Spirituality in a Quantum World

2003

Most discussion on science and religion tends to focus on creation and evolution, at least this has been the dominant theme in the media of late. Yet the subject of creation and evolution is not the only concern in a discussion of science and religion. Other themes are also present: science and belief in the supernatural, science and the soul, science and the transformation of consciousness, science and the virgin birth, science and the resurrection, science and near-deaths experiences, science and the Bible, science and eschatology, science, faith, reason and wisdom, science and human Development, etc. All of these themes are part of a "new convergence" that is emerging in the dialogue between science and religion. "We are entering the greatest era of science-religion fusion since the Enlightenment last attempted to reconcile the two, three centuries ago." So writes Gregg in the special December 2002 issue of Wired magazine devoted to a science and religion. In this paper I want to take up this theme and focus on the spiral of spiritual development.

International Journal of Science and Research (IJSR)

Existence of life, doctrines and theories of science has been at schismatic supremacy since the beginning of life on earth, 3.5 billion years ago. Until recently, the scientific phenomenon known as Quantum Physics has been discovered. And as this theory kicked in to the huge scientific world, it has been widely embraced by many scientific leaders worldwide. The more that is learned about Quantum Physics, the more we discover its Scriptural status and its proof of God's perfect design. So, here's the question which arises; did God really fabricated this design or it was something else, something very unreal which continues to remain a history? Before we come up to a comprehensive theory, let's begin by understanding the core theory of this article, the science of Quantum Physics.

Journal for the Study of Spirituality, 2017

The purpose of this paper is to argue that researchers interested in studying spirituality may benefit from paying attention to the phenomenon of consciousness. Despite consciousness being integral to human experience, it is largely ignored in research into spirituality. Yet there is evidence to suggest that the study of spirituality, and explorations of consciousness, have much to offer each other. My contention is that the subject of consciousness has not received much attention within mainstream social and educational research, due to the prevailing, often unconscious, influence of Newtonian science, which assumes consciousness to be an epiphenomenon of the brain. However, developments in science, particularly in quantum physics, have shown that the world cannot be explained by Newtonian principles of separation and atomism. At the same time, a growing disillusionment with science has resulted in the emergence of a grassroots spirituality which challenges a materialist scientific paradigm. In science and spirituality, there is a growing realization of the interconnectedness of everything, with the quantum principle of ‘entanglement’ suggesting that differentiation between objectivity’ and ‘subjectivity’ is an artificial one. Instead, there is a meaningful relationship between experiences of consciousness in inner and outer worlds, with neither existing independently of the other. I conclude by presenting a case for developing research methods which reflect a secular spiritual world view that creates harmony between science, spirituality and our experience of consciousness.

Humanistic Management Journal

This article focuses on the concept of worldviews, arguing that a change in managerial worldviews is the key lever for addressing the social and global challenges facing humanity. We draw from a new synthesis of science and spirituality, with the addition of "other ways of knowing" that go beyond rational-empirical analysis, to suggest that what we call Quantum Worldviews are capable of generating the prosocial and pro-environmental behavior consistent with humanistic management. Using the yin-yang symbol as a metaphor, we suggest that a transformation in consciousness, at the level of the paradigmatic assumptions held by managers about the nature of reality, can be understood through adult development theory. We also go beyond the metaphor to propose a quantum worldview based on a more literal interpretation of quantum science to fundamentally re-conceptualize what it means to be human, drawing on quantum research that suggests ontological wholeness and interdependence of all. Quantum Worldviews can help leaders, and the various systems of which they are a part, transition to a new science-based consciousness-long intuited by indigenous and nonwestern spiritual leaders-of an interconnected and dynamically coherent world. We identify a variety of practices that give managers a direct experience of Oneness, changing who they are at the deepest level of self-concept. Our research suggests that only when using such practices, and in sufficient numbers, will business leaders become agents of world benefit with the collective influence to bring about meaningful solutions to climate change and other wicked problems-in other words, needed system transformation.

2017

This dissertation examines how a network of “quantum consciousness” scientists have sought to change the epistemological and ethical boundaries of scientific research in hopes of creating knowledge that can adequately address contemporary problems in both science and society more generally. Quantum consciousness (QC) is defined as both scientific research and spiritual practice that seeks to understand consciousness in light of foundational questions that emerge from quantum physics. QC scientists believe neuroscience alone cannot provide a scientific explanation of consciousness because neuroscience is premised on “materialism” of Newtonian physics. QC scientists draw on the authority of physics to argue the correct scientific account of the mind-matter relationship will have to incorporate quantum physics, understood as the correct theory of matter since the quantum revolution of the 1920’s. Insofar as the physical delimits and shapes the mental, QC makes good on the potential quantum physics holds for redefining what mind is and can be. By examining the practices and discourses of QC scientists, I demonstrate that conceptual transference between science, philosophy and New Age spirituality is part of the formation of scientific disciplines and the bounds of scientific debate. QC’s cultural contestations with mainstream science show how the demarcation problem in science becomes intertwined with the mind-matter problem of philosophy. My ethnography follows QC scientists’ movements between conferences, research settings, classrooms, and dinner parties to show how technical philosophical disagreements in quantum foundations, such as the measurement problem and the theory of decoherence, are the fulcrum of a cultural, de facto demarcation between QC scientists and mainstream scientists. Max Weber postulated “disenchantment” as the result of a world rendered knowable in principle, yet the doctrine of intrinsic probability in quantum mechanics denies the possibility of such a world, and thereby troubles the assumption of a necessarily disenchanted science. I show how QC science is motivated by an expectation of a future “spiritual” discovery, called the New Paradigm, that redeems QC’s hypothesis that “universal consciousness is the ground of physics.” This expectation encourages QC scientists to incorporate and proliferate non-science within science, in ways that make hybrids, rather than clear boundaries. My dissertation shows how QC’s expectation of a “New Paradigm” guides what may be called a spiritual revivalism to redefine the secular norms of science.