4. Riding the Quantum Wave

This audience is probably pretty hip to the whole quantum world, I would wager (by and large, anyway).

You don’t have to be a quantum physicist to hear a layman’s summary of this field of science and walk away stunned by the implications. The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to a team of physicists for their work with quantum entangled particles, charting and proving behaviors which completely defy reason as we know it. If you weren’t aware, quantum physics is at the heart of the newest microchip technology, among other things. “But those technologies,” says John Preskill, a leading quantum information scientist at the California Institute of Technology, “have only scratched the surface of how quantum theory has modified our view of what’s possible in the universe.”

If you’re an abstract thinker like me, you might be thrilled and invigorated by this kinda shit. Several bizarre and thought provoking findings—like the infamous “disc slit” experiments where photons “behaved” differently depending on whether they were under conscious observation or not, or countless other experiments like this one where the presence of a life form like a plant seems to influence outcomes even when controls are randomized—are coming to light and hitting the mainstream bit by bit. “Spooky action at a distance”, “the observer effect”, and “biocentrism” should garner some brain tickling results if you feel so inclined to Google them.

This all butts heads with a long-held consensus: scientific materialism. If you’re unfamiliar or need a refresher, it’s a simple premise (according to Wikipedia):

‘The "Wedge Document" produced by the Discovery Institute, described materialism as denial of "the proposition that human beings are created in the image of God," and that humans are instead "animals or machines who inhabited a universe ruled by purely impersonal forces and whose behavior and very thoughts were dictated by the unbending forces of biology, chemistry and environment." The document states that materialism leads inevitably to "moral relativism" and denounces its "stifling dominance" in modern culture. By this definition, scientific materialism is linked to the more general version of materialism, which declares that the physical world is the only thing that exists and that nothing supernatural exists.’

It’s the basis on which most of the scientific community has functioned for a good while now, carried into the mainstream with the “God is dead” idea. Atheism saw a spike (at least in the West) at the advent of this majority consensus in the scientific community. While the Discovery Institute might not be the most objective debater on the subject, with its mission of remedying the complete expulsion of intelligent design from the general scientific conversation, there are some very fair points made in that Wedge Document. I myself have encountered many atheists who have verified the document’s main critiques of atheism, who really do believe we are nothing more than animals and that when we die, we’re gone, and that there is no such thing as “meaning”. To be completely honest, I’m not sure I totally disagree, but only inasmuch as a fish swimming in a kind of water called “meaning” would have no idea what meaning was (“What the hell is water?”, said the fish; more on this in another blog post later).

But here’s the thing…That entire materialist worldview hinges on a physical universe which at least adheres to some perceivable and measurable logic. And that notion is beginning to fall apart as we speak.

Actually, it’s pretty much over, but the materialist worldview dies hard. Sure, at the very practical, physical level in which we “live and move and have our being”, with feet on the earth, lungs breathing air, all of our sensory perceptions and so on, things do seem concrete. Materialism makes sense to our brains. I mean, we’re all pooping for God’s sake. Physical existence is at times a very humbling thing.

But the idea that there is more at work in the universe than we can perceive and that there are “ways higher than our ways” is being laid before our eyes by the most advanced scientists the world has ever known. Should we be surprised?

There’s a limerick that I’ll paraphrase for you, and it’s proving to be true:

Scientists will disavow God and delve into study only to find themselves finally atop a mountain where the mystics have been sitting for thousands of years.

There is a new wave of thinkers emerging, friends, and this time, they’re going to be talking about an intersection of science and spiritualism. Have you seen the sudden burst of “quantum EVERYTHING” out there? Quantum Health. Quantum Meditation. Quantum Mysticism. Quantum Dildos. (That last one isn’t real, though it could be pretty cool.)

That’s because there’s a new thought wave afoot, and Cathedral Project aims to land squarely in that intersection of science and spirituality. Be a part of it!

—cheers.