Amit Goswami - How Quantum Activism Can Save Civilization: A Few People Can Change Human Evolution

Goswami ranges far, wide, and deep.

RUBERT SHELDRAKE, coauthor of The Evolutionary Mind

Amit Goswami is out ahead of the pack with his grounded and wondrous views, delivering penetrating insights into how the universe works.

MICHAEL TOMS, cofounder of the New Dimensions radio series

One of the most brilliant minds in the world of science.

DEEPAK CHOPRA, MD

The Quantum Activist ultimately dares to connect spiritual and practical worldviews, in a breathtaking revelation that contemplates the delicacy of humankind's continued existence on the planet itself, and ways to counter the economic, social, and spiritual menaces that threaten all people. Highly recommended.

Midwest Book Review

Creative Evolution: A Physicist's Resolution Between Darwinism and Intelligent Design (2008)

God Is Not Dead: What Quantum Physics Tells Us About Our Origins and How We Should Live (2008)

The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist's Guide to Enlightenment (2006)

The Quantum Doctor: A Physicist's Guide to Health and Healing (2004)

Quantum Mechanics (2003)

The Physicist's View of Nature, Part 2, The Quantum Revolution (2002)

Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation and Immortality (2001)

The Physicist's View of Nature, Part 1, From Newton to Einstein (2000)

Science and Spirituality, A Quantum Integration (2000)

Quantum Creativity: Waking Up to Our Creative Potential, with Maggie Goswami (1999)

The Self-Aware Universe (1995)

The Cosmic Dancers: Exploring the Physics of Science Fiction, with Maggie Goswami (1983)

The Concepts of Physics (1979)

Copyright 2011

by Amit Goswami, Ph.D.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this work in any form whatsoever, without permission in writing from the publisher, except for brief passages in connection with a review.

Cover design by Linda Kosarin

Text design by Maureen Forys, Happenstance Type-O-Rama

Cover art by Bluedot

Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.

Charlottesville, VA 22906

www.hrpub.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on request

ISBN : 978-1-57174-637-5

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

TCP

Printed on acid-free paper in Canada

Author photo [page 289] from the film The Quantum Activist 2009 by Bluedot Productions

M.C.Escher's Drawing Hands [page 27] 2010 The M.C. Escher Company-Holland

To the world's quantum activists: We can change the world and change ourselves.

Quantum physics in the form of its famous observer effect (how an observer's looking transforms quantum possibilities into actual experiences in the observer's consciousness) is forcing us to a paradigm shift from a primacy-of-matter paradigm to a primacy-of-consciousness paradigm (for details, read my book The Self-Aware Universe). The new paradigm is inclusive; it is a science of spirituality that includes materiality. Quantum activism is the idea of transforming ourselves and our societies in accordance with the transforming messages of quantum physics and the new paradigm.

Materialist science, unchallenged for the past five decades, has done its damage. One can argue that our social institutionscapitalism, democracy, liberal education, institutions of health and healingare all rooted in idealism, even downright spirituality. But now these institutions can hardly be called humanistic, let alone spiritual. Materialism has changed them so much that their spiritual roots are hardly recognizable. For our livelihood, we depend on these institutions, which cater to the forces of separateness that have become the prevailing wind of the world culture.

We have problems galore in our society and cultureglobal warming, terrorism, and repeating economic meltdowns are the biggies. But other problems are of no less importance. A huge abyss has opened between the rich and the poor, and the middle class is being squeezed, contrary to the expectations of Adam Smith's capitalism. Our democracy is in trouble due to the ever-increasing influence of media and money. Education does not inspire. Health costs are skyrocketing.

All these problems can be traced to the conflict between spirituality and materiality. The good news is that the worldview conflict between spirituality and materialist science has been resolved in favor of an inclusive worldview based on the primacy of consciousness and quantum physics. To bring this message to our social institutions and to put them back on the path of unity is now the challenge!

In a flash I felt the challenge, and the idea of this book and the movement of which it is a part came to me. It took quantum physics for us to discover spirituality within science. We must use quantum physics' guidance to restore spirituality and unity to our society, to our social institutions.

To make social changes is the job of the activist. We need activism that uses the power of quantum physics. Quantum physics gives us ideas that are transformative, that can lead us and our social institutions from separateness back to unity.

To see this, consider that quantum physics is the physics of possibilities. Quantum thinking gives us back our free will to choose from among these possibilities. These free choices are discontinuous, breaking us from past habits. They come from a cosmic interconnectedness that we call quantum nonlocalityan ability to communicate without signals.

Quantum physics even has the potency to break down hierarchies of classical materialist vintage.

Thus the idea of quantum activismactivism that uses the transformative power of quantum physics to change us and our social institutions. The filmmakers Ri Stewart and Renee Slade have made a documentary film The Quantum Activistthat gives a glimpse of the basic ideas. The present book is the explication of those ideas in a complete, applicable form to lay down a manifesto for personal and social change.

In many ways, this is a book of empowerment, of right thinking and right living that prepare us to dare to act on solutions of the many impossible problems that materialism has given useconomic meltdowns, terrorism, global warming, and so on. They are impossible only if we try to solve them while staying within materialism. To be a quantum activist is to be empowered to move from the problem space of materialist science to a solution space of the new quantum science based on the primacy of consciousness.

I discuss these solutions in this book: spiritual economics that is concerned with our holistic well-being rather than only our material consumer needs; democracy that uses power to serve meaning instead of using it to dominate others; education that liberates us from the shackles of the known; religion that integrates and unites; and new inexpensive health practices that restore wholeness to us.

And of course, I discuss the solutions in the context of developing right livelihood for quantum activists and their fellows, which includes everyone.

One of the highlights of the book is the open letters to President Obama, laying out what the government can do to help solve the great problems of today according to the principles of quantum activism.

The book is written in a nontechnical style to suit the nonscientist, but quantum activism is for both scientists and nonscientists, anyone who would like to see social changes that are consonant with the movements of consciousnessevolutionary movements that will eventually enable us to create heaven on earth.