From Physics to Metaphysics
Both quantum mechanics and special relativity demonstrate that there is no objectively existing universe of space, time, matter and objects. Reality is inherently implicate (informational and unmanifest) and is only made explicate (manifest and experienceable) within our consciousness. Quantum mechanics and special relativity have been trying to reveal this radical truth for a hundred years, yet mainstream physics hasn’t been willing or able to see it due to its engrained materialistic and deterministic mindset.
It isn’t just scientific progress that has been hindered by this “oversight”; who knows where philosophy, psychology, spirituality and religion would be today if the truth about reality was widely known a century ago? As long as mainstream science denies, ignores, disbelieves, discredits or scoffs at the non-physical side of reality, so will mainstream society; such is the influence science has over the modern world.
Good Intentions
Modern science started out with good intentions – as a rational response to superstitious beliefs and religious dogma. But during the last hundred years or so, it has become so intellectually isolated and metaphysically sceptical that it has lost sight of the bigger picture. We went from a purely religious world view to a purely mechanistic world view, but what we really need is some middle ground, and I believe these new interpretations of relativity and quantum mechanics will help to achieve that.
The Problem with Religion
The problem with religion isn’t what religious people think (everyone is entitled to their own beliefs); the problem is what non-religious people think about religion. Non-religious people reject religion because they don’t believe in God, which is understandable given the general consensus (in the West) that God is a man in the sky who needs to be worshipped and sends us to hell if we are bad or don’t believe in him.
Personifying the nature of reality into a “man” with human flaws is clearly superstitious naivety. It had its place in history, but it has no place in the modern world. So it was right that science and society rejected the superstitious and dogmatic aspects of religion, but wrong that we rejected the spiritual, philosophical and moral aspects. We need to reincorporate depth and meaning back into our world-view, because only then will they filter down into society and positively influence our behaviour, towards each other and the planet.
The Problem with Science
If we look at a simple clay pot, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that somebody made it. We know that it didn’t just spontaneously form by the chance coming together of trillions of atoms, because that would be practically impossible…
It has been calculated that for one simple protein molecule (comprising of only 150 atoms) to form by chance, under optimal conditions, would take trillions of trillions of trillions of years. The Earth is only 4.5 billion years old and the universe is less than 14 billion years old, so we can confidently say that it is impossible for one single protein molecule to form by chance… Let alone all of the other proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, hormones, enzymes and chemicals that are required to make a single-celled organism… And then they need to be assembled in exactly the right order… And then it needs to be brought to life… All by chance and without any guiding intelligence!
The human body is comprised of 100 trillion cells (each comprising of 100 trillion atoms), making it the most complex “machine” in the known universe. It could never have formed by natural selection alone in a mere 4.5 billion years, yet that is what almost everyone has been led to believe. Scientists can’t explain how life and consciousness arose from apparently inert matter, yet they still believe it all happened by chance. So these scientists are basically saying that chance is more intelligent than they are!
The more I study science, the more I believe in God.
The only logical reason for believing that conscious life arose by chance from inert matter is not wanting to believe the alternative – that God exists! But, as Sherlock Holmes famously said, “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
So Where Do We Go From Here?
I don’t use the word “God” very often (because of the religious connotations), but when I do, I am referring to universal conscious or nature on a universal scale – not a man, nor even a being. The previous articles on Quantum Mechanics and Relativity have explained that consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality. Well, the word “God” simply refers to universal consciousness, and the word “soul” to individual consciousness.
Spirituality and metaphysics have been tarred with the same brush as religion, and have been consigned to the fringes by mainstream science and society, but they are actually very different. True spirituality (as opposed to new-age spirituality) relates to the inner world of individual consciousness, and metaphysics relates to the outer world of universal consciousness. And since consciousness is the fundamental nature of reality, spirituality and metaphysics are the true fundamental sciences. So exploring consciousness is the one thing that scientists should be doing, yet most actively avoid it.
From Physics to Metaphysics
The time has come for mainstream physics to wake up and evolve, because there is so much more to reality than just the physical. The physical universe is only the explicate surface of reality, which is a multidimensional totality. So physics will eventually become just a subset of metaphysics (meta- means “beyond”).
The ability to perceive or think differently is more important than the knowledge gained.
In the 1920s, there was a renaissance in physics when quantum mechanics was discovered and relativity was widely accepted, and I hope the 2020s will bring about something similar. I am truly amazed at everything physicists have accomplished under the constraints of materialism and determinism, and I am really excited to see what can be accomplished after they have been liberated from these limiting beliefs.
So, to any scientists that might be reading this… Find the courage to be yourself and explore what interests you, irrespective of what other people think, because nothing new ever came from following the crowd.
Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.
Refer also to Uniting Science and Spirituality and Uniting Medicine and Spirituality.