Fred Alan Wolf - Dr. Quantums Little Book Of Big Ideas: Where Science Meets Spirit

Copyright 2005 Fred Alan Wolf

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wolf, Fred Alan.

Dr. Quantum's little book of big ideas : where science meets spirit / Fred Alan Wolf.

p. cm.

ISBN-13: 978-1-930491-07-6 (pbk. : acid-free paper)

ISBN-10: 1-930491-08-5 (pbk. : acid-free paper)

1. Quantum theoryPopular works. 2. PhysicsPsychological aspectsPopular works. I. Title.

QC174.12.W638 2005

530.12--dc22

2005021659

Printed in the United States on recycled acid-free paper

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In the little collection you hold in your hand you will find carefully chosen and arranged excerpts from my books and interviews. I hope you will ponder them, enjoy them, maybe even laugh. They aren't necessarily there to teach you anything (although I hope you learn a bit about yourself and the universe) but rather to help you let go of any tight bonds you have created to what you believe is the only reality. You will begin to see that the universe, including you, is far greater than any of us can imagine and that you are a remarkable beingsimply because over the last one million or so years of evolution, God has chosen you to appear on the scene!

You may feel that you are not worth very much, or you may feel you are far better than many of your associates. I caution you: Both of these positions are illusions. I hope that by reading this little book you may gain a better perspective on who you really are.

Care to guess?

Asking yourself the deeper questions opens up new ways of being in the world. It brings in a breath of fresh air. It makes life more joyful. The real trick to life is not to be in the know, but to be in the mystery.

I remember a particular day when I was playing in the front hallway of my apartment building. I was barely eight years old. I stood at the top of the stairwell and looked down wondering if I could fly down the nineteen or twenty stairs reaching to the ground floor from our first-floor apartment. Without thinking, I skidded down the stairwell with my feet only barely touching the leading edges of each step. I was on the ground floor in a flash, and I had not slid down the banister, nor had I placed my feet on any of the steps.

When I grew older and remembered what I had done that day, I realized it was impossible. My feet just were not long enough to go from one step edge to the next without my falling flat on my face. Was this just a dream of super powers, or had I actually skidded down those stairs?

So why is understanding the quantum universe important? Because it excites a feeling of delightful deliciousness life takes on a new vision. First you find out why it is that you may think the way you think and what conditions have arisen to make you feel that way, and then you can find out how to change them. Quantum physics offers new ways of thinking and new ways of being in the world, which I think improve the various things you do, whether it's taking a walk, talking to somebody, or driving your car. To anything you may basically feel is not enjoyable for you, it can add an aura of joy, because the new metaphors provide fresh ways of thinking and approaching every aspect of your life.

Quantum physics is also important because it contributes to the amazing spectrum of new technologies. I don't think there's a device around that doesn't have a little computer in it somewhere, and that is quantum physics in action. The whole digital age is impossible without quantum physics. And, quantum physics' effect on biology and medicine is enormous. The biggest scientific problem facing our twenty-first-century culture is the relationship of mind to body. With all of the new medicines coming out, and the new insights we're gathering about what constitutes health, quantum physics may just be what we need to really grasp how ancient spiritual views of the body and modern scientific views prove that consciousness can alter reality, and so all illnesses may become as outdated as smallpox is today.

Quantum physics...

consists of a well-defined set of rules which work in a universal way. Yet what it predicts about the world is not how the world appears. It predicts, among other things, strange overlaps of reality, parallel realities, and objects being in two or more places at the same time.

provides new metaphors to understand life's experiences.

can change your life!

The movement of life may at times seem chaotic, but it is not. It moves like a gigantic wave and we are caught atop it. If we try to direct the wave, we'll find ourselves in constant battle with it. If we learn merely to survive in the wave's wake, we become victims of it. But we do have another option: We can grasp the rules of the wave's movement and learn to surf it skillfully.

To attempt to become spiritually enlightened without realizing the world of mythology within us is a serious mistake. People who attempt this often find themselves in battle with the devil or in fear of evil.

When that first curtain opened to God's Magic Theater, a great void appeared. And then, according to one myth called Science, the void exploded into the Big Bang. Following another myth called the Bible, in the beginning there was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. These seemingly very different points of viewthese myths called the Big Bang and the Wordappear entirely irreconcilable: one deals with the physical universe of matter and energy and the other with the mental universe of mind and information. But, could these two views actually be saying the same thing? Could it be that in some way what we describe about the universehow we exploit it to derive meaning from it, how we determine what it is, and what it is doingestablishes the very universe we speak and write about? Does the act of learning something, turning our experiences into meaningful symbols of discourse, create both the physical thing being observed and the laws of order it seems to obey?

The answers to these and other questions will come from a harmonizing of the relationship between the in here world of information, meaning, and knowledge with the out there world of matter, energy, and existence. This reconcilement is precisely what I mean by a new alchemy.

Perhaps we could move closer to proving the existence of mind by asking: Does matter influence mind?

Well, we can observe matter influencing matter when a dropped egg hits the floorcertainly the floor drastically affects the egg. And when we take a mind-altering substance such as alcohol or a pain-numbing drug, we feel its effect on our ability to be alert or feel pain. So, we tend to believe that matter influences mind. We could say, therefore, that mind and matter exert a force on one another. But since mind cannot be scientifically discovered, this force cannot be found strictly via the fields of physics or physiology or even psychology. No, we need a new field, the field of new alchemy, which incorporates the overlapping insights gained from all three of these fields; which seeks to reveal the secret connection between matter and mindseeks to reveal the force that we intuitively believe real.