Integral Spirituality, Deep Science, and Ecological Awareness

There is a growing understanding that addressing the global crisis facing humanity will require new methods for knowing, understanding, and valuing the world. Narrow, disciplinary, and reductionist perceptions of reality are proving inadequate for addressing the complex, interconnected problems of the current age. The pervasive Cartesian worldview, which is based on the metaphor of the universe as a machine, promotes fragmentation in our thinking and our perception of the cosmos. This divisive, compartmentalized thinking fosters alienation and self‐focused behavior. I aim to show in this essay that healing the fragmentation that is at the root of the current world crises requires an integrated epistemology that embraces both the rational knowledge of scientific empiricism and the inner knowledge of spiritual experience. This “deep science” transcends the illusion of separateness to discern the unity, the unbroken wholeness, that underlies the diverse forms of the universe. Our perception of connectedness, of our integral place in the web of life, emerges as an attribute of our connection with the eternal, beatific source of all existence. This awakened spiritual vision “widens our circle of understanding and compassion, to embrace all living creatures in the whole of nature” (Einstein, quoted in Goldstein [1976] 1987). Our behavior, as it emerges naturally out of our perception of the sacredness of the natural world, will naturally embody love and respect for all life forms. This vision promotes the healing of our long‐standing alienation from the natural world and offers hope for renewal in the midst of widespread cultural deterioration and environmental destruction.     

A Quantum Biomechanical Basis for Near-Death Life Reviews

Near-death life reviews pose a challenge to current memory research in terms of the sheer amount of instantaneous and empathetic information recall. Advances in quantum physics, biomechanics, holographic information theory, and consciousness studies support for the first time a fully realizable quantum biomechanical basis for near-death life reviews. We introduce the unifying paradigm of the quantum hologram as a non-local carrier of information. We further investigate the interrelated phenomena of non-local communications, and the electromagnetic zero-point field. Recent confirmation of the zero-point field lends credibility to vast memory storage capabilities outside the physical body. Microtubules are considered to be key components in non-local, quantum processes critical to human consciousness. Discovery of the liquid crystalline nature of the human body provides further support for our model. Microtubules, deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), and the entire brain are described as communicating non-locally with virtually unlimited memory storage capacity.     

On Different Proof-Search Strategies for Orthologic

In this paper, we consider three different search strategies for a cut-free sequent system formalizing orthologic, and estimate the respective search spaces. Applying backward search, there are classes of formulae for which both the minimal proof length and the search space are exponential. In a combined forward and backward approach, all proofs are polynomial, but the potential search space remains exponential. Using a forward strategy, the potential search space becomes polynomial yielding a polynomial decision procedure for orthologic and the word problem for free ortholattices.     

Paradoxes in the Textual Development of the Laozi: A Closer Examination of Chapters Eight and Twenty-Four

In light of the recently published Western Han period bamboo-slip Laozi,now in the collection of Peking University,this paper explores several paradoxes in the textual development of the Laozi.Specifically,it presents two examples suggesting that since the wording in the Laozi was originally intended to be ambiguous and paradoxical,during the transmission of the text,the compilers or commentators modified some of the paradoxes to make better sense.Eventually those modifications came to replace the original text.In the first part of this article examines certain contrasting differences in Chapter Eight from the Beida Laozi,the Mawangdui Laozi,and the received Laozi.The second part,I examine certain other contrasting differences from these same versions from Chapter Twenty-Four are discussed.This paper argues that these differences among the various versions are not the product of transcribal error;rather,they are the result of compilers or commentators who revised these passages against their earliest versions in order to make the meaning clearer and more explicit.     

一种齐当别思想下的量子决策模型：对囚徒困境中的分离效应的解释

量子决策模型是近10年来提出的一种新型决策模型, 用以解释那些违背经典决策模型的现象。虽然当前的量子决策模型能够解释囚徒困境中的分离效应, 但其中却存在一些困难, 即会产生反常的概率关系以及无法精确拟合分离效应量较大的实验结果。本研究在分析当前量子决策模型困难的基础上, 结合齐当别思想对模型进行改进和优化。结果表明, 研究所构建的量子决策模型克服了当前模型中的困难, 并且能够预测囚徒困境博弈中由他人收益差距改变而引起的分离效应变化趋势。本研究还是一次启发式决策模型与计算式决策模型相结合的探索。     

QUANTUM MECHANICS,TIME, AND THEOLOGY: INDEFINITE CAUSAL ORDER AND A NEW APPROACH TO SALVATION

Quantum mechanics has recently indicated that, at the fundamental level, temporal order is not fixed. This phenomenon, termed Indefinite Causal Order, is yet to receive metaphysical or theological engagement. We examine Indefinite Causal Order, particularly as it emerges in a 2018 photonic experiment. In this experiment, two operations A and B were shown to be in a superposition with regard to their causal order. Essentially, time, intuitively understood as fixed, flowing, and fundamental, becomes fuzzy. We argue that if Indefinite Causal Order is true, this is good evidence in favor of a B-theory of time, though such a B-theory requires modification. We then turn to theology, suggesting that a B-theoretic temporal ontology invites serious reconsideration of the doctrine of salvation. This paper concludes that the best explanation for salvation given a B-theory is mind-dependent salvific becoming, a type of psychological soteriological change that occurs through downward causation.     

QUANTUM AND CONSCIOUSNESS: IN SEARCH OF A NEW PARADIGM

Abstract. Two fundamental issues raised by Lothar Schäfer are considered: (1) the question of a suitable paradigm within which the findings of quantum physics can be optimally interpreted and (2) the question of the assessment of the presence and importance of mind and consciousness in the universe. In regard to the former, I contend that the ideal of science is to interpret its findings in an optimally consistent and minimally speculative framework. In this context Schäfer's assertion that certain findings in quantum physics (those that relate to virtual states) indicate the presence of mind at the quantum level implies a dualistic and hence unnecessarily speculative assumption. In regard to the assessment of mind and consciousness, a consistent and parsimonious paradigm suggests that mind and consciousness are not part of a chain of events consisting of an admixture of physical and mental events but that physical events form a single, coherent set of events, and mental events another set, with the two sets related, as Teilhard (and a number of other philosophers, including White head) affirmed, as the “within” and the “without” (or the “mental pole” and the “physical pole”) of one and the same fundamental reality. This panpsychist as contrasted with Schäfer's dualist paradigm provides a single self‐consistent framework for the interpretation of quantum (and all natural) events while recognizing the presence of mind in the universe as the least speculative realist implication of our immediate experience of consciousness.     

A RESPONSE TO ERVIN LASZLO: QUANTUM AND CONSCIOUSNESS

Abstract. I respond to Ervin Laszlo's suggestions and criticism regarding my essay in this issue of Zygon. Virtual atomic orbitals are used as a model to illustrate the existence of a general realm of potentiality in physical reality from which the actual world emanates. Laszlo's suggestions for “paradigm repair” are supported and accepted as essentially being in agreement with my intentions and as offering highly useful clarifications. I compare virtual states to historic ideas of forms as metaphysical principles of being that inspire thoughts regarding the actions of a Cosmic Consciousness in the processes of the universe. Metaphysical and theological interpretations of the results of scientific research are defended, provided that they are not used to interfere a priori with the technical program of scientific research.     

SCIENCE'S CONCEPTION OF HUMAN BEINGS AS A BASIS FOR MORAL THEORY

Abstract. Niels Bohr stated, and Werner Heisenberg reiterated, that “in the great drama of existence we ourselves are both actors and spectators.” Their emphasis stems from the fact that the entry of human beings into physics as actors constitutes the most fundamental philosophical departure of twentieth‐century basic physics from its eighteenth‐ and nineteenth‐century forerunners. Those earlier theories claimed that our human conscious thoughts are mere witnesses to, or by‐products of, essentially mechanically determined brain processes. In stark contrast, certain conscious decisions that are made by human beings, but that are not determined by any known law, statistical or otherwise, enter irreducibly into orthodox contemporary physical theory. These actions are required to counteract effects of Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle, which ordains that the physically described process of nature, acting alone, produces not a physical world of the kind we experience but rather a continuous smear of potential possible worlds of the kind we know. This contradiction between theory and experience is resolved in orthodox contemporary physical theory by bringing certain effects of our conscious human choices into the dynamics in essentially the way that we intuitively feel that our conscious intentions affect the physical world, namely, via the effects of our intentional efforts on our physically described bodies. The moral implications of this profound change in physics are discussed.     

意识新论

重新思考审视意识的特性：（1）意识是生命的重要组成。（2）在经典物理学领域,意识是生命的独特功能。在量子物理学领域,意识是宇宙万物的特性,以规则、意义和规律来表达。（3）意识包含精神与物质两种性状,但同时也是非物质非精神的。（4）意识可以穿越不同的时空。（5）意识能够产生能量。（6）意识可以分成四大类。（7）不同机体的意识可以相互交流。（8）意识可以遗传。（9）意识永恒存在。（10）意识可以因各种原因被重叠、掩盖或者忘记（意识非记忆）,但是在一定情况下,可以重新被发掘出来。