Is a Mind-Element Needed to Interpret Quantum Mechanics? Do Physically Undetermined Choices Enter into the Evolution of the Physical Universe?

By Deepak Chopra, MD and Henry Stapp, PhD  

Pick at random any TV show about the universe, and the visuals will be dominated by a black void sprinkled with billions of galaxies. Such images give the impression of a vast emptiness foreign to human existence. Our bodies would perish within minutes of stepping into outer space; our minds struggle to grasp cosmic riddles that extend beyond the limits of time and space. But visual images are misleading, because they miss the most crucial element in the universe, an element that suddenly and unexpectedly humanizes it.

This crucial element is mind.

Over a century ago, the quantum revolution opened the way for cosmic mind. The founders of quantum mechanics needed to account for huge differences between their mathematical model of the universe, which is composed of fields of potentialities, and the universe as we perceive it, which is composed of solid objects and events that actually happen. To achieve a reconciliation the founders assumed that reality was composed of two parts, mind and matter, which interacted with each other according to some new laws that they specified. This departure from the prior (classical-physicalist) assumption that mind was a mere side-effect of brain activity was such a startling proposal that it basically split physics in two, with one camp (the physicalists) insisting that matter alone, plus an element of quantum chance, determines every physical property of the universe, and the other camp embracing mind as the key to certain otherwise unexplained mysteries. For several decades now the first, physicalist approach has been ascendant in the minds of many working physicists. But the advance of neuroscience, coupled with the difficulty of accounting in purely mechanical terms for complex behaviors of living organisms, has ignited renewed interest in the possibility that our minds may not be the useless and causally ineffectual appendages that the classical-physicalist dogma has proclaimed them to be.

In what way does the universe display mind-like behavior? Once you admit that this is a legitimate question, the answers are many. Too many, one might say, because there is no consensus about what mind is, and so speculation can run wild. Some thinkers point to the incredible fine-tuning of the various constants that must mesh in order for spacetime, matter, and energy to exist: how did this fine-tuning come about? Other thinkers point to the inability of randomness to account for the emergence of DNA and life on Earth. Still others cut the Gordian knot and declare that the human mind is enough to support the existence of cosmic mind–every person is the cosmic mind writ small (or it could be the other way around: universal mind is the human mind writ large). (more…)

Skepticism and a Million Dollar Challenge (Part 2)

By Deepak Chopra, MD.


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When I made a video offering a million dollars to anyone who could explain how the brain produces the appearance of the three-dimensional world, I didn’t have a publicity stunt in mind. I wanted to draw attention to consciousness research, which has been burgeoning out of sight of the general public. For a long time consciousness has been taboo in the scientific community. The reasons aren’t hard to fathom. To explore consciousness means delving into subjectivity, the personal inner world. Science deals in objectivity, data, and hard facts.
There is no substantive reason why science shouldn’t go on a journey inward, but resistance was strong. All kinds of things occur in our inner world that scientists are reluctant to confront, including spirituality, art, morals, emotions, and so on. There’s a general assumption today that all of these activities can be reduced to brain functions, and only then will mind be subjugated to the scientific method and its demand for data and hard facts.
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Skepticism and a Million Dollar Challenge

By Deepak Chopra, MD

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When public perception is skewed and distorted, it’s important to push back. I’ve found myself doing this in the arena of skepticism. Without a doubt we live in a skeptical age, and it affects everyone. To doubt is a tool for finding truth, but like every positive value, there are pitfalls. Skepticism, of the kind advanced by characters as diverse as James “The Amazing” Randi, Richard Dawkins, Laurence Krauss, and Jerry Coyne, does far more harm than good.
We’re confronted with a strange mixture of bedfellows: an aging stage magician, an Oxford professor on the rampage against “the God delusion,” an astrophysicist, and a biology professor at the University of Chicago who sees himself as a gadfly against pseudoscience. Behind them marches a ragged band of atheists, scientists, blogosphere pests, mischievous troublemakers, and sincere doubters.
What makes this movement particularly strange is that there is no real need for it to exist. Secularism and science won the day long ago. Does anyone seriously believe that our current problems arise from too much reliance on faith in God? Church attendance has been in decline in the U.S. and every other developed country since the 1950s. Other than serving as an outlet for malcontents, the skeptical movement’s posture of holding back the tide of ignorance has little basis or utility. They aren’t converting the believers to atheism. In the face of actual harm done by religion (e.g., the rise of jihadist Islam, the pressure against stem-cell research, the prejudice against gay marriage on the religious right), skepticism has a very small, even insignificant role to play.

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A Spiritual Mystery: Does God Listen to Prayers? (Part 3)

By Deepak Chopra, MD.

Credit: wealthpreservationsociety.com

It may sound odd at first, but there are ways to improve the chances that God will answer your prayer. In the first two posts we saw that the whole subject of prayer is filled with assumptions and preconceptions. Once they are cleared away, a prayer turns out to be a special kind of intention. Therefore, the rules that apply to intentions, which are rules about consciousness, apply. Your prayer will be answered, or not, depending on events happening out of sight – but not out of mind. The mind furnishes the mechanics of making any intention come true.

This quick summary will raise eyebrows if someone denies that the inner and outer worlds are connected. (See the two previous posts for the reasoning behind the union of these two domains of reality.) The world’s wisdom traditions don’t run into this obstacle, which is peculiar to modern materialism. Yet in a way it’s good to start with a blank slate. What makes any intention come true? Three vital elements are at work, as mentioned in the first post of this series:

1. How deep into the mind is the intention coming from?
2. How steady is your focus?
3. How fluid is your intention? (more…)

A SPIRITUAL MYSTERY: DOES GOD LISTEN TO PRAYERS? – PART 2

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To say that prayers are answered isn’t the same as saying that God answers prayers. In the first case, a thought manifests as reality. You wish, intend, or ask for an outcome, and the outcome appears. In the second case, a supernatural being in the sky listens to millions of requests every day and kindly responds to a few while turning his back on the vast majority. The first post in this series was devoted to a consciousness-based explanation for prayers as opposed to a religious explanation.

The question automatically arises: If answered and unanswered prayers have a basis in our own awareness, what creates the difference? Here, I think, the religious explanation leads to serious difficulties. If you pray to be healed, for example, and the healing doesn’t come, religious thinking puts the blame on you. God has not granted your prayer, the reasoning goes, because you don’t have enough faith. Or you didn’t surrender to his will. Or you have secret sins in your heart that you haven’t repented of. These are time-honored explanations, and the problem with them – as with the existence of God – is that they can’t be proved one way or another. Does God hate you? Is God simply unfair? These are questions that have no basis for a valid answer. (more…)