“In some strange way, an electron or a photon [or any other elementary particle] seems to ‘know’ about changes in the environment and appears to respond accordingly,” says physicist Danah Zohar.
A group at the Weizmann Institute in Israel has performed a variation on the famous “double slit” experiment. They used electrons, rather than photons, and observed how the resulting interference pattern (indicating the wave properties of the particle) dissipated the longer the electrons were watched as they passed through the slits. As a wave, the electron passes through both slits simultaneously but if, according to E Buks, it “feels” that it is being watched, the electron (as a particle) passes through only one path, diminishing the interference pattern. Elementary particles (such as photons and electrons) appear to possess a certain degree of “intelligence” and awareness of their surroundings. Renowned plasma and particle physicist David Bohm says: “In a sense, a rudimentary quality of mind is present even at the level of particle physics. As we move to more subtle levels, this mind-like quality becomes becomes stronger and more developed”.
Consciousness seems to be as fundamental a property for elementary particles as the properties that make it “matter” or a “physical force” (for example, mass, spin, and charge). And just as mass, spin, and charge differ from particle to particle; different particles are likely to have different degrees of consciousness.
Conditions to manifest consciousness
Bohm says that “a particle has a rich and complex internal structure that can respond to information and direct its own movement accordingly.” This is most evident in more massive particles and Bose-Einstein condensates that behave like super particles.
A single isolated particle would have some degree of consciousness (or awareness of the environment). However, low-energy, low-frequency elementary particles (as currently described by physicists’ “Standard Model”) easily lose their property of consciousness when they become entangled with other particles and decoherence sets in. This state is analogous to the state of a demagnetized metal object. Although all individual atoms are, in some sense, magnets, no magnetic fields are observed. However, once the atoms in the metal object line up with their north and south poles pointing in the same direction, they begin to exhibit the property of magnetism.
In the same way, when groups of particles are in the same quantum state, that is, when they are in a state of quantum coherence, the property of consciousness is exhibited. A state of extremely low consciousness (for practical purposes, no consciousness) is exhibited by inanimate matter on macroscopic scales in our classical, highly decoherent, low-energy universe.
Therefore, elementary particles will exhibit their intrinsic degree of consciousness when they are isolated or when a group of particles share the same quantum state. This means that bulk matter in a non-coherent state is effectively unconscious. This author refers to the study of conscious particles as “quantum metaphysics.”
particle memory
In 1959, the physicist Richard Feynman pointed out that all the words written throughout the history of the world could be contained in a cube of material one-tenth of a millimeter wide, as long as those words were written with atoms. Now, scientists have done just that, creating atomic-scale memory using silicon atoms instead of the 1’s and 0’s that computers use to store data. Scientists at the University of Wisconsin in Madison have been able to read and write at room temperature to a memory unit that uses a single atom to store one bit. The memory density of this memory unit is comparable to the way nature stores data in DNA molecules.
How much information can an atom store? Scientists have written the word “OPTICS” on a single atom, demonstrating the enormous information capacity that exists even in a single hydrogen atom. This was done by sending one of its electrons into a “Rydberg state”, in which it no longer exists as a charge cloud enveloping the nucleus, but instead becomes a “wave packet” encircling the atomic nucleus like a planet around the Sun. By applying a series of pulses, a set of wave packets can be created that combine with each other like water waves and cancel each other out at specific locations to form patterns around the atom. Carlos Stroud of the University of Rochester and Michael Noel of the University of Virginia point out that an electron in an n=50 Rydberg state has 2,500 possible angular momentum states that can be combined in various ways, demonstrating the enormous potential of even elementary particles. to store and transport large amounts of information.
Can a person’s memory with all its visual, auditory, tactile and other information be transmitted in a wave-particle? It is remarkable that no matter how complicated a wave is, it can be described as a combination of many simple sine waves of various frequencies and amplitudes. This is how you can hear an entire orchestra from the single vibrating cone of a loudspeaker. When turned on and off at irregular intervals, or when modulated in intensity or frequency, the waves can carry a large amount of information. The higher the frequency, the greater the amount of information the wave can encode. Storing memory in wave interference patterns is remarkably efficient and could accommodate the vastness of human memory. For example, holographic encoding of wave interference patterns would allow all the books in the US Library of Congress to fit into one big sugar cube.
The Physical-Etheric Nucleus
Every subtle body has a nucleus, which the metaphysicians Charles Leadbeater and Annie Besant have called a “permanent particle.” Leadbeater calls the nucleus of the higher etheric double an “etheric-physical atom.” According to Leadbeater and Besant, the relevant subtle body information is stored in this particle (its composition, frequency, structure and associative memories). In this way, the experiences that the subtle body has had in a particular universe are stored or linked to this core, which can be more easily transferred to another universe and body through microscopic wormholes.
The particle is analogous to DNA in the biomolecular body. DNA is known as a “bioparticle” in the medical literature, and it stores or links vast amounts of information about a particular life form. Hindu metaphysics describes these particles or nuclei as “bindus” and Tibetan yoga as “drops”.
The physical-etheric core is transferred to higher energy bodies when the subtle body dies, serving the same purposes as a “black box” flight recorder in an airplane to preserve information about a particular lifetime’s experiences. This core is also responsible for the review of life in a near death experience. According to Besant, the permanent particles are used to hold within themselves as “vibrational powers” (ie, different frequencies and waveforms) the results of all the experiences they have gone through. At the end of a life in the physical body, the permanent particle (or physical-etheric nucleus) will have accumulated “innumerable powers of vibration” (ie, a set of waveforms of different frequencies).
A personality is simply a “self-organizing packet of information.” If this information can be transferred from one body to another, that personality “lives.” The information stored in the physical-etheric core allows the personality and its associated physical-etheric body to be “rebuilt” or “resurrected” into a similar physical-etheric body later, in a process analogous to teleportation. According to plasma metaphysics, the physical-etheric body provides an electromagnetic matrix that plays a fundamental role in the morphogenesis of the physical-biomolecular body. This provides a basis for reincarnation or resurrection (depending on which religion interprets it).
The physical-etheric core allows the transfer of information from one body (in one universe) to another body (in another or in the same universe) during the (physical) death process. Were it not for this transfer, experiences in the physical (3d) universe may be difficult to access or reconstruct at a later date. Information about ourselves has to be “uploaded” to another “player” (ie a body) in order to continue our personal existence. Advances in science suggest that the nuclei of the various subtle bodies can carry a large volume of complex holographic information about their corresponding bodies and experiences.
Conscious Waves
As quantum physics has shown, elementary particles also behave like waves, depending on the experimental setup. Bose-Einstein condensates can behave like superparticles, and therefore waves as well. If a gas is cooled to a millionth of a degree above absolute zero, the atoms lose their identity as individual particles and behave as a single entity, a kind of “superatom” with characteristics similar to a laser. They then take on the weirdness of quantum objects, including wave-particle duality and the ability to quantum tunnel from one place to another. Therefore, conscious particles can also propagate as waves.
The Conscious Zero Point Field
Stuart Hameroff believes that a kind of proto-consciousness is a fundamental feature of the universe as a whole and exists on the almost infinitesimal Planck scale. “Could protosentient qualia just exist in the empty space of the universe?” he asks.
Zohar says that there is no reason in principle to deny that any structure, biological or otherwise, containing a Bose-Einstein condensate could possess the capacity for consciousness. She argues that for there to be an integrated “me”, something must account for the unity of brain states associated with each element of an experience. In a sense, the separate elements must be in phase with each other. A Bose-Einstein condensate typifies this type of unit. She suggests that the brain has two interacting systems: the Bose-Einstein coherent condensate associated with consciousness, and the computer-like system of individual neurons. According to her, the electrical activity observed in the EEG can be a bridge between the two: if either system is excited, it would produce an electrical field that would act on the other.
The zero-point field (or the quantum vacuum) itself can be thought of as a Bose-Einstein condensate, filled with photons and other zero-energy bosons. This arises from commutation rules where the field is quantized according to Bose-Einstein statistics. This provides a foundation for a field of consciousness that is present everywhere in our universe.
the atman field
According to quantum electrodynamics, particles are considered excitations in a field. Therefore, all particles have fields associated with them, and all fields have particles associated with them. The fields associated with (sentient) superparticles would exhibit consciousness and intelligent behavior. Conscious fields, like electromagnetic fields, would not have any form like a tangible physical object has.
The various elementary particles come in strictly identical copies. An electron is no different from any other electron. In fact, Richard Feynmann (following up on a comment by John Wheeler) speculated that all the electrons we measure may actually be one and the same electron.
We can call the conscious zero point field the “atman field”. Each individualized atman or “atman particle” can be considered a fundamental unit of consciousness and an arousal in the atman field. Each elemental atman particle is indistinguishable from another. When the excitation subsides, the particle disappears and is indistinguishable from the field.
© Copyright Jay Alfred 2007
