pursuing the art of healing before he developed his Reiki method he studied Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, Qigong and Yoga. He claimed that the awakening of Reiki and the development of the set of accompanying techniques was something entirely different, however. Nonethless, Reiki seems to be based loosely around Taoist ideas of qi. The “ki” in “Reiki” is the Japanese pronunciation of the Chinese character.

Hawayo Takata claimed that, after developing the Reiki methodology, as well as receiving the spiritual ability to practice it, Usui went to the slums of Tokyo to attempt the healing of beggars. However, after several years of very little success, he claimed that it was their mindset that kept them ill, even after he had “treated” them again and again. Usui then decided that there should be an “energy exchange” in return for a Reiki treatment. This “energy exchange” may take the form of cash payment, or a trade of some sort. The idea is that the patient is expected to regard the treatment as having a value up front and is prepared to invest himself/herself in the healing process.

Usui was also an admirer of the literary works of Emperor Meiji, and, in the process of developing his Reiki system, summarised some of the Meiji Emperor’s works into a set of ethical principles, a literal translation of this is:

“Inviting blessings of the secret method
Many illnesses of the spiritual (heavenly) medicine
Today only anger not worry not
With appreciation do work To people be kind
In morning at night hands held in prayer
think in your mind chant with mouth
Mind body change it for better
Usui Reiki method
Founder
Usui Mikao”
A less literal translation is:

“The secret method of inviting blessings
The spiritual medicine of many illnesses
Just for today, do not anger.
Just for today, do not worry.
Do your work with appreciation.
Be kind to all.
In the morning and at night hold your hands in prayer, meditate on and say these words.
The Usui Reiki method to change your mind and body for the better.
Founder
Mikao Usui”

Mikao Usui trained several disciples. One of his disciples, the naval doctor Chujiro Hayashi, stressed physical healing and taught a more codified and simpler set of Reiki techniques. Among Hayashi’s contributions was a set of fixed hand positions to be used in the course of a treatment; Usui often preferred a more mystical means of diagnosing the patient’s problem.

Hayashi initiated and trained Mrs. Hawayo Takata, who brought Reiki to the USA. The U.S. proved to be fertile ground, as Mrs. Takata applied the American spirit of enterprise to Japanese tradition. Mrs. Takata claimed that she had been appointed Grandmaster of Reiki through the lineage of Mr. Chujiro Hayashi, and that there were no surviving teachers of Reiki to be found in Japan after World War II. Her claim of Grandmastership and her allegation that no Reiki teachers remained in Japan have been found to be false, as lineages through people other than Hayashi have been found. Research has discovered that the title of “Grandmaster” does not exist, and is not recognized in Japan.

Nowadays, while Reiki is comparatively rare in Japan, it flourishes in the West. There are essentially two broad groups, or schools: the traditional school and the independent school. The traditionalists claim to teach and practice Reiki strictly as it was taught from Usui’s time until Takata’s time, although modern research suggests that training under Usui differed greatly from the way Takata taught. Another, separate branch of traditionalists advocate adherence to the (now rediscovered) Japanese school’s methods. The independent schools vary greatly in their practices and methods, ranging from those descended through Iris Ishikuro, which fundamentally adhere to traditional Reiki practice but eschew Takata’s practice of charging $10,000 for attunement to Reiki “Master level”, to so-called “newer” schools, which either add elements to traditional Reiki or claim to have been independently developed.

Celtic Reiki
This is a version of Reiki with a New Age Celtic theme. It was created by Martyn Pentecost and further developed by Julie Norman, and employs symbols derived from ogham (an ancient runic script used by some Gaelic tribes). Advocates claim that Reiki energy mimics the frequency of various trees and plants so as to combine the alleged healing energy of Reiki with allegedly channeled “ancient wisdom of the Celts.”

Non-traditional Reiki
The independent movement developed partly in response to the belief that Reiki training should be more widely available and practiced in a flexible and complementary way with other practices, and as a political reaction to the mainstream of Hawayo Takata’s style. Furthermore, some practitioners believe that Reiki is Humanity’s birthright. New paths were developed out of the Reiki core that fused it with New Age thinking regarding Christianity, shamanism, channeling and so forth. Also, new symbols and practices are often added. Many of these symbols emerged through practitioners who said they felt guided to expand the system in various ways. A great deal of generic New Age content is now often taught either as an adjunct to Reiki or even as an integral part of the system, and numerous schools of thought now exist, some being freely offered and some proprietary. This new form of Reiki was initially developed in opposition to the stricter Reiki practices that Hawayo Takata claimed were the authentic method. Some of the independent schools of Reiki differ from mainstream Reiki by the inclusion of “skhm” or “seichim energy” and symbols into their teaching, which is said by its adherents to make the experience and practice of channelling Reiki different.

Courses
The method developed by Mikao Usui spread over the world. Though controversial, correspondence courses over the internet even offer distant training. To achieve a complete education in the “Usui method of Reiki Healing”, 3 courses are necessary: the 1st degree course, the 2nd degree course and the master course. The specific contents of each of these courses vary widely from one teacher to another, depending on personal philosophies. A typical set of courses is something like the following.

1st degree Reiki courses teach the basic theories of how to work with Reiki energy. The channel through which Reiki energy passes to the 7th chakra is said to be widened through an initiation by the teacher, to let the Reiki energy be strong enough to heal. Students learn the manner in which to place their hands on the body of the recipient said to be most successful in the healing process.

In the 2nd degree Reiki course, a symbol for mental healing is purportedly taught, training students to say that they can treat even deeply ingrained problems like fears, depression, addictions and the like. It is also taught how to supposedly direct the energy to a certain point in time, to a specific person or place or a specific issue. The issue can be something like a particular health problem of an individual, or it can be a more abstract or general issue such as world peace. Practitioners say that this is possible using three symbols taught at the second initiation. The claim is that this skill allows the channel to be opened even wider.

As part of the master course, usually the third degree, students become a Reiki “master” through the third initiation; they learn how to initiate students and have the option of teaching Reiki courses themselves. The student learns a further “master” level symbol in this course as well as the method of attuning others. In some case the third level is broken into smaller stages of attunements from the teacher, as well as being taught the attunements for the first second and third level in stages. A teacher has completed practical training when told he or she has the ability to attune others to all degrees and has been given the final fourth Reiki Master symbol that is used in attunements.

The first and second stages can also be broken up into smaller levels of attunements and received symbols, however this is very rarely done and teachers often do not know how to do this. It is generally found to be impractical so is not widely practiced, taught or known.

It is up to students how many levels they want to complete. The courses are sequential, and can be expensive, especially the third (master) level. Often a teacher will require time in between one course and another (time in which the student is expected to apply new learning before taking the next degree). Before offering Reiki treatments to the public, a student is often advised to take a second-degree course.

Reiki community
While there is no single standards organization and practitioners practice as they will, some choose to form Reiki communities to bring together often diverse knowledge and experience. Some of these communities have grown out of informal groupings of practitioners who organized Reiki circles for working together, while others have formed around a particular school or teacher.

Many of the Reiki communities also emerged due, in part, to the expanding popularity of the internet. Global initiatives have been introduced (like healing the planet or global peace fostering) and a great deal of online services (like training and healing) is available.

Controversies
Many scientists, traditional Chinese medicine practitioners, health professionals and others dispute the effectiveness of Reiki, stating that there is no proof or evidence that a mechanism for Reiki energy exists, nor proof that healing beyond that expected from the placebo effect can be achieved by it.

The existence of Reiki energy has not been scientifically proven, and anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of Reiki therapy is commonly ascribed to the placebo effect and a combination of post hoc reasoning and the regressive fallacy by critics. Proponents of Reiki claim that they can detect and manipulate this energy, but a means to measure it or even objectively demonstrate its existence to the satisfaction of the scientific community has yet to be found. The predominant opinion among the scientific community is that the sensations felt by practitioners and patients of Reiki are psychologically subjective or the result of self-deceit.

Doctors, academics, and consumer advocates have expressed concern when patients with serious diseases such as cancer choose Reiki solely as a means of treatment over trained doctors. In some cases people reject conventional medicine completely and solely practice Reiki, and this is deemed as a highly untrustworthy and potentially dangerous practice even within the Reiki and wider alternative health community. While it is understandable for patients to seek non-mainstream remedies when conventional options seem ineffective or untrustworthy, many doctors say that Reiki, like many other forms of alternative medicine, is simply exploiting the fear and hope of people with serious illnesses for money while offering no demonstrable help. The response from Reiki practitioners is that Reiki is a reliable and effective treatment that is being unfairly dismissed by conservative Western scientific research. Some Reiki teachers and practitioners advocate a complementary approach to conventional medicine - holding it as the most prudent and responsible means of treating any illness - much like many other alternative medicine advocates suggest.

Opposition from religious groups
There are various religious groups opposing Reiki. Christian fundamentalists condemn Reiki as promoting pagan practices. For example, the Unification Church cautions its adherents to avoid Reiki on the grounds that Reiki involves channelling the energy of evil spirits. Some individuals and groups (like Dominicans from the Roman Catholic Church) actively advise believers against it.

Reiki as a cult
Reiki has been called a cult or an attempt at sorcery. Some Reiki adherents would reply that there is no strict structure, guru or chain of command in the Reiki community, so it doesn’t fit the modern sense of a cult. While the practice itself does not necessarily fit into cult-like behaviours, some teachers of Reiki have engaged in practices reflective of a cult-like approach, proffering various religious and spiritual beliefs along with the Reiki techniques. The experience of hot or cold sensations in the hands whilst giving and receiving Reiki is put forward as a validation of some groups’ particular religious ideology - however far fetched or different to other Reiki groups.

It is claimed by critics that some Reiki groups also put forward that they can never grow ill if they practice Reiki regularly and have a positive outlook - with disappointment and shock being the outcome when their teacher (or they themselves) become mortally ill or die.

Critics point to the often substantial fees charged by Reiki practitioners for their teachings as deeply troubling, as well as the obedience to a given that some teachers demand of their students. Chujiro Hayashi’s students are, for example, called “disciples” - strongly implying a religious overtone.

Some Christian practitioners of Reiki claim that the source of power that is directed through them is the Holy Spirit, or go so far as to say that Jesus was a Reiki master - claims that are in contradiction with most Christian doctrines. Hawayo Takata has claimed that she once used Reiki to raise a person from the dead. Such a claim falls outside the scope of most alternative health practices. Also, the healings by Jesus as described in the New Testament were given freely, and Usui initiated the expectation of a payment in exchange for Reiki treatment.

Because of the health claims made by its adherents, Reiki is sometimes embraced by people desperate for hope that their terminal or chronic health and mental problems may be miraculously cured. The desperation of these people and their willingness to embrace magical thinking is encouraged by Reiki teachers and practitioners - contributing to perceptions of Reiki’s association with cult-like practices.

Internal Controversies
With the many varied ways that have been used to teach Reiki, there have emerged many points of controversy between different groups, teachers and practitioners. Controversies often exist on topics such as the nature of the Reiki energy itself, fees charged for courses and treatments, training methods, secrecy of symbols and attunement methods, to name but a few.

Various claims are made as to the ‘legitimacy’ or ‘authenticity’ of various schools of practice - with the schools making those claims also engaging in criticisms of the other schools who they see as illegitimate or otherwise inauthentic or immoral in their spiritual conduct. Political fighting is quite strong between many schools; so for example a practitioner of one teacher may often not be welcome to practice Reiki with another teacher’s Reiki group. Teachers from other schools are often not welcomed in other teacher’s classes. A Reiki school will often discourage the participation of outside students and teachers, particularly when there are claims of an individual school’s practices being the only correct practice. This occurs amongst both traditional and non-traditional schools. Often and as a more mild form of enforcing adherence, the unorthodox person is required to be retrained in their levels before being accepted into the fold.

Secret Teachings
Teachers often appear claiming to possess hidden additional teachings from the original system and symbols unknown to other schools et cetera, but none of these claims are substantiated with evidence that supports the additional material that they use. Some current examples (but certainly not a comprehensive list) of such schools are Dr Barbara Weber Ray’s “Radiance Association” (who claim to possess additional attunements, symbols and levels) and Dr Ranga Premaratna’s “Reiki Shin Kei Dō/Ennersense/Buddhō” (who claims to possess the original Buddhist Reiki system as well as additional symbols, initiations and meditations). Although (among many others) both organisations also claim they possess additional authentic supplementary teachings, neither school provides evidence to substantiate these claims. Takata’s students, particularly the teachers present during her training, dispute Dr Weber Ray’s claims. Dr Ray demands strict obedience from her students and deregisters them if they disobey her, as does Dr Premaratna. Dr Premaratna nowadays claims that his teacher, Seiji Takamori, was not really taught and initiated into Reiki by Hawayo Takata, although Takata herself stated that Takamori was one of her students. He additionally claims that although Seiji Takemori was a teacher, he only initiated Dr Premaratna alone. At one time however his training materials claimed no special lineage regarding Seiji Takemori, and instead agreed with Hawayo Takata’s statement that she alone was his teacher.

There are many questions remaining around Reiki practice, and many of these are currently being answered by the newly rediscovered Japanese lineages. These lineages can in fact produce historical evidence to support their claims, and although perhaps the actual nature of “Reiki” energy is a mystery, the system of the “usui shiki ryoho” seems to be becoming clearer.

The “Reiki Grandmaster”
Many conservative schools are based around claims of Hawayo Takata’s many student teachers competing as the true “Grandmaster” of Reiki or teaching exactly as Takata herself taught. In recent years however many teachers connected in some way with Hawayo Takata do not strenuously claim to be appointed as the “Grandmaster of Reiki” as they once did in the past. Phyllis Furumoto (the granddaughter of Takata), for example of the “Reiki Alliance” seemed to cease claiming this title around the same time that it was found that historically no such title ever existed once the Japanese schools were discovered by Western Reiki schools. Often these “Grandmasters” attempt to patent the term “Reiki” in their particular country or countries of interest. Such actions are very unpopular in the wider Reiki community and have never been granted in any country.

It would appear that Hawayo Takata invented this title and claimed it for herself, however her motivations for this obfuscation are unknown. Dr. Barbara Weber Ray (T.R.T.I.A - The Radiance Technique International Association / a.k.a. The Radiance Association), Beth Gray and Phyllis Furumoto are the most notable Hawayo Takata trained teachers who have all claimed at one time or another to have been anointed as the supreme teacher of Reiki. Whether Takata did or did not appoint them is unknown, as none of these claimants have produced any evidence or witnesses to their claims. It is perhaps likely that as the title itself was a fiction, that Takata was reluctant to officially endorse anyone, as she herself could not actually confer any such title.

Reiki’s origin
The provenance of Usui’s system is obscure, little independent documentation exists as to his influences. There are superficial resemblances to Chinese Taoist and Buddhist philosophies in the Reiki symbol terminology. Reiki however fails the standard test of whether a teaching is Buddhist or not; that of the three “Dharma Seals” or the “Three marks of existence”. This doctrine states that any teaching or practice that does not extol these three core ideas cannot be said to be a Buddhist teaching, and Reiki does not.

Reiki may however be said to be a Buddhist art in the way that karate-dō or shiatsu is a Buddhist art without being a Buddhist practice. Similarly, the majority of Taoists would deny that Reiki was a Taoist art. The words used in these symbols show that their creator was exposed to these ideas. Whether or not Reiki was entirely spiritually received, rediscovered (as claimed), fabricated, or patched together by Usui and his followers from disparate influences, can only be guessed at due to lack of sufficient documentation.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “reiki”.


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The Heisenberg Principle, Quantum Mechanics, Wave collapse, etc.

Published on October 4, 2005

Being an observer of the non-linear (spiritual realm), I am aware of the fact that science, i.e. Quantum Mechanics has the capability of going to the very end of the linear realm. Scientists, in recent years, have finally come to the realization that reality can only be explained to the edge of the cliff, (so to speak) through science and mathematics, and beyond that we must enter that which one has no actual physical explanation. Having experienced the world of the non linear, I can attest to the fact that it is entirely experiential. Although there are wonderful studies and writings by many scientists in their respective fields regarding the world of non duality, as David Hawkins calls it, much of science is lacking the capacity to prove what humans have long been searching for…Proof that something lies beyond our physical reality. To bring science and the non linear together in one place would most likely take the rest of my life and add an unending list of references as well as objective and subjective studies to this website. I feel no obligation to prove what it is I already know, but for the sake of bringing the two together here, I will give these subjects my best attempt at explanations.

All of the information provided here, is reiterated through various reference materials. Please be aware that although articles from the Wiki Encyclopedia contain fact, they also reflect the opinions of the writers. See future articles on the subjects of linear, non linear, duality and non duality and the spiritual realms.
Myswizard

Quantum Mechanics
Quantum Mechanics is a theory in physics which primarily tries to explain the behaviour of extremely small bodies, such as atoms and molecules. Scientists generally agree that it is a very accurate and successful theory, and it has very important applications in today’s world as all electronic devices depend on Quantum Mechanics in some way. It is also important in understanding how large objects such as stars and even the whole Universe are the way they are.

Despite how successful Quantum Mechanics is, it does have some controversial elements. For example, the behaviour of microscopic objects is very different from our everyday experience, and some of its results appear to contradict other successful theories, such as the Theory of Relativity - simplified.

In quantum physics, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, expresses a limitation on accuracy of (nearly) simultaneous measurement of observables such as the position and the momentum of a particle. It furthermore precisely quantifies the imprecision by providing a lower bound (greater than zero) for the product of the standard deviations of the measurements. The uncertainty principle is one of the cornerstones of quantum mechanics and was discovered by Werner Heisenberg in 1927.

It is sometimes called the Heisenberg indeterminacy principle (a title prefered by Niels Bohr),
Understanding uncertainty
Consider an experiment in which a particle is prepared in a definite state and two successive measurements are performed on the particle. The first one measures the particle’s position and the second immediately after measures its momentum. Each time the experiment is performed, some value x is obtained for position and some value p is obtained for momentum. These values, however, may be different for each trial. In other words, there is an uncertainty in the outcome of the measurements. The Heisenberg uncertainty principle provides a quantitative relationship between the uncertainties of p and x as measured by their standard deviations in the following way: If the particle state is such that the first measurement yields a dispersion of values Δx, then the second measurement will have a distribution of values whose dispersion Δp is at least inversely proportional to Δx.

Sound analogy
There is a precise, quantitative analogy between the Heisenberg uncertainty relations and properties of waves or signals. Consider a time-varying signal such as a sound wave. It is meaningless to ask about the frequency spectrum of the signal at a moment in time. In order to determine the frequencies accurately, the signal needs to be sampled for a finite (non zero) time. This necessarily means that time precision is lost. In other words, a sound cannot have both a precise time, as in a short pulse, and a precise frequency, as in a continuous pure tone. The time and frequency of a wave in time are analogous to the position and momentum of a particle in space.

Overview
An uncertainty relation arises between any two observable quantities that can be defined by non-commuting operators. The uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics is sometimes explained by claiming that the measurement of position necessarily disturbs a particle’s momentum. Heisenberg himself may have offered explanations which suggest this view, at least initially. That disturbance plays no role in the uncertainty principle can be seen as follows: Consider a particle prepared in a definite state, and measure either the momentum or the position of the particle, but not both. After repeating this experiment a large number of times, we will obtain probability distributions of values for both these quantities and the uncertainty relation still holds for the dispersions Δp, Δx of the values.

The Heisenberg uncertainty relations are a theoretical bound over all measurements. They hold for so-called ideal measurements, sometimes called von Neumann measurements. They hold even more so for non-ideal or Landau measurements.

Correspondingly, any one particle cannot be described simultaneously as a “classic point particle” and as a wave. The fact that either one of these descriptions is appropriate at least in separate cases is called wave-particle duality; a change of appropriate descriptions according to measured values is known as wavefunction collapse.) The uncertainty principle, as initially considered by Heisenberg, is concerned with cases in which neither of these two descriptions is fully and exclusively appropriate, such as a particle in a box with a particular energy value; i.e. systems which are characterized neither by one unique “position” (one particular value of distance from a potential wall) nor by one unique value of momentum (incl. its direction).

Formulation
If several identical copies of a system in a given state are prepared, measurements of position and momentum will conform to a determined probability distributions. This is a fundamental postulate of quantum mechanics. If we compute the standard deviation Δx of the position measurements and the standard deviation Δp of the momentum measurements, then where is Planck’s constant (h) divided by 2π. (In some treatments, the “uncertainty” of a variable is taken to be the smallest width of a range which contains 50% of the values, which, in the case of normally distributed variables, leads to a larger lower bound of h/2π for the product of the uncertainties.) Note that this inequality allows for several possibilities: the state could be such that x can be measured with high precision, but then p will only approximately be known, or conversely p could be sharply defined while x cannot be precisely determined. In yet other states, both x and p can be measured with “reasonable” (but not arbitrarily high) precision.

In everyday life, we do not usually observe these uncertainties because the value of Planck’s constant (h) is extremely small.

Other characterizations
A number of additional characterizations have been developed including the ones below.

Expression of finite available amount of Fisher information
The uncertainty principle alternatively derives as an expression of the Cramér-Rao inequality of classical measurement theory. This is in the case where a particle position is measured. See Stam (1959). The mean-squared particle momentum enters as the Fisher information in the inequality. See also extreme physical information.

Generalized applications
The uncertainty principle does not just apply to position and momentum. In its general form, it applies to every pair of conjugate variables. An example of a pair of conjugate variables is the x-component of angular momentum (spin) vs. the y-component of angular momentum. In general, and unlike the case of position versus momentum discussed above, the lower bound for the product of the uncertainties of two conjugate variables depends on the system state.

History and interpretations of the principle
Main article: Interpretation of quantum mechanics

Albert Einstein was not happy with the uncertainty principle, and he challenged Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg with a famous thought experiment (See the Bohr-Einstein debates for more details): we fill a box with a radioactive material which randomly emits radiation. The box has a shutter, which is opened and immediately thereafter shut by a clock at a precise time, thereby allowing some radiation to escape. So the time is already known with precision. We still want to measure the conjugate variable energy precisely. Einstein proposed doing this by weighing the box before and after. The equivalence between mass and energy from special relativity will allow you to determine precisely how much energy was left in the box. Bohr countered as follows: should energy leave, then the now lighter box will rise slightly on the scale. That changes the position of the clock. Thus the clock deviates from our stationary reference frame, and again by special relativity, its measurement of time will be different from ours, leading to some unavoidable margin of error. In fact, a detailed analysis shows that the imprecision is correctly given by Heisenberg’s relation.

Within the widely but not universally accepted Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle is taken to mean that on an elementary level, the physical universe does not exist in a deterministic form—but rather as a collection of probabilities, or potentials. For example, the pattern (probability distribution) produced by millions of photons passing through a diffraction slit can be calculated using quantum mechanics, but the exact path of each photon cannot be predicted by any known method. The Copenhagen interpretation holds that it cannot be predicted by any method.

It is this interpretation that Einstein was questioning when he said “I cannot believe that God would choose to play dice with the universe.” Bohr, who was one of the authors of the Copenhagen interpretation responded, “Einstein, don’t tell God what to do.”

Einstein was convinced that this interpretation was in error. His reasoning was that all previously known probability distributions arose from deterministic events. The distribution of a flipped coin or a rolled dice can be described with a probability distribution (50% heads, 50% tails). But this does not mean that their physical motions are unpredictable. Ordinary mechanics can be used to calculate exactly how each coin will land, if the forces acting on it are known. And the heads/tails distribution will still line up with the probability distribution (given random initial forces).

Einstein assumed that there are similar hidden variables in quantum mechanics which underlie the observed probabilities.

Neither Einstein nor anyone since has been able to construct a satisfying hidden variable theory, and the Bell inequality illustrates some very thorny issues in trying to do so. Although the behavior of an individual particle is random, it is also correlated with the behavior of other particles. Therefore, if the uncertainty principle is the result of some deterministic process, it must be the case that particles at great distances instantly transmit information to each other to ensure that the correlations in behavior between particles occur.

The uncertainty principle in popular culture
The uncertainty principle is often misunderstood or misstated in the popular press. One common incorrect formulation is that observation of an event changes the event. This may be true in some cases for some events, but it has nothing to do with the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics.

In some science fiction stories, a device to circumvent the uncertainty principle is called a Heisenberg compensator, most famously in Star Trek for use on the transporter; however, it is not clear what circumventing means.

In Stephen Donaldson’s Gap Cycle science fiction book series, one of the characters postulates a socio-political version of the uncertainty principle: namely, that by determining his precise “location” in the current political landscape, he is prevented from simultaneously calculating the likely direction of political events in the near future.

Humor
The unusual nature of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, and its distinctive name, has made it the source of several jokes. It is said that a popular item of graffiti at the physics department of university campuses is the slogan “Heisenberg may have been here.”

In another uncertainty principle joke, a quantum physicist is stopped on the highway by a police officer who asks “Do you know how fast you were going, sir?”, to which the physicist responds, “No, but I know exactly where I am!”.

In the show Futurama there is a close finish in a horse race, a “quantum finish” they say, and a photograph reveals who won, when the professor yells out “No fair! By oberserving the results you’ve changed them!”

Consciousness causes collapse
Consciousness causes collapse is the speculative theory that observation by a conscious observer is responsible for the wavefunction collapse. It is an attempt to solve the Wigner’s friend paradox by simply stating that collapse occurs at the first “conscious” observer. Supporters claim this is not a revival of substance dualism, since (in a ramification of this view) consciousness and objects are entangled and cannot be considered as distinct. The consciousness causes collapse theory can be considered as a speculative appendage to almost any interpretation of quantum mechanics and most physicists reject it as unverifiable and introducing unnecessary elements into physics.

The process of “measurement” in quantum mechanics is regarded as consciousness itself. However, it is not explained by this theory which animals, living creatures, or objects have consciousness, that is, the right to collapse the wavefunction. It is also not clear whether measuring devices might also be considered conscious, though generally measuring devices are considered simply a “chain of observations” that only ends at a conscious entity. Some even suggest that some beings have a “higher consciousness” and therefore more capability to collapse the wavefunction, whereas others believe all conscious entities have an equal capability.

It has been claimed that the theory that meshes well with ancient Eastern mysticism and philosophy, including Hinduism and Taoism, which stress “Oneness”.

Amit Goswami, a retired theoretical physicist, supported this theory in some of his writings, including The Self-Aware Universe. The Hungarian physicist Eugene Wigner also supported it.

The view is also presented in the popular and controversial documentary What the Bleep Do We Know!?, alongside some unrelated biological discussions.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy(Quantum Mechanics)

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article “Heisenberg Principle and Consciousness causes collapse”.


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Book review…Power vs. Force

Published on October 2, 2005