DEC 1, 2014     

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THE PARALLELS BETWEEN

MYSTICISM AND PHYSICS

"For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only an illusion, even if a stubborn one."

Albert Einstein

Part 4 

The Living Void  

The old pre-Einstein scientific view was much more in line with our common sense understanding of things. In this classical mechanistic view, matter consisted of indestructible particles that moved about in an emptiness or void. But Einstein and the scientists that followed showed us that we can't trust our common senses to understand reality. In the new view, both the void and the particle are part of the same thing.

Quantum field theory has shown us that the void is an important, dynamic quantity that is inseparable from the particles that it contains. A force field is a region characterized by a 'condition', which has the ability to affect matter or energy within the range of the region. A field is the means by which a force communicates its influence. Electro-magnetic fields - of which radio waves, light, x-rays, etc. are a part - travel through space at the speed of light. A gravitational field is a condition that affects the very structure of space, in fact it actually is space. In other words, matter affects space, which in turn affects matter. Matter is inseparable from its environment.

According to quantum field theory, every type of particle corresponds to a particular force field. They are actually points of interaction between fields. A particle can be thought of as a transient 'concentration' of force field. In Einstein's words, "We may therefore regard matter as being constituted by the regions of space in which the field is extremely intense...there is no place in this new kind of physics both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality." Modern science recognizes no emptiness, no true vacuum. The void is a 'living', ever changing thing where matter spontaneously manifests and de-manifests.

This is another similarity with mystical thought, which has always viewed the ultimate reality as a void that gives birth to all things. In one way or another, all eastern philosophies refer to this void. In their view of how the universe works, forces are not seen as the external causes of effects on objects. Energy behaves as it does because of intrinsic qualities that are integral to everything. In his translation of the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm says, "Laws are not forces external to things, but represent the harmony of movement immanent in them." According to the Tao, the laws of nature do not come from some external being; they were not 'handed down by God'. They are the internal dictates of nature itself. The many manifestations of reality are 'coded' in the 'blueprint' that is the essential aspect of the void. All of reality springs forth from the living void.

The next installment will be about how science and mysticism view the concept of a collective consciousness.