The Non-Physical is Real
By Arjun Walia, originally published at Collective Evolution.
By Arjun Walia, originally published at It’s been more than one hundred years since Max Planck, the theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics, said that he regards “consciousness as fundamental,” that he regards “matter as a derivative from consciousness,” and that “everything we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.”
He is basically saying that the immaterial ‘substance’ of consciousness is directly intertwined with what we perceive to be our physical material world in some sort of way, shape or form, that consciousness is required for matter to be, that it becomes after consciousness–and he’s not the only physicist to believe that.
“It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to consciousness.” (Eugene Wigner, theoretical physicist and mathematician. He received a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963.)
Scientists have been urging the mainstream scientific community, which today is littered with scientific fraud and industry influence as well as invention secrecy, to open up to a broader view regarding the true nature of our reality.
Not long ago, a group of internationally recognized scientists came together to stress this fact and how it’s overlooked by the mainstream scientific community. It’s ‘post-material’ science, an area of study dealing with the ‘non-physical realm,’ and it’s challenging the modern scientific worldview of materialism that’s dominated mainstream science. The idea that matter is not the reality is finally starting to gain some merit. The summary of this report presented at the International Summit On Post-Materialist Science can be found here..
“The modern scientific worldview is predominantly predicated on assumptions that are closely associated with classical physics. Materialism—the idea that matter is the only reality—is one of these assumptions. A related assumption is reductionism, the notion that complex things can be understood by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things such as tiny material particles.” (Manifesto for a Post-Materialist Science)
Max Tegmark, a theoretical physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, is one of the latest to attempt explaining why he believes consciousness is a state of matter. He believes that consciousness arises out of a certain set of mathematical conditions and that there are varying degrees of consciousness – just as certain conditions are required to create varying states of vapor, water, and ice. As PBS emphasized, “understanding how consciousness functions as a separate state of matter could help us come to a more thorough understanding of why we perceive the world the way we do.”
This article was originally published at Collective Evolution, and is partially reproduced here without the permission of the author, who is not affiliated with this website or its views.
Related Posts
The Muslim Women Using Feminine Pronouns for Allah →
A Seat at the Table →
Robots Performing Hindu Rituals →
Is it immaterial or a separate state of matter?
I also got inspired to ask the same question because IF certain conditions are required to make “matter” happen it is still Material although essentially subtle.
They are probably defining consciousness as a mental property and in doing so positing a notion of psychic matter. That is an imporovment over physicalism.
I think he is speaking about a non-material understanding of mind/consciousness. In the manifesto linked to in the article, the word “trans-material” shows up.
But in the original article, from which this article is excerpted, it clearly speaks about consciousness as a non-physical state of matter. I was excited by reading the article and the manifesto, but when I read the original article all my excitement disappeared. Too bad! :'(