|
Original Message
|
How does will manifest in the physical world? How is it that what I wish to accomplish sometimes occurs without seeming effort, while at other times, even with great expenditure of energy, I fail in my endeavors? According to a new interpretation of quantum physics,observation and awareness have a far greater effect on the physical world than was previously suspected. Intent, through our powers of observation, actually modifies and alters the course of the physical world and causes things to occur that would not normally occur. I will illustrate three new quantum principles of intent based on the old proverb of a watched pot.
a) A watched quantum pot never boils if you observe it to not boil.
b) A watched quantum pot boils if you observe it to boil.
c) A watched quantum pot boils even on a cake of ice, if you observe it to boil.
This implies that there is a deep connection between the observer and the observed. So deep, in fact, that we really cannot separate them. All we can do is alter the way we experience reality. This is where intent comes in.
How does intent work? Is it a physical process? The idea is that intent operates in the physical world by altering the observed state of that world. The fact that intent affects the physical world reflects a recent discovery of quantum physicists, Yakir Aharonov and M. Vardi. They have shown that the old proverb, "a watched pot never boils" may have a range of validity previously unsuspected. They have discovered a paradoxical situation that arises when a quantum system is watched carefully. As they put it,
Namely, if one checks by continuous observations, if a given quantum system evolves from some initial state, to some other final state, along a specific trajectory . . ., the result is always positive, whether or not the system would have done so on its own accord
If a quantum system is monitored continuously, we could say vigilantly, it will do practically anything. For example, suppose you are watching a quantum system and attempting to determine just when it undergoes a transition from one state to another. To make this concrete, think of a an imaginary "quantum pot of water" being heated on the stove. The transition is for the water to go from the calm state to the boiling state. We all know that pots of water boil, given a few minutes or so. You would certainly think that the watched pot would also boil. It turns out that, because of the vigilance of the observations, the transition never occurs; the watched pot never boils This experiment was reported in the popular science magazine Discover.
Another example is the decay of an unstable system. On its own it would decay in a few microseconds. But if the system is watched continuously, it will never decay. All vigilantly watched "quantum pots" never boil, even if they are heated forever.
All of this might be considered to be just quantum physical speculation. However, in 1989, physicist Wayne Itano and his colleagues at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado actually experimentally observed the "quantum watched pot" and indeed it never boiled! Their experiment involved watching some 5000 beryllium atoms confined in a magnetic field and then exposed to radio waves of energy.
The atoms were the equivalent of the pot of water and the radio waves the equivalent of the heat applied to the pot. Under such circumstances the atoms will "evolve" into excited atomic energy states as they absorb the radio energy. Nearly all 5000 will reach their excited state goals in little over 250 milliseconds (ms), i.e., a quarter of a second.
To check this the physicists would observe the atoms after 250 ms by shining a short pulse of laser light into their midst. Excited atoms do not absorb and immediately re-emit any of the selected laser energy. Atoms which remained in the unexcited state do. So that by observing the laser light after it passed through the trapped atoms the physicists were able to determine just how many atoms remained unexcited.
Virtually none were after 250 ms. We could refer to this as the unwatched pot which naturally evolved to the boiling state in a quarter of a second. But then the scientists became slightly vigilant. They decided to look at the atoms half-way along, after 125 ms had passed. So, an eighth of second after starting the experiment the laser pulse was turned on and then at the 250 ms mark the scientist looked again and found that only one half of the atoms were excited. They repeated the experiment by looking in at 62.5 ms, 125 ms, 187.5 ms, and 250 ms, in other words, they divided the one quarter second interval into four equal parts and they were surprised to find that their enhanced vigilance produced a result of only one-third of the atoms making it to the excited energy state by the end of the complete period of 250 ms.
They next redoubled their vigilance by looking in 16 times, 32 times and finally 64 times during the 250 ms interval. In the final experiment where they watched their tiny atomic "pots" in 64 equally spaced tiny time intervals, virtually none of the atoms were ever found in an excited state, even though 250 ms had passed. They all remained frozen in their ground or original states just as they were when the experiment began. In each experiment, mind you, the "heat" was on--the radio waves were continuously being sent in to the magnetically trapped beryllium atoms.
How does this work? If the system was unobserved, it would certainly undergo the physical transition. The pot would boil. It is the observer effect that causes the anomaly to occur. Let me explain. When the system is first observed, it is seen to be in its initial state. When it is observed just a smidgen of time later, well before the time in which it should change, the system is observed with more than 99.99 percent chance to be in its initial state. In other words, the system is found to be exactly where it was initially. Now repeat this measurement again and again, each time just a tiny bit of time later, and with a very high probability, the same observation occurs: the system is found in its initial state.
But time marches on, and eventually we pass all reasonable time limits for the transition to occur, and yet it still doesn't happen. The system "freezes" in its initial state. The only requirement to freeze the motion is that the observer must have the intent to see the object in its initial state when he looks. We might question Itano and his colleagues as to their intent on doing the experiment. We don't have to. By observing the system as they did, their intent was already established regardless of what they were thinking at the time. In other words their intent was already "out there" in the physical world. The old adage comes up: you will see it when you believe it.
Suppose he doesn't watch vigilantly or suppose that he does but with the intent of seeing it evolve naturally, then what? Take the pot. If he only looks intermittently expecting it to boil eventually, the pot will follow its natural unobserved course and will boil as Itano et al proved. Or if he intends to vigilantly observe the object evolving along its natural path of evolution, then he will observe that instead. In other words, a watched pot boils, if you intend it to.
Finally there is even another bizarre element to this. Suppose that the system could be observed to evolve along a bizarre path, an impossible mission so to speak. If the intent to observe that occur is vigilant enough, then the object will actually follow the bizarre path of evolution. You can make things happen simply by intending them to happen, if you observe what you intend with great vigilance. That means with intense observation occurring over very short time intervals, more or less continuously but along a new unexpected track. A watched pot boils on a cake of ice, if you intend it to.
I need to point out that intent and intentions are not the same. Intent refers to a vigorous action of vigilant observations along a specific path of evolution. It matters little what you hope for or even what you expect will happen passively. The direction of evolution is determined as you go and depends on where you focus your observation.
Thus intent requires a quantum physical basis. Intention, on the other hand, is a classical mechanical concept. One sets in motion a certain expectation and then hopes for the best. The old adage "the best intentions of mice and men often go astray," tells the whole story.
Our brains may be composed of quantum systems and consequently our paths through history may be governed by the "pot watched with intent" theory. Thus this may be how will and intent actually govern the movement of living sentient systems.
|
