The No-Woo Guide to Being One with the Universe

Reflection #60: It's not as crazy as it sounds

Some people roll their eyes, and call me  “hippie” or “woo”, if I say something like, “I felt like I was one with the universe.” Even bringing up meditation runs the risk of being accused of being “hippie-dippie” which implies a certain lack of discernment and logic.  

However, one doesn't have to believe in new age or magical concepts to intellectually understand in what ways there might be an aspect of unity in everything: So, in the interest of being logical, let's discuss things scientifically, shall we?  

Let's start by considering “The Cosmos.”  I use the term Cosmos to refer to "all of reality."  The Cosmos certainly includes the “known” universe, but since there is much about the universe that science doesn't understand (quantum mechanics, the possibility of multiple universes, what is outside the observable universe, what caused the Big Bang (if that theory is even correct), and the incompatibility  between relativity and quantum mechanics to name a few), I shall use “Cosmos" to refer to everything - known, theorized, and unknown.

Our current most accurate scientific theory of the underlying reality of the  Cosmos is called Quantum Field Theory (QFT).  It is conjectured that, at the quantum level, everything in the cosmos is the product of all pervasive fields that interact with one another.  The ever-changing energy of these fields, in the form of interacting waves, create interference patterns that, when and where they become excited enough, cause energetic quantum particles to pop into existence — these are the particles that make up what we perceive as matter.  Quantum particles also pop out of existence.  So what we perceive as matter, at the smallest levels, is continually flickering in and out of “existence.”

We know from Einsteinian Relativity that energy and matter are the same thing. Roughly speaking, matter is highly “dense” energy and energy is “dense-less” matter. 

A hydrogen atom — one proton and one electron — arises from waves and interference patterns of certain quantum fields interacting in just the right place and time to create energetic excitations that pass the threshold to manifest as a proton and an electron (I believe the excitations would be in the quark fields and the electron field, among others).  These waves, interference patterns, and interactions continue up through all elements, molecules, etc to create all matter that exists. 

A field is pervasive.  It is potential that exists across the entire span the field.  And, in the quantum case, the field would represent a potential that spans the entire Cosmos.  These quantum fields of potentiality create everything we see.  

The Cosmos, by definition, contains all matter, all energy, and all knowledge.  Therefore, The Cosmos is everywhere: It is omnipresent.  It contains all power: It is omnipotent.  And it contains all knowledge: It is omniscient.  

Rephrasing slightly - the pervasive quantum fields that make up The Cosmos are omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient.  Remember — QFT is our most advanced and accurate scientific theory of reality — and just by exploring the ramifications, we have stumbled upon a truth that is practically the definition of God.  

You, obviously, are a part of The Cosmos and you, also, are made up of these same fields interacting via waves and interference patterns.  In a way, you are simply a “standing wave” in a sea of quantum fields.  As such, you are not separate from The Cosmos.  You are not an ‘impartial observer.’  You are part of it all.  Your thoughts and actions also are a part of these quantum fields.  You are literally part of The Cosmos and what you think, do and say creates waves that affect the whole.  

This link between each of us and the whole can be confirmed in the famous double-slit experiment of quantum mechanics.  In that experiment, the presence of an ‘impartial’ observer changes the outcome of the experiment in a way that cannot be fully explained by the strict rational materialist.  

The experiment is performed by shining light through two side-by-side slits in a partition.  The light passes through the slits and then lands on a screen behind the partition. The outcome of the experiment depends upon whether or not the path of the light is observed by a conscious observer. 

If the path is not observed, the light will behave in a wave-like manner and create an interference pattern on the screen. If the path is observed, the light will behave like particles and create a bullet-like pattern upon the screen.  When and where the “photon field” waves collapse into physical photons depends upon the mere presence of an observer.  This effect is seen even if you send one photon at a time through the slits.

The double slit experiment

Thus, it appears, based upon these results, that there is no such thing as a completely separate observing self.  And, since you are not “actually” made of localized matter, but of interacting fields that span The Cosmos, from the most basic perspective, “you” also span The Cosmos.

Since each one of us is conscious, we may deduce that consciousness exists in The Cosmos, and that it also, must therefore somehow arise from the quantum fields themselves or from the interactions of these fields. Not only does consciousness arise from such fields, but, as the double-slit experiment shows, it also affects them.

In a very real sense The Cosmos itself has evolved over 13.8 billion years into telescopes and humans so that it may consciously look back in time and watch itself growing up!  From that perspective, we may say that The Cosmos is waking up to itself.  It is considering itself.  It is accumulating knowledge, and it is planning for the future.  And all of this arises from quantum  waves in pervasive fields!  

Everything, including us, is made from the interference patterns of these interacting waves through this omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient field of fields!  It appears that things (matter) arise from no thing (fields).  

Things arise from nothing, just like the ancients intuited.

If we may digress into "woo" for just a moment, let’s rephrase what we’ve discovered in a more spiritual way:  

Everything we are and everything we see arises from “nothing” and is created, and exists in the conscious mind of the omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God.

Continuing on with our science-based exploration:  We know from the second law of thermodynamics that The Cosmos has a tendency toward entropy.  Entropy doesn’t decrease.  Things fall apart.  

But, there is another force in The Cosmos that resists entropy: and that force is us, or, more correctly, life itself.  There is no difference: We are life itself.  

So, we have entropy (things falling apart) but life also exists (things coming together).  This counterforce of entropy, let’s call it extropy, is creating increasing order and complexity through life.

We seem to have uncovered two major “forces” in The Cosmos: matter without a unifying force falling apart, becoming more chaotic, and eventually returning to “nothing,” as it disappears into the underlying, bubbling quantum cauldron of fields where matter blinks in and out of existence.  And a counterforce where matter itself arranges into more complex forms:  life, that reproduces and, in the case of humans, uses the time it has, before it succumbs to entropy, to create – to create more life, more people, more knowledge, more ideas, more art, more societies, more order, more complexity.  

The first force, entropy – pushes things apart – through degradation, decay, explosions, same polarities – and through this force, form (matter) becomes non-form over time as it returns to the quantum cauldron.  

But the second force, extropy – pulls things together – gravity, opposite polarities, life, and if I may venture into woo again – love.  

One force separates and the other force unites.  One force expands and the other force contracts and all arises from this interplay.

Currently, the entropy force seems to rule our Cosmos.  But the extropy force, through life especially, seems to be growing.  

Some will argue that we each degrade and die, eventually succumbing to entropy.  And that is true at least of our physical matter: we do observe that the matter of each individual life form succumbs to entropy as it degrades and eventually dies.  But life as a whole is growing.  

Just as our bodies sacrifice individual cells to ensure the survival of the whole body, so too does life sacrifice individuals to protect the growth of the whole and to enable continued transformation and growth.  

This arrangement is what Nassim Taleb calls antifragile.  Each life form may be fragile, but life as a whole is antifragile.  That means life thrives, grows, and adapts in chaotic environments – like, say, an environment full of entropy.  As they say, “life finds a way.”  That all sounds a lot like evolution.  In fact, we may deduce that entropy serves a purpose in this dance: entropy makes evolution possible because life must find a way to survive, so life makes use of entropy to continue its growth and transformation.

Our bodies are formed from elements found in the earth.  From a certain perspective, we might say that the earth itself, through life, is waking up to The Cosmos, stretching its arms and (through life's development of knowledge and technology) reaching out and saying “hello.”  

First earth touched the moon, and later earth touched Mars, and, through the Voyager program, earth has even sent its consciousness outside of our solar system.  I wonder what other planets throughout The Cosmos are waking up and and looking around.

So, back to the second law of thermodynamics:  It is true that entropy never reduces, but that is not quite the same as saying it always increases.  As extropy grows (as life uses increasing technology to spread throughout the cosmos) I conjecture that a stasis point is possible where entropy and extropy will remain balanced.   

That conjecture sounds a lot like yin (form returning to non-form) and yang (non-form creating form), but let's not get too “woo” here.  

It seems to me that, just by using a bit of logic directed at what little we know scientifically about our Cosmos, that it takes a rather large lack of self-awareness to not wake up every morning and gasp at the wonder of the beautiful ever-transforming Mystery in which we live and of which we are all a part of the unfathomable whole.  

And that, for the more logical-minded, is partly what “hippies” mean when they say, "I felt like I was one with the Universe."  Because, being one with the universe, undeniably follows from our best scientific theories about what the hell is going on with existence.

“A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.” — Carl Sagan