Quantum Theory and Tarot Inquiry...

[serenaserendipity]

Wow!

WOW!

This is very exciting...
I wasn't sure what would happen when I made that post, but it DEFINITELY made a re-action.

I find it a bit surprising and a bit humorous that it was the heavyweights of scientific thought who took over the debate, however, because I purposely was trying to reference pop culture (if you can call Phillip Pullman pop culture) and my own personal ideas in order to make others feel more comfortable discussing this. I really wish we wouldn't pull hierarchy here on the forum, I personally am very much interested in hearing about people's personal queries, questions, observations and experiences with this idea.

I personally believe science is sometimes WAY behind the times, and that knowlege and understanding can be achieved through personal observation, meditation, and illumination, as well as through mystical paths such as those traversed by shamans and medicine women.

I am always interested when the establishment of science with its protocol of rules and consortium of classically brilliant minds comes up with something which reaffirms what some of the more mystical wise people were already referring to...

I think the observation about the theoricists and the experimentalist physicists is an interesting one-- about what each one expects... We could also draw a parallel between the mystical knowlege of indigenous wise people (shall we call this the "old world" knowlege") and the experimental, science-based knowlege of the modern world.

The science-based knowlege sometimes looks to "mine" the knowlege, medicinally for example, of the old world wisdom, but nonetheless puts it through its onslought of experimentation before utilitizing it.

I think someone like Karl Jung, who respected both worlds, could be a good bridge between these two (apparently) opposing views.

Some of the effects or phenomena being discussed in this thread, such as entanglement, could also be explained by the concept of "serendipity" or "synchronicity"...

I think in the real world, the power of intention and prayer, and the invisible forces of the universe (which can be "explained" perhaps by little buddies like quarks and electrons and whatever you may call them) are constantly working with us, around us, through us... influencing us and being influenced by us...

I would also like to bring up the work of Masaru Emoto, the Japanese scientist who did very simple experiments where he wrote with intention, one word on bottles of water, and then froze the water into crystals. The crystals took on very interesting and varied shapes based upon the intention with which he labelled the bottles they were in...

I have more to say but I think I will wait...

Oh, also, today I was reading "A Separate Reality" by Carlos Castaneda, and I think the main operational question of the book is the difference between "LOOKING" and "SEEING"...

To look at something, which is our Eurocentric, scientific way of doing things, is to observe it...

To see it, is to become one with its nature, and to understand its place in the universe, from within and without...

It's very difficult to learn to see...

When we are doing tarot cards, sometimes we can't "See" what they are trying to reveal to us, and so we invent classical interpretations that are based on derivations of possible meanings, from simply looking at them.

I think we can possibly damage people's life paths, if we incorrectly interpret their tarot readings and give them erroneous advice...

I think tarot is a tool of great power, because it has the power to alter a person's intentions and alter the way they look at or "see" their life. This affects the whole universe.

It's not simply a camera for taking pictures, or a microscope or telescope... It's a relationship between particles of intention and feeling and emotion and pictorial representations of prototype events from the spiritual world and also everyday life...

Because it's a relationship, miscommunication could have very negative results...

That's REALLY the question I am asking about...

I think it's ludicrous to suggest there is no ethical relationship between subatomic particles and man's daily life.

I think we need to acknowlege the relationship and learn how to master it.

We have to be humble about our knowlege and our level of ignorance, but not be totally blind and dumb to the knowlege that is SHOWN us all the time...

through tarot and through very many other tiny miracles of daily life...


sincerely,

Serena

 

[serenaserendipity]

...

satine... i read that book and i think the whole point was that the scientistic MISINTERPRETED THE ORDER as being more capable of perfection than he could understand... thus he unleashed great evil... while he was only aware of having created a perfect little innocent being, in the shadow world of his unawareness he had created a great monster.


and umbrae please don't get discouraged you'll scare people away if you get defensive and we have been so blessed by your knowlege, just give us more time to digest!

thanks to crowned one and others who have taken the time to present classical views

but i'd really like to see this thread go back towards the personal/universal rather than classical/experimental... if we can think of that as a directional crux, can we shift a little?

thanks

it was a wonderful foundation for further discussion...

s.

 

[satine]

satine... i read that book and i think the whole point was that the scientistic MISINTERPRETED THE ORDER as being more capable of perfection than he could understand... thus he unleashed great evil... while he was only aware of having created a perfect little innocent being, in the shadow world of his unawareness he had created a great monster.

Oh, I agree serenaserendipity. He (the scientist) thought that he could prove through scientific methods something ethereal-- the very existence of God. He viewed the order beneath the chaos as the perfection that WAS God rather than viewing this order as merely representing something that was far beyond his comprehension (and accepting the rest on faith alone, since he considered himself to be a spiritual man). What he unfortunately never realized is that sometimes the answer is NOT logical or definable or able to calculated, even if it appears to be so.

 

[frelkins]

Entanglement is where given two or more objects that are separated by space/time, influences upon one object create influences upon the other.

Some sources will state that faster than light information transferal is not possible by entanglement; however NASA and JPL are now finding this to be not true.

Hey Umbrae, I'm with you here except for 2 caveats. The first, is where you say "influences upon one object create influences upon the other." I know you are nicely trying hard to keep this in as plain an English as can be, considering. But I think you are better served, perhaps, for tarot, in keeping to "same state."

I think the experiments show that if I entangle, say, the Umbrae and Frelkins particles, then shoot 'em off in radically different directions, look at 'em later, when I see Umbrae sitting it allows me to predict that Frelkins must have been sitting at the same time. And then we go to the observation of the Frelkins particle (on film or whatever) I see whoa! Frelkins sat down when Umbrae sat down! They had the same state!

I think it's not that the Umbrae "influenced" the Frelkins to sit, it's that when the Umbrae sat, the Frelkins sat. We were in the same state at the same time at the moment of observation. And predictably so.

We don't know whether Frelkins affected Umbrae or vice versa. We just note that these two entangled particles are always predictably observed in the same state and we don't have any effing clue why or how. Something is keeping our states in unison over vast distances, quantum wise, and it's creepy.

Ok, I with you with that small niggle. If you disagree with that description, Umbrae, please say why. For tarot of course to be able to say that the cards may be measuring entanglements -- people who are in the same state -- say, in a relationship, etc. -- I think this state concept is better than influencing. But hey, I'm open to persuasion!

Faster than light information travel again, would allow tarot to be the "display screen" for the message. This is where I'm losing you a bit, Umbrae. It's true the JPL press release makes it seem possible: http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2003-047

But the "thought experiment" makes it seem not possible: If I give you an entangled Umbrae particle and I have an entangled Frelkins particle, I know that when my particle bounces up, yours does too.

So it seems like I could send you binary messages: a bounce means 1, a no-bounce means 0. But the problem is, the message will be random, because I don't yet know *how to control the bounce.* The entangled particles bounce or not when they feel like it, and I can only tell what state it was in when I observe it *later*.

I can't "observe it in advance" to catch it any particular state and thus control it to send a message. So our entangled particles will just bounce randomly -- but together -- on their own.

This is the part that loses me, Umbrae and if you have an answer, I'd like to hear it, because that would be cool. So I don't see how we can use entanglement to send or read messages quite yet, and thus have Tarot be the "readout screen" for the entangled information. . . .

 

[philebus]

Thank you frelkins for providing that clarity.

Umbrae: "Some argue for a one dimensional time model, which has been shown by Einstein to be a trick of perception whereas the four dimensional model is proven by relativity and the same person states “I’m not arguing Einstein”…." Does this refer to me? I have said nothing to oppose the 4 dimensional model, I agree with it. No problem there and nothing that I've said contradicts that.

I asked for clarity - not to be told to do my homework. Again!!!!!!!

"Some sources will state that faster than light information transferral is not possible by entanglement; however NASA and JPL are now finding this to be not true."

I am not the only one who has pointed out that his matter is not yet resolved. The alternative, the Non-Communication Theorem still, I thought, stands as an alternative - if you know otherwise, please, don't just tell me to do my homework, give me a reference.

I had remained focussed on reverse causation in my posts because I originally began debating with you regarding this statement of yours: "Add to this the improbable and unbelievable (yet true) fact that photons can move in a direction that we perceive as backwards on the continuum, affecting particles in the past…"

When your counter-reply raised the whole entanglement business, I assumed that you thought it relevant to the reverse causation you claimed could happen. And that, in fact, does not.

Now, I have to go earn some pennies.

 

[Sophie]

Could you reference the experiments you are talking about please?

Here is one famous one: http://cplear.web.cern.ch/cplear/cplear_time_rev.html

There is also those in quantum tunnelling conducted by Günter Nimtz in Cologne since the mid-90s - the most famous one involving Mozart's 40th Symphony (that's the one that stuck in my brain at the time!). His latest research is summarized here: http://arxiv.org/abs/0708.0681v1 . This appears to reverse causality, though Nimtz himself has said that no information can be carried into the past, but can be explained by the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory.

The Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory reads to me like a convenient way of getting round observed irregularities (or more!) in causality (the CERN experiement referenced above appears to break down the theory of time symmetry).

The PEAR experiments also looked at the way humans (and non-humans) were able to influence microscopic events in the past and in the future.

As far as I know, there have been no scientific experiments at the larger - Newtonian - level, though there are thousands of years of experience around the world in such things - you need to talk to shamans, medicine men and sangomas of all cultures for that. They do not know each other and are separated by thousands of miles, but report remarkably similar methods, observations and results. But to accept what they say with any degree of objectivity, you have to drop the tunnel vision of eurocentric belief in the over-arching superiority of science over thousands of years of direct mystical experience and results.

To quote Umbrae, I'll leave you all to follow up on this stuff yourselves . I'm off skiing!

 

[Sophie]

My only issue with Umbrae here is that we don't know the real meaning of entaglement yet, and that we don't know how things become entangled (or if they do!) in nature. Entanglement might be artificial, like some elements -- created only in a laboratory with fancy equipment and existing only for the merest moments, never observed in the wild.

Anyone who has been in love will readily agree that entanglement happens in the wild. I think of something, and at the same time, so does he; he hums a tune and I hear it - though he might be 6000 miles away from me. I start a sentence, and he finishes it. But of course, people in love don't want to be wired up with electrodes - they have better things to do

 

[Umbrae]

Thank you frelkins for providing that clarity.

Umbrae: "Some argue for a one dimensional time model, which has been shown by Einstein to be a trick of perception whereas the four dimensional model is proven by relativity and the same person states “I’m not arguing Einstein”…." Does this refer to me? I have said nothing to oppose the 4 dimensional model, I agree with it. No problem there and nothing that I've said contradicts that.

I asked for clarity - not to be told to do my homework. Again!!!!!!!

"Some sources will state that faster than light information transferral is not possible by entanglement; however NASA and JPL are now finding this to be not true."

I am not the only one who has pointed out that his matter is not yet resolved. The alternative, the Non-Communication Theorem still, I thought, stands as an alternative - if you know otherwise, please, don't just tell me to do my homework, give me a reference.

So far, I’ve NOT stated personal opinion as fact. Everything I’ve stated is not only factual, but in the public domain. Some of sentence structure of detractors in this thread have bordered on, and have been personal in nature – so yes, I’m not going to explain what is public domain and scientific factual – so yes, do some homework.

I had remained focussed on reverse causation in my posts because I originally began debating with you regarding this statement of yours: "Add to this the improbable and unbelievable (yet true) fact that photons can move in a direction that we perceive as backwards on the continuum, affecting particles in the past…"

When your counter-reply raised the whole entanglement business, I assumed that you thought it relevant to the reverse causation you claimed could happen. And that, in fact, does not.

Now, I have to go earn some pennies.

Entanglement is relevant, and since you demonstrated that you do not grasp entanglement, your entire debate is null and void.

 

[Umbrae]

Quantum Tarot - Part 1

“Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood it.” Niels Bohr​

Quantum Mechanics is only older that the WCS by about 9 years. It all began with Max Planck in 1900. But we have to move back a little further, and we’ll have to explain some words as we go.

I’ll try to keep things congruent, but we’ll make some side stops to gander at the view as we travel.

The mathematically formulated laws of quantum theory show clearly that our ordinary intuitive concepts cannot be unambiguously applied to the smallest particles. All the words or concepts we use to describe ordinary physical objects, such as position, velocity, color, site, and so on, become indefinite and problematic if we try to use them of elementary particles.
W Heisenberg Across the Frontiers 1974

As we move forward (and backwards) we will find that certain ‘facts’ cannot be disputed. They will remain however illogical when we try to explain the things verbally (or textually in this case) in terms of pictures and words that really do not apply. Our language…our analogs to explain phenomena break down – hence the need to move slow.

So, in brief, we do not belong to this material world that science constructs for us. We are not in it; we are outside. We are only spectators. The reason why we believe that we are in it, that we belong to the picture, is that our bodies are in the picture. Our bodies belong to it. Not only my own body, but those of my friends, also of my dog and cat and horse, and of all the other people and animals. And this is my only means of communicating with them.

… Whence come I and whither go I? That is the great unfathomable question, the same for every one of us. Science has no answer to it.
Schroedinger

A “quantum” is a quantity of something, a specific amount of ‘stuff’.

“Mechanics” is the study of motion. Therefore, quantum mechanics is the study of the motion of quantities. Quantum theory states that nature comes in quanta – that is – bits and pieces.

Quantum mechanics does not replace Newtonian physics; it includes it, and it (Newtonian physics) remains valid.

…creating a new theory is not like destroying an old bard and erecting a skyscraper in its place. It is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. But the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.
Albert Einstein and L Infeld The Evoulution of Physics 1961

Back in the very early part of the twentieth century, scientists suddenly discovered that although Newtonian physics work great on the tennis court, and the pool table, it didn’t work on the atomic and/or sub-atomic levels. Newtonian physics is great for macroscopic. However quantum mechanical experiments kept producing results that the Newtonian physics would not and could not explain. And because the macroscopic is constructed of the microscopic – the same set of laws failed to work on both…consternation set in!

Newton based his laws on observations of the ‘real world’. Tennis courts and pool tables, apples – trees etc. Quantum mechanics is based on things in the subatomic world. It deals with probabilities which, along with their resultant phenomena, cannot be observed directly.

So about 210 years after the invention of Tarocchi, René Descartes was hanging out in Versailles. At the Royal Gardens where they had some really cool automata (clockwork robot sculptures powered by running water), really intense cool stuff, and he began to see the universe as a clockwork instrument.

Later, along comes Newton. He comes up with three laws based on observation…

1. An object will remain at rest, or continue to move at a constant velocity, unless an external net force acts upon it.
2. Net force on an object is equal to its rate change of momentum.
3. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.​

…and he came up with his ‘law of gravity’ which he could not understand or explain…

…I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses…it is enough that gravity does exist, and act according to the laws which we have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the celestial bodies…
Newton Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica

Here’s the problem: Newton’s laws describe what happens with moving objects. Given enough information we can make predictions about what will happen. The more accurate the information the more accurate the prediction. If we know the present position and velocity of the earth moon and sun, we can predict where the earth moon and the sun will be in relation to each other at a time in the future. We can further extrapolate where the earth has been in relation to the moon and the sun at a past given time.

These are the calculations that enabled us to land on the moon and return home.

With enough information we can tell exactly how an event will unfold.

But it also means that if I can predict where the little frelkins car will be, it means that I could have predicated it would be here, and at a time in the past predicted it would have been there…which is the beginning of the mechanistic determination school of Newtonian physics – that the universe is a great machine, that everything that has happened and everything that will happen has already been determined, and even free will is an illusion. It’s all a prerecorded linear tape playing in God’s SUV.​

Well…in quantum mechanics, it is not achievable even in theory, to know enough about the present to make a complete or accurate prediction about the future. It is the very nature of the universe, that we must choose which aspect we desire to know – because of all aspects - we can only know one with certainty.

…in quantum mechanics, we are not dealing with an arbitrary renunciation of a more detailed analysis of atomic phenomena, but with a recognition that such an analysis is in principle excluded.
Niels Bohr

In the subatomic world, we cannot know both the position and the momentum of a particle with absolute precision. We can know both, with some approximation, but the more we know about one, the less we know about the other. Should we know one precisely, we will no nothing about the other. This is called the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal, and has been verified by repeated experiments.

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principal is a fundamental law, so let me rephrase what he said here; we are unable to establish with any certitude the exact position of an atom without disturbing it so violently that its location at that moment will be unknown. If I attempt to locate a specific atom on the tip of my pencil, I will have no idea if it is there or in Iowa. So if I want to know where it will be, I have to accept that there is a tradeoff between present and future accuracy.

Better instrumentation does not eliminate this issue which is part of matter itself.

Further, we cannot define the space an object occupies without reference to that object – we now have the problem of describing the actual boundaries of that object or atom.

Since we cannot with a subatomic particle establish (determine or predict) momentum and position at the same time, we can predict probabilities – the chances of something occurring or not. However we can never know with certainty what will happen to a particle we are ‘observing’. We can be sure it will behave in certain ways.

(We’re about to get really scary here)​

Let me word this yet another way. Wherein Newtonian physics we can predict outcomes with certainty, in quantum mechanics we cannot predict subatomic phenomena with any certainty, we can only predict probabilities.

The implications of quantum mechanics have been described as psychedelic, that not only do we influence our reality but to some degree actually create it.

Because we can know either the momentum or the position of a particle but not both, we must choose which of the two properties we want to establish.

See…it is possible to create something that has position (like a particle) because we intend to determine the position – and it is impossible to determine position without having some thing occupying the position that we want to determine!

”May the universe in some strange sense be ‘brought into being’ by the participation fo those who participate? … The vital act is the act of participation. “Participator” is the incontrovertible new concept given by quantum mechanics. It strikes down the term “Observer” of classical theory, the man who stands safely behind the think glass wall and watches what goes on without taking part. It can’t be done, quantum mechanics says.”
John Wheeler (Wheeler, Thorne, Misner) Gravitation

Quantum mechanics, or what some call the New Physics, tells us that it is not possible to observe reality without changing it. In the observing of experiments, we have no way of knowing what the outcome would have been the same if we’d not been watching – because the result that we achieved was affected by the fact that we were observing.

In 1906 JJ Thompson received the Nobel Prize for proving that electrons are particles.

In 1937 his son was awarded the Nobel Price for proving that electrons are waves.

We can perform an experiment to show that light is wave-like, or we can select another to show it is particle-like; all that is necessary is to select the correct experiment.

In the quantum world, there is no such thing as objectivity; we cannot eliminate ourselves from the equation.

We are part of nature.

When we study nature – then nature is studying itself.

The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate. That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.
Carl Jung Collected Works

From an inner center the psyche seems to move outward, in the sense of an extraversion, into the physical world…
Wolfgang Pauli The Interpretaton of Nature and the Psyche Jung and Pauli

See…if they are correct…then quantum mechanics, and perhaps physics itself is the study of the structure of consciousness.

And that is what has both physicists and New Age Woo-Woo folks both excited and worried.

That’s about all I have time for now. We’ll continue…

Perhaps tomorrow we’ll look into the Copenhagen Interpretation…

 

[Major Tom]

Save me a place on the story rug!

Please tell us a story Uncle Umbrage.

Because we can know either the momentum or the position of a particle but not both, we must choose which of the two properties we want to establish.

See…it is possible to create something that has position (like a particle) because we intend to determine the position – and it is impossible to determine position without having some thing occupying the position that we want to determine!

In short, the observer makes it so.

The wise have always known: we can do whatever we want...time and space are illusions.