“It may be more important to look for the right questions than to look for the right answers”, says Werner Heisenberg. When examining reality according to quantum physical philosophy, the question asked may be as essential and deterministic as the answer itself. As John Archibald Wheeler, renowned physicist asserted, “we ourselves create the reality of human experience with the questions we ask and the procedures that we undertake to find the answers to this”. By positing a question we may assume there is a definite answer, but according to quantum physics, the answer is largely determined by our own input and positioning towards the outcome. Beyond even an observervational bias, there is actually an independence of action according to quantum physical properties.
As Gell-Mann stated, Quantum mechanics is not a theory, but rather a framework within which we believe any correct theory must fit. Thus, the quantum field is a framework which all other theories may rest upon, and thus far, align with. The classical model of offering an independent and ongoing universe that is objective without “us” is no longer an option of understanding. Instead, it is clear that the subjective reality of the observer, also known as consciousness, can not only take in information and assimilate it, but can also make self-assertive choice in accordance with its own subjective reality.
Quantum physics is likened by Tim Ferris to a Zen koan, a teaching riddle of sorts used in ancient Eastern teachings to open the minds of students’ to endless possibilities and interpretations of a single and seemingly simple idea.
A coin lost in the river is found in the river
Quantum physics is a frontier of thought inasmuch that “these border skirmishes raise questions sufficiently baffling as to constitute the scientific equivalent of a Zen koan. Quantum weirdness is so counterintuitive to comprehend it is to become not enlightened but confused.” These borders of consciousness bring about more questions than answers, but alas, the answers may only lie in the questions anyway.
The quantum field can be likened to the Qi field of Traditional Chinese and Eastern Medicine. While speaking about the quantum, psychologist and physicist Arnold Mindel shares, “It is the world in which the shaman moves, the world each of us meets every second of our lives, the realm we enter every night in our dreams”.
Acupuncture and ancient Eastern healing modalities enter into the realm of quantum healing at the Qi level, through the energy substrate that permeates all of existence. Qi is the animation and the framework. It is abundant, ever-evolving, and seemingly, self-evident and self-acknowledging. Accessing healing at this level brings balance beyond one psycho-spiritual-physical strata, but instead applies holistically. The quantum world is sentient and holistic, and each of its parts are in touch with the whole.
Taking accountability for our healing is easy from a quantum physical approach. We can affect much more than we may have formerly assumed possible. As Niels Bohr pointed out, just like within a dream, in our lives we are simultaneously actors and spectators; we are both the observers and the observed, subject and object, dreamers and the dream. It’s as if sharing a dream space together, we are collectively dreaming up our entire universe while simultaneously being dreamed up by it.
Here’s to the dreaming and the doing.
