Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Leonardo

Contemplations on Our Physical Links to the Universe: Searching for and Finding the Hidden Harmony

C. S. Unnikrishnan

Published Jan 28, 2006• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The author discusses the evidence and consequences of our indissoluble physical links to the entire universe. He finds that the apparent conflicts in fundamental physical theories regarding issues of causality and locality are not real conflicts based in the physical world. He presents an emergent worldview interpreted in the context of a cultural, philosophical and linguistic background in which a strong tension between inseparability of the whole and the local causal flow of events seems not to exist. The existence of the whole can be felt in the parts, as something real, measurable and undeniable. Its simplicity and harmony are spiritually enriching and emotionally moving.

DOI
10.1162/002409406775452203

Related papers

Physical reality and the unobservables of physical nature

The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction.While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there does not seem to be a way of avoiding such unobservables in our theories.While a program to banish all unobservables from physical theory is unlikely to succeed, and perhaps even unnecessary, they are both the strong and weak points of the theoretical descriptions of physical nature.Analyzing them for empirical and philosophical consistency and integrity is always a promising path towards a better theory.In this paper, I examine the nature of physical reality in the context of unobservables in physics and discuss three examples.One is about the apparent loss of physical reality due to the need for a consistent quantum mechanical representation.The second example deals with the conflict between the assumed reality of quantum fields, so fundamental and essential to our standard physics worldview, and the dynamics of the observable universe.The third deals with an allimportant difference between conventional modern physics constructed in the unreal and unobservable empty 'space' and an empirically and logically determined physics with matter-filled universe as its arena.The acknowledgment of the observable matter-filled universe necessitates reformulation of dynamics with total relativity.Not surprisingly, this paradigm with its universal cosmic links also holds human concepts of harmony and beauty.

Routledge eBooks•Jun 23, 2016•0 citations

Physical Reality and the Unobservables of Physical Nature

C. S. Unnikrishnan

The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there does not seem to be a way of avoiding such unobservables in our theories. While a program to banish all unobservables from physical theory is unlikely to succeed, and perhaps even unnecessary, they are both the strong and weak points of the theoretical descriptions of physical nature. Analyzing them for empirical and philosophical consistency and integrity is always a promising path towards a better theory. In this paper, I examine the nature of physical reality in the context of unobservables in physics and discuss three examples. One is about the apparent loss of physical reality due to the need for a consistent quantum mechanical representation. The second example deals with the conflict between the assumed reality of quantum fields, so fundamental and essential to our standard physics worldview, and the dynamics of the observable universe. The third deals with an all-important difference between conventional modern physics constructed in the unreal and unobservable empty `space' and an empirically and logically determined physics with matter-filled universe as its arena. The acknowledgment of the observable matter-filled universe necessitates reformulation of dynamics with total relativity. Not surprisingly, this paradigm with its universal cosmic links also holds human concepts of harmony and beauty.

arXiv:2001.10009•Jan 21, 2020•0 citations

The Whole is Greater than the Parts

Kit Pedler

Current physics has progressed beyond the idea that there is an outside world lying somewhere entirely separate from ourselves. It has shown very clearly instead that there are real and functional connections between our minds and the world around us and that our human senses do not and cannot appreciate this more variable world of space-time, interaction and exchange as an objective and real place. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen were worrying about a part of physics called quantum theory which others like Bohr and Heisenberg were regarding as a complete theory. One new part of physics is suggesting that matter and the universe itself may have connections and correlations in an enfolded universe where there seem to be no clear causes and effects, but only connections.

Routledge eBooks•Oct 4, 2023•0 citations

Unity of Consciousness Experience, Nature of the Observer and Current Physical Theory

He liked watching the glorious stars, thinking “there must be myriads of worlds out there”. Then one night he shifted his awareness toward and into himself. “By God,” he whispered, but only to himself, “there are myriads of worlds there, too!” [1]. We in the western scientific culture have just begun, en masse, to explore our inner cosmos. Inner exploration has been an intellectual activity in the relatively recent past, has been associated with psychotherapy. Now inner exploration is beginning to enter the domain of emotional and spiritual development as well. Certainly, the nature of our inner being, the nature and structure of our consciousness, shapes and determines our concept of reality. This realization is having a vast impact on the world societies and us, as individuals. One manner in which we internally organize the mental, emotional and spiritual information we receive is by mental system of concepts or categories of information and their causal relations. We address the fundamental nature of conscious perception and how we comprehend existence. Techniques such as yoga, meditation, and processes of spiritual awakening have opened the horizons to the consideration of the attributes of the consciousness. There also appear to be clues as to the nature of consciousness in the structure of physical theory. In fact, the co-called internal journey and external validation system of science may be leading us onto a similar path of knowing.

Series on knots and everything•Mar 1, 2011•2 citations

The Ghostly Quantum Worlds

M. Dugić, Dejan I. Raković, J. Jeknić-Dugić +1 more

We present the foundations of a new emerging interpretation of quantum theory bearing wide-range implications. Physical basis of the interpretation is non-questionable yet relatively new--it relies on the different structures (decompositions into parts, subsystems) of the quantum Universe. We compare the mutually irreducible structures of the Universe and recognize them as the different facets of the one and the same quantum Universe. Physical picture is interesting and non-reducible to the existing interpretations. As a particularly interesting topic in this context appears the 'free will' topic of current interest in the interpretation of quantum theory. To this end, we arrive at the following interesting observation. The freely chosen actions (e.g. quantum measurements) performed by a (conscious) agent that are still locally observable in the alternate Worlds could seem physically unexplainable ('non-physical', 'ghostly').

arXiv:1101.4133•NeuroQuantology•Aug 6, 2012•3 citations

Quantum Mechanics and Intentionality

Godehard Brüntrup

Two mysteries -loosely connected?The Authors who have suggested a deep connection between the solution of the mind-body problem and the understanding of quantum mechanics are too numerous to list.But what exactly would be the alleged structural fit between these two deeply puzzling theoretical issues?Can a genuine philosophical issue -which by its very nature is conceptual in nature -ultimately be resolved by advances in the empirical sciences?The connection is all too often asserted to lie in the subjects confounding natures, but the mere fact that two problems are of equal impenetrability to the human mind does not imply that there is a profound interdependence between the two.There is however an obvious way in which quantum mechanics might have a bearing on the philosophical mind-body problem: if quantum mechanics implies that for some physical events there is no physical cause, then at least the very strong variants of the so-called "principle of causal closure" of the physical realm lose much of their corroborative underpinning in physics as practiced by real physicists as such, and are thus constrained to the speculative physicalism advanced by metaphysicians.However, unless one assumes a strong version of the principle of sufficient reason, which would exclude chance events in principle, even events supposedly not caused by some physical cause are not immediately thereby caused by some nonphysical cause.Moreover the fact is that not all of the interpretations of quantum mechanics imply indeterministic 'choices' of events: neither the many-worlds interpretation nor a Bohmian hidden variable interpretation assume indeterminism.Even in the most obvious theoretical nexus

De Gruyter eBooks•Aug 6, 2014•2 citations
The author discusses the evidence and consequences of our indissoluble physical links to the entire universe. He finds that the apparent conflicts in fundamental physical theories regarding issues of causality and locality are not real conflicts based in the physical world. He presents an emergent worldview interpreted in the context of a cultural, philosophical and linguistic background in which a strong tension between inseparability of the whole and the local causal flow of events seems not to exist. The existence of the whole can be felt in the parts, as something real, measurable and undeniable. Its simplicity and harmony are spiritually enriching and emotionally moving.
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction.While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there does not seem to be a way of avoiding such unobservables in our theories.While a program to banish all unobservables from physical theory is unlikely to succeed, and perhaps even unnecessary, they are both the strong and weak points of the theoretical descriptions of physical nature.Analyzing them for empirical and philosophical consistency and integrity is always a promising path towards a better theory.In this paper, I examine the nature of physical reality in the context of unobservables in physics and discuss three examples.One is about the apparent loss of physical reality due to the need for a consistent quantum mechanical representation.The second example deals with the conflict between the assumed reality of quantum fields, so fundamental and essential to our standard physics worldview, and the dynamics of the observable universe.The third deals with an allimportant difference between conventional modern physics constructed in the unreal and unobservable empty 'space' and an empirically and logically determined physics with matter-filled universe as its arena.The acknowledgment of the observable matter-filled universe necessitates reformulation of dynamics with total relativity.Not surprisingly, this paradigm with its universal cosmic links also holds human concepts of harmony and beauty.
The fundamental physical theories that interpret and explain behaviour of matter in nature are dependent on several unobservables and insensibles in their construction. While a rigorous natural philosophy cannot take them for granted, there does not seem to be a way of avoiding such unobservables in our theories. While a program to banish all unobservables from physical theory is unlikely to succeed, and perhaps even unnecessary, they are both the strong and weak points of the theoretical descriptions of physical nature. Analyzing them for empirical and philosophical consistency and integrity is always a promising path towards a better theory. In this paper, I examine the nature of physical reality in the context of unobservables in physics and discuss three examples. One is about the apparent loss of physical reality due to the need for a consistent quantum mechanical representation. The second example deals with the conflict between the assumed reality of quantum fields, so fundamental and essential to our standard physics worldview, and the dynamics of the observable universe. The third deals with an all-important difference between conventional modern physics constructed in the unreal and unobservable empty `space' and an empirically and logically determined physics with matter-filled universe as its arena. The acknowledgment of the observable matter-filled universe necessitates reformulation of dynamics with total relativity. Not surprisingly, this paradigm with its universal cosmic links also holds human concepts of harmony and beauty.
Current physics has progressed beyond the idea that there is an outside world lying somewhere entirely separate from ourselves. It has shown very clearly instead that there are real and functional connections between our minds and the world around us and that our human senses do not and cannot appreciate this more variable world of space-time, interaction and exchange as an objective and real place. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen were worrying about a part of physics called quantum theory which others like Bohr and Heisenberg were regarding as a complete theory. One new part of physics is suggesting that matter and the universe itself may have connections and correlations in an enfolded universe where there seem to be no clear causes and effects, but only connections.
He liked watching the glorious stars, thinking “there must be myriads of worlds out there”. Then one night he shifted his awareness toward and into himself. “By God,” he whispered, but only to himself, “there are myriads of worlds there, too!” [1]. We in the western scientific culture have just begun, en masse, to explore our inner cosmos. Inner exploration has been an intellectual activity in the relatively recent past, has been associated with psychotherapy. Now inner exploration is beginning to enter the domain of emotional and spiritual development as well. Certainly, the nature of our inner being, the nature and structure of our consciousness, shapes and determines our concept of reality. This realization is having a vast impact on the world societies and us, as individuals. One manner in which we internally organize the mental, emotional and spiritual information we receive is by mental system of concepts or categories of information and their causal relations. We address the fundamental nature of conscious perception and how we comprehend existence. Techniques such as yoga, meditation, and processes of spiritual awakening have opened the horizons to the consideration of the attributes of the consciousness. There also appear to be clues as to the nature of consciousness in the structure of physical theory. In fact, the co-called internal journey and external validation system of science may be leading us onto a similar path of knowing.
We present the foundations of a new emerging interpretation of quantum theory bearing wide-range implications. Physical basis of the interpretation is non-questionable yet relatively new--it relies on the different structures (decompositions into parts, subsystems) of the quantum Universe. We compare the mutually irreducible structures of the Universe and recognize them as the different facets of the one and the same quantum Universe. Physical picture is interesting and non-reducible to the existing interpretations. As a particularly interesting topic in this context appears the 'free will' topic of current interest in the interpretation of quantum theory. To this end, we arrive at the following interesting observation. The freely chosen actions (e.g. quantum measurements) performed by a (conscious) agent that are still locally observable in the alternate Worlds could seem physically unexplainable ('non-physical', 'ghostly').
Two mysteries -loosely connected?The Authors who have suggested a deep connection between the solution of the mind-body problem and the understanding of quantum mechanics are too numerous to list.But what exactly would be the alleged structural fit between these two deeply puzzling theoretical issues?Can a genuine philosophical issue -which by its very nature is conceptual in nature -ultimately be resolved by advances in the empirical sciences?The connection is all too often asserted to lie in the subjects confounding natures, but the mere fact that two problems are of equal impenetrability to the human mind does not imply that there is a profound interdependence between the two.There is however an obvious way in which quantum mechanics might have a bearing on the philosophical mind-body problem: if quantum mechanics implies that for some physical events there is no physical cause, then at least the very strong variants of the so-called "principle of causal closure" of the physical realm lose much of their corroborative underpinning in physics as practiced by real physicists as such, and are thus constrained to the speculative physicalism advanced by metaphysicians.However, unless one assumes a strong version of the principle of sufficient reason, which would exclude chance events in principle, even events supposedly not caused by some physical cause are not immediately thereby caused by some nonphysical cause.Moreover the fact is that not all of the interpretations of quantum mechanics imply indeterministic 'choices' of events: neither the many-worlds interpretation nor a Bohmian hidden variable interpretation assume indeterminism.Even in the most obvious theoretical nexus