Nonlocal consciousness

The first photo of quantum entanglement.

Mind apart from brain and body, an out-of-body experience (OBE), illustrates nonlocal consciousness. (1) The adjective “nonlocal” doesn’t make sense, however, unless we grasp its scientific meaning. In classical physics the principle of locality refers to the assumption “that an object is influenced directly only by its immediate surroundings.” (2) Einstein referred to this as “the principle of local action.” (3) The principle of nonlocality supports the conclusion that our mind must be caused by neural activity in the brain and body. According to classical physics, we live in a local universe. All causality involves physical matter and time. The speed of light limits effects across space, so instantaneous influence between separated objects is impossible. 

Nonetheless, experiments in the twentieth century (4) have verified that the smallest particles (quanta) making up all matter (anything with both mass and volume) partner with each other in what is now described as a nonlocal universe. “Nonlocality occurs due to the phenomenon of entanglement, whereby particles that interact with each other become permanently correlated, or dependent on each other’s states and properties, to the extent that they effectively lose their individuality and in many ways behave as a single entity.” (5)

 

Because every observation reveals only part of the entangled whole, human interventions in nonlocal reality are accompanied by uncertainty. Measuring for “light as a particle” reveals it to be a particle, but measuring “for light as a wave” reveals it to have the properties of a wave function. This is true for all elementary particles that exchange quanta. The founder of “Copenhagen quantum theory,” Niels Bohr, described these results as complementarity and the “logic of nature.” (6) 

 

Physicist Paul Dirac wrote: “in direct contrast to the ideas of classical physical theory, orthodox Copenhagen quantum theory is about ‘our knowledge’. We, and in particular our mental aspects, have entered into the structure of basic physical theory.” (7) Eugene P. Wigner, a Nobel Prize winning physicist, concluded that: “consciousness is the ultimate universal reality.” (8) 

 

In prayer to God, you can cross the universe in a moment.

1 Peter Fenwick and Elizabeth Fenwick, The Truth in the Light: An Investigation of Over 300 Near-Death Experiences (Berkley Books, 1995), 255.

2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_locality.

3 http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_quantum_nonlocality.html.

4 Experiments verifying nonlocality under different circumstances were conducted in 1972 by John Clauser and Stuart Freedman, in 1982 by Alain Aspect, and in 2000 by Nicholas Gisin and his colleagues.

5 http://www.physicsoftheuniverse.com/topics_quantum_nonlocality.html. Italics added.

6 Robert Nadeau and Menas Kafatos, The Non-Local Universe: The New Physics and Matters of the Mind (Oxford University Press, 1999), 13.

7 Henry P. Stapp, Mindful Universe: Quantum Mechanics and the Participating Observer, 2nd ed, (Springer, 2011), 13.

8 In a paper entitled “The Place of Consciousness in Modern Physics,” quoted in Thomas Campbell, My Big TOE [Theory of Everything]: A Trilogy Unifying Philosophy, Physics, and Metaphysics (Lightning Strikes Books, 2003), 780.