[the_grinch]

The Soul and Quantum Physics
An interview with Dr. Fred Alan Wolf.


Q. Let me start off by asking you some questions that refer to your latest book Mind
into Matter and your previous books, especially Taking the Quantum Leap. How
different is the world of quantum physics from the physical world that we see?
FRED ALAN WOLF. It is an invisible world, ye t its affect upon the things we do
perceive is very striking. It’s a world in which we have to deal in an abstract way of
thinking or a way of perceiving. Here we deal with something quite intangible that I call
a qwiff—a mathematical construct—that can never be seen, measured, or tested. Yet
qwiffs have observable, measurable, and testable consequences. It’s a world which
describes the things we call atoms, molecules, sub-atomic particles and even more
recently, computers, deep space communication, how your photo-cells on your camera
work, television and of course, the modern computer and how it basically works. All
these things wouldn’t be possible without an understanding of the basic principles that we
call quantum physics.
Q. Does that tell us how different the world of quantum physics is?
FRED ALAN WOLF. No, it just explains that there is a new basis for
understanding the way the world works. When we try to understand the world in terms
of what is called today classical physics, which was the physics that was invented in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by people like Isaac Newton, for example, we found
that our classical understanding was perfectly adequate. It describes the movements of
very large objects like, planets in their orbits, driving automobiles down streets, and
mechanical devices in general. But when we tried to apply that same kind of thinking to
the very small, to the tiny, to the atomic, and to the sub-atomic realm, we found that these
classical laws predicted things that didn’t occur. The things that did occur were totally
unpredictable. In fact quantum physics introduced a whole new way of thinking about
science. It pointed to the fact that the way a person observes an atomic or sub-atomic
event can actually alter and change that event in ways that would not be predictable by
the old Newtonian models.

Q. How does this work?
FRED ALAN WOLF. According to the tenets of the quantum physics based on
the uncertainty principle and the complementarity principle, there is no reality until that
reality is perceived. Our perceptions of reality will, consequently, appear somewhat
contradictory, dualistic, and paradoxical. However, the instantaneous experience of the
reality of an immediate experience will not appear paradoxical at all. Reality only seems
paradoxical when we construct a history of our perceptions.
Q. That makes sense when looking at something new and deciding what it means.
But I’m not actually changing reality, am I? I’m just changing my interpretation of
reality.
FRED ALAN WOLF. The answer is subtle, but as surprising as it may seem, you
are changing reality simply by observing it. In the real world of quantum mechanics,
ultimately and fundamentally we affect the universe whenever we observe it or anything
in it.
Let’s consider a simple example: the quantum mechanics of the nursery rhyme
that begins, “Starlight, star bright, first star I see tonight.” The qwiff describing a photon
emitted from a star four light years from earth has a very simple pattern of movement.
This pattern takes the form of a spherical wave, endless wave ripples pulsing outward
from the center like the layers of an onion. A two-dimensional version of this is created
whenever you drop a stone into a still pond.
A potential observer, A, on the earth could be, for example, thinking about the
possibility of a star existing at some point in space. Imagine the star is undiscovered and
is crying for help, seeking to be found. It sends out a single photon qwiff that spreads
throughout all of space. Each point on its wave surface is a possible discovery point. But
there is no intelligence in the universe to know that. So the wave surface grows,
expanding further but getting weaker as it goes. Perhaps if it expands further, like a
balloon blowing up, it will find intelligence.
Suddenly on earth, something pops in the “mind” of our thinking observer. In a
flash, faster than light, the observer “sees” the light of the star. And at that instant, the
qwiff is changed drastically like a pricked balloon. The photon is said to have arrived.
Intelligence has occurred on the scene. Knowledge has occurred on the scene.
Knowledge has been altered. The single photon qwiff, which had been spread over a
four-lightyear radius sphere, has collapsed to a single atomic event at the retina of the
observer. That event—the collapse of the wave function from an eight-lightyear diameter
sphere to a single point on the retina of the beholder—is an alteration affecting the whole
universe for one single instant.
Meanwhile, another observer, B, may have also been seeking that star’s light.
Suppose that observer B was waiting for the flash on another planet that also happened to
be four lightyears from the star, but on the opposite side from observer A. B would miss
the show because A popped the qwiff. When A saw the light, he altered the probabilitythroughout all space.
But just before A’s discovery, both A and B had equal chances to discover the
star. In that world inhabited by qwiffs, the photon was potentially in both places - near A
and near B at the same time. Indeed, it was potentially and simultaneously at every point
on that qwiff sphere. Then A saw the light.
That not only changed A’s reality, it also changed B’s reality and just as quickly.
It is tempting to say that A acted as the cause and B became the effect in this change. But
we must not be hasty. We could just as logically say that B’s nonobservance of the
photon caused A’s event to occur.

Q. Why?
FRED ALAN WOLF. Because at the instant that B knew there was no photon, he
or she also instantly altered the probability from a possibility to nothing. Thus B, as well
as A, was responsible for collapsing the qwiff.
Q. Doesn’t that violate all the normal laws of cause and effect?
FRED ALAN WOLF. The instantaneous qwiff pop doesn’t seem to obey the
usual laws of cause and effect. Because of the instantaneousness of the A and B events,
we cannot say who controls whom or what controls what. It’s as if minds were eager,
hungry children, all out there and waiting to gobble up the first qwiff that passes by.
Q. I like that image!
FRED ALAN WOLF. Thanks. The problem is that the first gobbler leaves
nothing for the rest, or else, by his act of not knowing, he creates a feast of knowledge for
another.
Q. But there’s so much knowledge. I mean, a star doesn’t just put out one photon.
It puts out billions. So just because I see one photon and pop a qwiff doesn’t mean the
next person can’t see the next photon and pop another qwiff.
FRED ALAN WOLF. Yes, of course, an instant later another photon qwiff would
reach the two observers. And again, A might see the light. But the qwiff favors neither
A nor B. For it is equally likely that B will see this photon. And if he does see it, he will
alter A’s reality for just an instant. Then comes the third photon, and the fourth, and so
on. Each photon qwiff is altered from nearly opposite sides of the vast spatial universe.
In that continual series of observations, the vast distance of space is perceived by both A
and B.
So from a certain, and perhaps cosmic, viewpoint there’s a connection between
the two observers, A and B. They may never know it, however. Before the observations
made by A and B, the qwiff was an unbroken whole spread over a vast range of space.Before the observation of that single photon by A, there was no objective separation
between A and B. That separation arose when the photon was observed.
By observing the universe, each observer is disturbing the unbroken wholeness of
the universe. By observing, each observer is separating himself or herself from the rest
of creation. By observing, the observer is gaining knowledge, but also paying a price.
He is becoming more and more alone and isolated. Perhaps this is what is meant by the
tree of knowledge in the Garden of Eden. The first bite of the apple is sweet, but costly.
Our eyes are opened and we see we are alone.