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"IN
THE 600TH YEAR OF THE 6TH [MILLENIUM] THE GATES OF WISDOM ABOVE WILL OPEN
UP AND THE FOUNTAINS OF WISDOM BELOW, AND THE WORLD WILL BE SET TO ENTER
THE 7TH" (Zohar I, 117a)
MOSHIACH THROUGH THE EYES OF SCIENCE - Part XI
The Conscious Universe
by Professor Aryeh A. Gotfryd
Editor's Note: In this article Professor Gotfryd continues the development
of the concepts he introduced in his lecture at the 5th Moshiach and
Science conference of the Rabbi Yisroel Aryeh Leib Institute. (See Part IX
of this series, "The Natural Sciences on the Road to Redemption",
Beis Moshiach no. 120).
INTRODUCTION
Open...
It takes only a fraction of a second for a message to travel throughout the
world, yet it could take years to get from the outside of a man's head to
the inside. As people say, "Wakeup and smell the coffee."
Moshiach is in the air. But you have to wake up first, before you can smell
what's in the air.
... Your Eyes...
"But my eyes are open! I don't see Moshiach. I don't see G-d. I see a
rotten world!"
There is more to eyes than meets the eye. Birds are known to have a third
eye, in their forebrain, called a pinneal organ. It sees wavelengths of
light not visible to the other two eyes. We can learn from the birds. We
too can see the invisible in our brains. That's what intellect is for. So
that even when it's dark, we can sing, like the birds.
Baruch Atoh Hashem E-lokeinu Melech HaOlam HaNosayn LaSechvi Vina LeHavchin
Bayn Yom U'Vain Layla. The rooster wakes up the dawn, Baruch Hashem.
"But it's dark out."
"Open your eyes."
... And See.
Pokeach Ivrim... Who gives sight to the blind. For opening a hand, the verb
is poteach. Pokeach means more than that. It turns light into vision, turns
the message outside in. Pokeach is a form of Pikeach, clever, intelligent,
of sound mind. Intelligence turns a signal into a message. We all got the
signal: Moshiach is here. Moshiach is now. But did we get the message?
What's left to do? To open our minds to see. Open up. Higher and higher.
Visualize with the mind that which is beyond understanding.. G-dliness.
Shma means "Understand" in Heb. write "Shma" It is also
an acronym for Si'u Marom Aynaychem "Si'u Marom Aynaychem"
"Lift upward your eyes.. ...and see.. "Ur'u" ...who created
these." "Mi Bara Aleh" The Hebrew letters for "Whose
are these?" "Mi Aleh?" when rearranged answer the question:
"E-lohim." "E-lohim"
Thus opening the eyes refers to the raising of consciousness, to the
opening of the mind to G-dliness. This was the approach of Avraham Avinu.
It is a hallmark of Chassidus. And now it's a physical necessity according
to modern science.
Among the many redeeming signs that the Rebbe, Melech HaMoshiach, directed
us to notice is the modern explosion of knowledge in the realm of science.
Some of these scientific discoveries go far beyond the typical descriptive
role that science normally plays in understanding nature. Instead we find
unmistakably religious implications in a variety of scientific disciplines.
The tools of modern physics have yielded "discoveries" similar to
the concepts of the continuous creation of something from nothing, the
existence of a cosmic plan, the centrality of humankind in this plan from
"before" the beginning of time, and the intimate relationship
between man and a higher consciousness that sustains the universe while
being itself quite beyond considerations of time and space.
To be sure, many of the proud proponents of these rediscoveries claim to be
irreligious, but this may be largely because they don't understand much
about religious notions generally and Chassidus in particular.
Following is a summary for the non-scientist describing how the hard-nosed
physicists became so "frum." It is not an attempt to convince the
Chassidic reader to believe in Hashgacha Pratis, Bchirah Chofshis, Yesh Meayin,
Bishvili Nivra HaOlam, etc., etc
Such a reader already believes for these are Torah concepts and therefore
s/he knows them to be true. What the following discussion may accomplish is
to help us open our eyes to see how secular culture is coming rapidly and
naturally to "The earth shall be filled with the knowledge of G-d as
the waters cover the sea."
* * * * * * * * * * *
The Littlest Bits
Quantum physics is the science of littlest bits -- the size of an atom or
smaller. Examples are the smallest bit of electricity, an electron, and the
smallest bit of light, which is a photon.
Wavicles
All subatomic particles may be seen either as waves or particles, but not
both at once. For example, when ejected from a "gun", electrons
travel fairly straight, forming a cluster of points on a detector screen.
This shows their particle nature only. However, when projected through a
narrow slit, they make a diffraction pattern, which shows their wave
nature.
Either or Neither or Both?
Now which state is the little bit in before it is observed? Wave? Particle?
Both? Or none? And does it matter? According to mainstream physics, the
pre-observation state has the potential of being either but is actually
neither. Moreover it is the act of observation itself that brings the thing
into being in one of its possible states.
How so? Picture an electron being fired at two slits. There are two ways to
observe it. One way is to set up a detector that can check which one of the
two slits it went through. This method invariably reveals the electron to
be a particle that has passed through only one of the slits. The other way
is to record the electron's passage as a diffraction pattern on a screen,
which means it went through both slits and is a wave.
It seems impossible that the electron should go through only one of the two
slits, and through both of them, at one and the same time. Yet this seemed
to be the case.
Delayed Choice Experiments
Strange as it seems, Professor John Wheeler has found a way to perform the
two-slit experiment, making the decisive measurement after the electron has
passed through the two-slit apparatus. In this situation, one chooses
afterwards whether the electron passed through only one of the slits or
both of them. Thus the observer is free to determine the nature of physical
reality not only now but retroactively as well!
Observing and Reality
Before the measurement, the event was not in some determined but still
unknown state. It was somehow in an omnipotential including both of its
mutually exclusive states. Only by measuring it does the object enter one
finite state. In the language of physics, this is usually called "the
collapse of the wave function into reality."
Many leading physicists claim that only a human consciousness can collapse
the wave function. As Professor Eugene Wigner puts it, "the being with
a consciousness must have a different role than the measuring device."
This implies that human awareness makes subatomic physical reality happen.
Quantum Universe
So experiments on quanta, the littlest bits, show an observer-dependent
reality under special conditions. But what about the universe at large?
Does the big world also need observers like us in order to exist? Those
little bits (be they electrons, photons, quarks or whatever) are also observer-dependent
when not in the laboratory. And being the building blocks of all matter and
energy, they are literally everywhere, and are moreover subject to the same
laws of physics wherever they are.
So the same applies to the universe as a whole. All of physical reality is
observer-dependent and the laws of nature exist only because we do.
Retroactive Reality
The delayed choice experiments not only show how the observer gives reality
to every place, but also to every time. The observation of the quantum
gives it reality not only now but retroactively to its origin. Applying
this to the universe as a whole: When we observe now, we allow the universe
to emerge into reality retroactively to its beginning.
Wheeler illustrates this with a drawing depicting the history of a letter U
which gives rise to observership which in turn makes its history real in a
physical sense.
Free Will
Professors Avi Rabinowitz and Herman Branover propose that free will is the
special quality of observership that allows it to collapse the wave
function. Since free will is unconstrained by nature and natural laws, it
can induce them.
The Conscious Universe
In 1982 a yet more radical step took place in the spiritualizing of
physics. Alain Aspect conducted special delayed-choice experiments showing
that reality is non-local. This means that "the new physics seems to
demand some guiding influence located as it were above nature sustaining
all of existence."
How does this work? Paired particles are emitted from a single source. It
is known that their spins must match. After they are emitted, a rapid
decision is made on how to observe one of the pair. Then the second
particle is measured. It turns out that the decision on the first particle,
instantly determines the result on the second of the pair, even though the
two particles were so widely removed that their remoteness precluded the
possibility of electromagnetic communication.
This finding has given rise to an unprecedented wave of "new
physics" mysticism because it implies that all physical and temporal
separations are illusions and that underlying the universe is a unified
consciousness that relates to man and especially to his free-willed
consciousness.
In summary, we see that physics has softened its materialistic stand. It
recognizes a supernatural consciousness behind everything (G-d) and
promotes man to the central role of being as important to the existence of
the universe as the universe is to the existence of man.
But why is all this happening now? Because the days of Moshiach are already
upon us and the "secular" sciences need to deepen their insight
into the greatness of G-d and the importance of man in creating a dwelling
for G-d here below.
Yechi Adoneinu Moreinu V'Rabbeinu Melech HaMoshiach L'Olam Va'Ed.
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