HARRY STYLES - SIGN OF THE TIMES
Can a photon or electron sense a scientist looking at it?
The very question sounds preposterous to scientists who maintain, as the vast majority do, that mind isn't present in nature, at least not until a series of happy accidents caused human life to evolve on earth. Nature is both random and mindless, according to a scientific credo assumed for centuries to be true. So how could a prominent contemporary physicist like Freeman Dyson say the following?
"Atoms in the laboratory are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom."
Dyson's statement is darling on two counts. He is claiming that atoms make choices, which is a sign of mind. He is also saying that the universe itself exhibits mind. In one stroke this bridges how big things and small things behave. Instead of atoms behaving totally differently from clouds, trees, elephants, and plants, they only appear different. If you look at dust mites dancing in a beam of sunlight, their motion appears totally random, which is how the physics of bodies in motion would describe them. But another visualization helps to make the situation clearer.
See yourself perched on the observation deck of the Empire State Building with a physicist next to you. You are both gazing down at the street below. At each corner some cars turn left and others right. Is this a random pattern? Yes, the physicist replies. A statistical array can be charted to show that over a period of time, just as many cars turn right or left. In addition, no one can reliably predict if the next car coming to a corner will turn right or left - the odds are 50/50. But you know that this is a case where appearances are deceiving. Every driver inside those cars has a reason for turning right or left; therefore, not a single turn is random at all. You just have to know the difference between choice and chance.
In science, the notion of chance is so dominant that mentioning the possibility of choice, as it pertains to physical objects, verges on the absurd. Considered our own planet: all the elements that are as heavy as iron or heavier - including many common metals and radioactive elements like uranium and plutonium - originated in the explosion of giant stars known as supernovas.
Without such explosions, even the incredible heat inside a regular star like our sun isn't enough to bond atoms into the heavier elements. Once a supernova explodes, these heavy elements interstellar dust. The dust gathers onto clouds, and in the case of our solar system, these clouds eventually coalesced into planets. The molten core of Earth is made of iron, but there are current inside it that carry some of the iron close to the planet's surface. A bit of iron even leaches into the oceans and the upper layers of soil. From it, you got the iron that makes your blood red and allows you to breathe by picking up oxygen from the air.
Even though the floating dust mites in a beam of sunlight are exactly like the start dust that randomly floats among the galaxies, the fate of some star dust was unique. Some dust turned into a vital aspect of life on Earth. You, a human creature, act with purpose, meaning, direction, and intention - the very opposite of randomness. How did something random become something nonrandom? How did meaningless dust produce the human body, which is your vehicle for pursuing everything meaningful in our lives? The answer, if Freeman Dyson is right, is mind. If mind links little things and big things, then dividing the universe into random events and nonrandom events misses the point. The point is that mind may be everywhere, and our lives happen to reflect this fact.
Excerpts from YOU ARE THE UNIVERSE by Deepak Chopra, M.D. and Mena's C. Kafatos, PH.D.
https://www.deepakchopra.com/
https://www.menaskafatos.com/
