Sam Harris

What is quantum mysticism? Deepak Chopra is a holistic “healer”-type who employs alternative medicine. He sounds sort of like a shaman or something. But the word “quantum” conjures up physics and Chopra’s definitely not a physicist.

PantheistAnonymous - 15 January 2008 09:30 PM

What is quantum mysticism? Deepak Chopra is a holistic “healer”-type who employs alternative medicine. He sounds sort of like a shaman or something. But the word “quantum” conjures up physics and Chopra’s definitely not a physicist.

There is no end to the list of new age nonsense using the word quantum to give itself credence.

The reason is simple, quantum physics sounds mystical, because most people have no real grasp on what it is, this is partly due to an inability by many scientists to explain in understandable terms what it is. Quantum physics is strange, but it is no where near as strange as its being portrayed. And you can explain many aspects of it in terms that demystify it.
Its also partly the fault of the media for jumping on this term and blowing the mysticism up.

The result is a lot of people who make up nonsense and then slap the word quantum on it to give their ideas credence.
Its ignorant people who molest physics by trying using physics terminology for various unfounded woohoo.

edit: Basically, whenever you hear someone who have some strange new practice related to healing or anything like that who uses either of the words, crystal, energy, vibrations or quantum. You know its bullshit.

PantheistAnonymous - 15 January 2008 09:30 PM

What is quantum mysticism?

Quantum-Ready Mysticism is just like Digital-Ready Speakers.

It is odd how the word quantum is sexy but kumquat is not.

quantum mysticism is pre-critical. It can not be criticized in the here and now.

Nhoj Morley - 31 January 2008 03:34 PM

PantheistAnonymous - 15 January 2008 09:30 PM

What is quantum mysticism?

Quantum ... mysticism is pre-critical. It can not be criticized in the here and now.

Er, excuse me for materializing in this universe, but after a few mighty struggles with the Galactic League of Superheroes (Planck, Schrödinger, Heisenberg, Dirac, Feynman, Deutsch et al.) and even mightier struggles with the Time Lords (Einstein and Gödel, plus their minor acolytes) I have returned from the mountain with graven tablets.

Lo and behold - you’re right, Nhoj, this is a topic for erehwon (here and how? nowhere? Who put this pun in the language?) - I shall reveal the truth slowly, carefully, and taking all due precautions.

AtheEisegete - 05 February 2008 07:46 PM

I shall reveal the truth slowly, carefully, and taking all due precautions.

AE, if he hasn’t already, really needs to read Sokal’s “Transgressing The Boundaries: Towards A Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity”.

I did - wonderful - I know what you’re thinking!
I spoof not. I just got fed up with being dull.

Nhoj Morley - 31 January 2008 03:34 PM

PantheistAnonymous - 15 January 2008 09:30 PM

What is quantum mysticism?

Quantum-Ready Mysticism is just like Digital-Ready Speakers.

It is odd how the word quantum is sexy but kumquat is not.

quantum mysticism is pre-critical. It can not be criticized in the here and now.

Just a minute, I can criticize and not criticise quantum mysticism, but you can’t pin me down to one or ther other closer than Planck’s constant, and if you try all you’ll see is me petting Salt Creek’s kitten.

Just a minute, I can criticize and not criticize quantum mysticism,

That’s how you know you’re quantum -ready. Good responsible mysticism should also be kumquat-ready, and for any other vegetables that come its way.

What happens at the quantum level, stays at the quantum level.

You’re in a good all-state with Hans.

I’m in a sub-atomic mood. Mistakes at the quantum level are so hard to forget. Like two probability waves that pass in the night, with foolish giggles encoded on indifferent photon errand boys. Passion at a distance. Accelerate towards death.

Nhoj Morley - 07 February 2008 03:53 PM

What happens at the quantum level, stays at the quantum level.

I beg to differ - see my latest post on the Quantum Enigma thread. Indeed I am tempted to opine that the entire classical world is a vast entanglement generated by quantum interactions. If this is so, the consistency of the classical world is no surprise - we make it. To my dismay, I discover that this is open to misuse by fundamentalists who claim that God is logic (their reading of John 1:1) and that consistent explication of Biblical doctrine is the key to sound theology.

Seeing time as an ordering between events, I tend to see the collective timeline as something we make too. Without the long-term linearity of entanglement generated by consistent adherence to sound doctrine, the calendar timeline, for example, would devolve into the circles and thence the spaghetti of prehistoric magical time. As a fundamentalist might say, starting out from the crucifixion as the “moment of truth” from which all else devolves, we can march in lockstep along the straight and narrow way into a more rigorously Euclidean future in which all lines are straight and all corners are orthogonal.

Did I really say that? I seem to have caught an evangelical meme. Excuse me while I cough it up ...

When a non-pathogenic strain of the same bacterial species was placed into [a] culture medium with the electromagnetic frequency [residue of the pathogenic species] it was transformed into the pathogenic strain and began to emit the same signature signal as the previous strain… [the EM frequency] was specifically acting on the DNA molecule of the non-pathogenic strain - “re-coding” it.

We regard the function of the biological organism as primarily being electrical in nature, and tending towards quantum coherence.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/101491729/William-Brown-The-Light-Encoded-DNA-Fialment-and-Biomolecular-Quantum-Communication-24p

Time spent attempting to ridicule actual research, on the other hand, is well-invested.