Einstein's blind spot

[anna]

Here's a conundrum. Einstein did not agree or accept quantum mechanics, based on quantum physics which posits, or believes?, that the observer changes the outcome of the observed experiment, and therefore cannot be predictable, as well as that at base all subatomic particles and their reactions are random, and infinitely random, and indeed, can be in two places at once. (I admit, this is a flawed synopsis of a complex subject, but that is the gist of what I got from the article I was reading in the September issue of Discover magazine.) Einstein apparently did not take a liking to quantum physics because of this uncertainty, and that is where the expression, attributed to him, that "God doesn't play dice with the universe" comes from. Well, near the end of his life, he wrote a letter to a fellow physicist stating "Every individual...has to retain his way of thinking if he does not want to get lost in the maze of possibility...." I found this statement fascinating, particularly from so brilliant a mind, because it is actually an indirect statement about quantum physics, the very thing he rejected as unsound. So, if he realized the problem and possibility of the maze of possibilities in consciousness, I don't understand why he didn't extrapolate from that the possibility of the maze of possibilities in the material universe. Even he seemed to be unable to allow the extent to which consciousness, and thus mankind's thought, can expand. And yet, because of that very capacity, he transformed physics from a static universe to a relative one, among other accomplishments. Perhaps the next leap in physics, which is already hinted at in quantum physics, is that the universe is infinite and directly affected by consciousness, indeed, is a maze of possibilities, hmm?

[windabove]

Interesting about Einstein's comment.

The next leap in physics will be a leap 'out' of physics and into metaphysics. If the universe were infinite nothing about it would be finite. Infinity cannot ‘contain’ anything, be it number, quantity, or space. Intuitively we know that the proposition of an infinite “out there” can only exist as illusion. In the physics of illusion the universe can indeed be infinite, but the real infinity is Awareness Itself ‘looking’ at Itself. Seeing the Seer may seem to be our blind spot when we personalize or finite-itize the looker, but it’s actually the very point of ALL that is seen. Nobody puzzles over why their image in a mirror is affected by or looks likes them (like what we see or not).

All the prophets, from Moses to Mary Baker Eddy, have long insisted that there never really was a creation, only a misunderstanding of who WE are. Physics is soon to help us realize that we are not looking out TO what appears to be infinite, but actually we are looking FROM infinity itself.

“The astronomer will no longer look up TO the stars, —he will look out FROM them” -MBE

[anna]

I like your "mind", wind. I do think however, that within infinity there can be finiteness - but not the other way around of course, with infinity within finiteness. Infinity implies evrything, all, and thus must include finiteness - that would explain why there can be infinity, or omnipotence while at the same time there can be a finite, or limited in power, manifest world - that is the gorgeousness of a God which contains infinite possibilities while at the same time manifesting itself as finite material entities.

But to your more profound assertion - and that is that we are confused, and view the manifest universe as outside and apart from us. I quite agree with your point that we actually ARE the universe, and that the universe resides within each of us, and it is only a misunderstanding of who and what we are, all of us, that confines us to our struggling existence. It is interesting, I think, to notice the barriers that are constructed in order to contain us within those confines; I think this is deliberate, in order to maintain the manifest universe and its dance.

[zoofence]

Somehow, "finite" must exist within infinite, not only because, as has already been said, infinite is infinite, meaning that it contains or encompasses all there is (and all there is not!), but also because if there were no such thing as "finite" how could we be talking about it? Where would the words come from? The concept itself?

Now, we can say that finite is an illusion. But that does not mean that finite is not real. Clearly, illusions are real; we all live and die by them every day.

So long as we believe ourselves to be the bodies we seem to be living in, then we are caught in the separative universe each of us calls "my life". And it is not helpful, in my opinion, to say "it's not real" because as long as I think I am "me, not you", all of the ramifications of that perspective (birth, disease, disappointment, disaster, death, etc. as well as the "happier" aspects) are "real", as real as necessary for me to feel them, experience them, enjoy them, dread them. What would be the point, for example, of telling the relatives of the 200,000 dead in South Asia that the earthquake/tsunami was not real?.

What distinguishes illusions is not that they are not real, but that they are not binding. That's the definitive characteristic of illusions, and particularly of "the world".

We are bound by an illusion, any illusion, only as long as we accept its limitations as our own.

As for Einstein, that a mind that reached so successfully so far into the unknown could still allow itself to proclaim "this far and no further" is most interesting, not to say confusing. This is a clear example (in my opinion) of a mind saying, "I like it here". It is, of course, perfectly okay for us to do that; but in doing so, we must remember, choices have consequences.

[Bhakti]

To add poetry to the Einstein-quantum physics analysis. In the words of William Blake:

If the doors of perception were cleansed
Everything would appear to man as it is---infinite.

For man has closed himself up,
Till he sees all things through narrow chinks of his cavern.

From The Marriage of Heaven and Hell

[zoofence]

This thread along with all other threads in the Green Pastures has been retired.