The cat that walked through walls

"Quantum Questions: Mystical Writings of the World´s Greatest Physicists" is a collection of articles edited by Ken Wilber, an American writer and spiritual teacher. Ann Niehaus is credited with being the author´s research assistant. Wilber´s system, known as Integral Theory, has changed somewhat over the years, but could be characterized as a synthesis of Mahayana Buddhism, Jean Gebser, transpersonal psychology and Theosophy-derived notions (among others). In this book, he also makes frequent references to Traditionalist writers. I have the revised edition from 2001. 

Within the New Age, it´s common to argue that quantum physics somehow prove the spiritual worldview. Fritjof Capra´s famous book "The Tao of Physics" take this line. Wilber, interestingly, takes the exact opposite position. Physics do *not* prove the spiritual worldview, indeed can´t prove it at all, even in principle. My interpretation is that Wilber wants to save sprituality and mysticism from the atheists by placing them in an ontological and epistemological dimension completely separate from that of science. The idea is somewhat similar to Stephen Jay Gould´s NOMA (non-overlapping magisteria). Wilber also fears that a spiritual worldview based on science would be disproven if  (or when) the scientific theories change. Thus, an ostensibly scientific spirituality would in effect be subordinated to science (and subject to constant change). To Wilber, quantum physics is not about spritual phenomena, but deals entirely with material realities. The book debunks claims that Quantum Mechanics (QM) somehow prove mind-over-matter, that the observer can directly influence an experiment, that Schroedinger´s cat is neither dead nor alive until somebody takes a look, or that the strange properites of light (both a "wave" and "particles") are somehow magical or occult.

The volume contains texts by Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, De Broglie, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington. It´s interesting to note that so many prominent quantum physicists were dualists or panpsychists. The main reason seems to be that in their opinion quantum physics didn´t explain mind and consciousness. Some kind of dualism became inevitable when it turned out that all the weirdness of QM was purely material in character. Many quantum physicists also felt that modern science no longer describes objective reality as it is. Rather, the theories have become highly abstract mathematical equations. Scientists succesfully manipulate symbols, but they don´t seem to correspond to anything "out there". Perhaps *all* scientific theories are really models of this kind, rather than descriptions of anything "real"? But if so, what if there are things outside the models? A mystical mind, perhaps? Another common argument, by contrast, said the opposite: the fact that the universe can be described mathematically at a "deep" level, suggests that mathematics aren´t a human construct but rather something the mind discovers. But if so, where does the correlation between cosmos, mind and math come from? 

Wilber suggests that the mathematical structure of the cosmos is ultimately derivable from a higher spiritual dimension, and hence represent a kind of Platonic form. I was somewhat surprised by the fact that he integrated math into his spiritual dimension of reality - since math is closely connected to science, I had expected him to argue that it belongs wholly to the physical realm. 

One quantum physicist conspicuous by his absence from Wilber´s collection is David Bohm. This is ironic, since Bohm is usually considered to be the most spiritual of them all, no doubt because of his coversations with Jiddu Krishnamurti, the former "World Teacher" of the Theosophical Society. Bohm believed that science *could* prove the spiritual worldview, which I suppose explains why Wilber doesn´t even mention him. I find this somewhat ironic, since you might as well argue that Bohm tried to integrally integrate physics, mysticism and even politics at a higher level. 

This is obviously a very short introduction to "Quantum Questions" and its contributors, so let me end by saying that both Wilber´s contributions and the old articles by Heisenberg & Co are very interesting in their own right... 

"Five stars".