OUR TECHNOLOGIES TODAY
NOTE: I had originally written this article as an intro to my dissertation, well before the movie "What the [bleep]..." came out and, even then I had covered more disciplines than that movie. For this site, however, I am intermittently updating the information as the various technical fields evolve (up to August 3, 2009), which is the reason for the discontinuities in the annotations. Rev. Don Chapin, Ph.D.
Go To:1. INTRODUCTION
2. THE WORLDS OF PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY
4. THE 'NEW ENERGY' MOVEMENT
5. ARCHEOLOGY, PALEOARCHEOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY AND PALEOANTHROPOLOGY - - -
6. THE SOCIAL SCIENCES OF PSYCHIATRY, PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY
7. THE MEDICAL SCIENCES
8. NANOTECHNOLOGY
9. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
10. TABLE 1 - GEOLOGIC ERAS & PERIODS
11. REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
Just where are we in this high-tech world of today… just how much do we REALLY know?
Blame it all on Galileo. From whatever you might remember of this character, you probably think of astronomy and attribute the invention of the telescope to him. Not so. In this technology area, Galileo simply built on someone else's idea, that of Hans Lipperhey of Haque who had applied for a patent on a spyglass (although Galileo did appear to be one of the first to also reverse his version of the spyglass to use as a microscope). Most of the rest of this mathematician's involvement with what he later called a telescope, and his troubles with the Church of the times, is fairly well known.
What is not so well known, however, are Galileo's successes with developing a water pump, finding the parabolic shape of a trajectory's path, the development of a pendulum with a later application to clock mechanisms, a primitive copy machine, a falling body's relationship to mass rather than weight, the invention of the "sector," fortification design (although he was primarily an early student of a fortifications designer, some sources even attribute the development of the tiered fort system for demolishing ships, from the masts to the hull, to him), development of a thermoscope (a gas thermometer which measured temperature by the expansion and contraction of gas), hydrostatics, and even strength of materials, founding that branch of science as well.
Throughout, using the geometric methods of the Greeks, Galileo emphasized relating the theoretical to the practical, and, through his successes and literary ability, he made experimentation attractive. He was the first to conduct timed experiments and to use measurement in a systematic way, thereby introducing the "scientific method" that is used to this day. He showed that a body could move under the influence of two forces at one time as in a projectile for the initial propelling force and the force of gravity. From an astronomical standpoint, this concept provided an irrefutable argument for the theories of Copernicus and his own observations.
Later, with the mathematical revolutions introduced by Descartes (algebra) and Newton (calculus), the science of mechanics was given a tremendously strong boost to the extent that we apply them even today in engineering. It was Galileo's inductive analysis methodologies and his discoveries that served as a basis for Newton's three laws of motion which solidified the mechanistic view of the universe, as well as engineering disciplines and practices to this day. Yet, there is ample evidence that Galileo, himself, had no intent to so totally separate the theological from the scientific to which the later mechanistic view of the world had, at some points, evolved... one that attributed all workings of nature and the sky to an easily explainable cause and effect relationship (1).
In the eyes of Stephan Hawking, Galileo "'was the first scientist to actually start using his eyes, he was responsible for the age of science we now enjoy.'" Also, "Galileo was Hawking's - as well as Einstien's and Newton's - direct forebear in the sense that he was the first to define gravitation, nature's most pervasive, yet, paradoxically, its weakest force(2)."
And so, what are these disciplines that have sprung from this work and of just how this mechanistic view of the universe affected them? In each technical and scientific discipline today, mathematical models are normally developed to describe what we observe concerning material behavior. This applies to civil, mechanical, aerospace, electrical, electronic, chemical and even materials engineering, as well as to physics, astronomy and cosmology. To be successful, any such model must be fully descriptive of the existing situation, not violate any "known" laws of physics or engineering, and be predictive for future applications.
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THE WORLD OF ENGINEERING:
In Engineering many disciplines have been moving toward using finite element models (FEM) to "evaluate" a particular part, assembly or even an all-up model of the situation in question. The programs upon which such models can be built, much like a spreadsheet or a word processor, are generic programs with certain built-in assumptions and mathematical relationships between the "nodes," and/or for each kind of element. Some such programs are considered more "accurate" than others because of the numbers of relationships and/or mathematical linking that is used. Of course, as can be expected, the more that is added to each for such features normally requires additional time for problem solutions to be processed. As a result, some companies may even use two or more such programs, one to do a quick look and another for the more serious applications, with the required database transfer routines so that the same data can be input into each.
Now, these models, or rather the development of them is not always a matter of pure science, either. How is it that two different engineers, using the same FEM package and input loading conditions, but using the models that they independently develop, can come up with different stresses at the same locations? Of course, if they are equally experienced, the model results may not be too far apart, but they can still vary. Why is that? Because, as sophisticated as this technology would appear to be, even with the same materials' properties being used by each, such model building is part science and part art. Which model elements are being used for each component, what the element sizes are, and even where the nodes are placed can result in different stress results for the same applied loads.
Of course, in order to properly evaluate any such model, we have to know what "loads" or forces act upon it in the real world, as well as where these loads are applied. When these input loads are artificially applied, this is not too much of a problem. However, when nature is applying the loads, it may take quite a bit of research and testing to determine what the loads are and where they are applied. (This became quite obvious after the 1989 Loma Prieda earthquake in California, where an Oakland to San Francisco Bay Bridge was badly damaged. I remember the CALTRANS Chief Engineer at the time attributed this to the fact that these bridges had been designed for the "conventional" translating or rolling 'quake conditions. However, this particular 'quake introduced a new mode of "popping," vertical displacement caused by a deep transverse fault slip that literally threw the surface up and down. While this condition may have caught CALTRANS by surprise, geologically, this kind of fault had been known about for quite a few years before.)
Which introduces us to another part of Galileo's heritage: Testing. As Galileo's investigatory philosophy dictated, you DO NOT simply design a commodity and introduce it to the world without testing to ensure there haven't been some basic errors introduced into the design or manufacture... and there usually are! This step is, in fact, the proof-of-the-pudding; to ensure that the design and analysis steps haven't deviated too much from what was intended, and this testing is supposed to apply throughout the environmental range for which the design was intended. However, this step also often reveals some rather significant deviations, which can cause the designers and analyzers to re-accomplish some or all of what they originated.
Why is testing so necessary when we appear to know so much about the materials and how to use them? The fact is, we don't. Lawyers practice, and sometimes get things wrong. Doctors practice and sometimes get things wrong. Engineers also practice, and, like lawyers and doctors, the more they practice in a given discipline, the better they (should) get. Every situation or problem solution requires assumptions and idealizations. Since engineers normally work with mathematics as a second language, in order to express a situation or problem in the form of a solvable equation, it is necessary to make assumptions and approximations. ALL engineering fields typically have the same problem in this regard.
Metals have been fairly well defined through the years(3), so that, in the aerospace community, a particular metal may be assigned property characteristics that are, statistically, 95% or even 99% "true"(4). However, there are no complete guarantees that any one small part of that metal would not have some form of microscopic flaw that would serve as a crack initiator. Or, what about environmental effects that originally might not have been considered important?
Also, what about the shop floor technician that leaves a nick in a vulnerable spot on a part and either doesn't notice it or fails to report it? If he/she does report it, it can normally be dealt with by an engineering understanding of stress concentration factors. This is a specialized area that is heavy with the use of what might be called "fudge factors," that have been empirically developed over a long period of time. This is such an "accomplished" specialized field that an empirically generated "life curve" can be used to extrapolate about how many hours of normal usage that particular part might last, assuming that the input data is valid.
Another example: In electronic circuit analysis, it was often considered normal practice to assume that the properties of the various circuit components are independent of the current flowing through them. While this simplifies the analysis, it could, in certain cases, severely limit the accuracy of the results(5). As both circuits and components are continually reduced in size, current effects, including self-heating, have to be considered (which is one of the potential advantages of nanotechnology, discussed later). Speaking of electronics, I think it is quite humorous that after being an electronics technician for several years, I finally went to engineering school in the early '60s and found that the Electrical Engineering Dept was using "hole flow" theory to describe electronic circuits, rather than (what I would consider) the more appropriate electron flow concept/theory. The question is: even today, do we really know which is correct?
Now, in order to try to take care of some "known unknowns" and to accommodate, to the extent possible, any "unknown unknowns," the design community normally introduces safety factors, to apply to the design over and above the expected worst-case loading situations.
However, at times, an "unknown unknown" can appear. One transparent plastic that was originally thought to be a "saving grace" for impact resistance in aircraft windows turned out to have materials properties that rapidly deteriorated with age, even though all the testing to which it was originally subjected showed tremendous promise. The aeronautical engineering community had no memory of running across such a phenomenon before.
So, as can be seen, despite the advances that appear to have been made... and these are considerable... because we are so experience-dependent from an engineering perspective, we are still as a babe in the woods whenever we encounter a slightly unusual situation… i.e., one we haven't experienced before.
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THE WORLDS OF PHYSICS AND COSMOLOGY:
To the previous conditions of a model, i.e., to be fully descriptive of the existing situation, not violate any "known" laws of physics or engineering, and be predictive for future applications, we have to add: "It must involve the smallest possible number of special assumptions - 'fudge factors'(6)." Unfortunately, it is, obviously, not quite as easy to evaluate or test the cause-and-effect relationships, hypotheses, or models in these fields, so that the gestation time from concept, hypothesis, or model generation to a "proof" is infinitely longer. (In general, we might look at the electronics development world as a matter of months, the mechanical development world as a matter of years, the physics development world as a matter of a decade or longer and the cosmology development world as, possibly, even as long as a lifetime.)
In cosmology, there have been different grand unified theories (GUTs) developed concerning the Big Bang, the origin of the universe as we theorize it, but particle accelerators have not been able to generate sufficient power to go back far enough in time to test for some of the theorized conditions beyond about 10-43 seconds of the very early universe. Also, according to Hawking, "As you know, there are some very serious problems with the standard Big Bang model. And the various GUTs don't paint a necessarily consistent picture(2)". In reality, when the big bang theory (championed by George Gamow) versus the steady state theory of the last century (championed by Fred Hoyle) finally yielded to the big bang theory based on the evidence at the time, it was a partial mistake. The reality is that stellar "death" and creation is always going on as witnessed by today's astronomy. Even whole galaxies sometimes run into each other in potentially self-destructive scenarios, just as our own galaxy is expected to do in the far future (which is also somewhat difficult to imagine, if the big bang was acting as we might expect from a "standard" explosion, sending the debris out in a spherical front). Hawkings was right about the problems with that model; in fact, there is no either/or situation, but both concepts are the truth... as some have suspected... there was a "big bang" and "death and creation" is still occurring in a steady-state manner. That's reality.
Also, from Donald Goldsmith, "Since theorists are, almost by definition, those among us with the most fertile imaginations, to bury one of their theories has proven no easier than Hercules' slaying of the many-headed Hydra. Most theories die their final death only with their originators, because the theory lies so near the heart of the theorist that he or she will find a saving modification rather than abandon it for failure to agree with observation. An outstanding theoretician like Einstein can eventually pronounce his mental child a great blunder, but even Einstein struggled for a time to 'save' his theory with the cosmological constant. The chemist George Wald well summarized the problem faced by most theorists, by stating that whenever he had a new idea he made it a point immediately to stop and savor it for a while, because it would almost certainly turn out to be wrong. Only a great-souled theorist can hold this likelihood so firmly in the conscious mind(6)."
Physics today, in the minds of most (and in contrast to 1st-year textbooks), seems to be almost entirely associated with subatomic "particle" - actually subatomic energy - research. "One of the main subjects in present-day physics is the problem of elementary particles. However, we know that elementary particles are far from elementary. New layers of structure are disclosed at higher and higher energies(7)."
Coupled with this "particle" research, cosmologists, having run through many different theories, including variations on the once-popular string theory (which I "knew" as soon as I heard of it that it was "impossible" because of its implications of "separateness," and which has resulted in untold numbers of bright PhD candidates being "wasted" because of "academic inertia," similar to that found in other disciplines, but not as drastic as that found in archeology and anthropology, below), are now coming around to hypothesizing a "manyfold universe," in which the number of physical universes are infinite, with the laws of physics potentially quite different in each one. This is now beginning to sound very much like "the multiplicity of possibilities" that is resplendent on this website and in a few other channeled works that are now being presented(28)(29).
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THE 'NEW ENERGY' MOVEMENT:
Here is another area of deep concern for U.S. 'leadership' in technology development. There are apparently many new technologies in energy transfer or generation that being ignored by both the press and s sidelined scientific community, while being adamantly opposed by the 'institutionalized' scientific communities... very similar to that same role assumed by of the Catholic church in Galileo's time. As documented by Eugene F. Mallove(36), much of this reaction (or non-reaction) to these very promising technologies is as a result of MIT's "trashing" of the first cold fusion experiment in 1989, by MIT hot fusion advocates that were quite heavily tied into government funding. This even included 'doctoring' of their own internal MIT data to support their negative statements! Unfortunately, as a result, such attitudes have permeated several layers of our society and affected objective media reporting and government funding from the U.S. Congress. The following is a hard-hitting quote from a well-informed website on this topic(37). "Who is opposing New Energy science and technology?
"Only fools and small-minded people would oppose research on something so wonderful—even if there were only a 10% chance that it was correct (and the true percentage is far higher —100%, in our opinion). Sad to say, there are plenty of fools arrayed against New Energy. Most of them are in academia and in government agencies charged with managing scientific research—though there are outstanding exceptions. To paraphrase and turn the tables on the enemies of New Energy in their attacks against frontier researchers, “This shows that a Ph.D. is no guarantee against foolishness.” There are plenty of science Ph.D.s and even Nobel laureates who have obscenely attacked cold fusion, vacuum energy, hydrino physics, and investigations into loopholes in the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Their credentials are worthless. What they have to say on the subject of New Energy usually amounts to no more than uninformed bigotry. These people apparently believe that science has come to an end—that the broad outlines of physics and biology, as described in current texts, are on absolutely secure grounds. One of the greatest buffoons in the sad array of enemies is Robert Park of the American Physical Society and the University of Maryland, whose “What’s New” electronic column gives weekly cues to an army of incompetent “science journalists,” who then misinform other journalists, the establishment’s so-called “scientists,” and cowering government bureaucrats and politicians.
"Many people assume that it must be the “oil companies” who are blocking New Energy research. Not so! In our view, these large companies are fundamentally too stupid to understand what is about to hit them. Their executives all have “golden parachutes” anyway, so they do not really fear that a complete collapse of the hydrocarbon economy will hurt them individually. Moreover, a handful of people from existing energy companies have, in fact, already shown that they are prepared to jump ship and get involved in New Energy."
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ARCHEOLOGY, PALEOARCHEOLOGY, ANTHROPOLOGY AND PALEOANTHROPOLOGY:
Here is an area of supposedly scientific endeavor that is far more "screwed up" than that of cosmology/physics (which does try to "get it right," but is, at times, caught up in its own brand of politics) or of western medicine (which has been controlled by "big pharma," which has been in control of the AMA - both interested in dollars over true health - for far too long). For almost a century and a half an entirely illogical and fraudulent "scientific" picture of humanity's evolution has been fostered with contrary evidence buried and the advocates of these contrary findings lives ruined professionally. This is a prime example of disallowing extremely credible evidence of ancient human activities on this planet in favor of promoting a very limited theory of evolution both within the "scientific" community and with every presentation to the public. Harsh words - absolutely - but, with the publishing of some "new," very well-researched revelations by Cremo & Thompson(30)(31)(32) and by Hancock(33), the truth has finally broken through to both the "professional" and the lay communities. Interestingly, some of this same information has come through from channeled works, as well(34)(35)and others. A very brief comparison of "conventionally acceptable" versus true scientific finds as documented by Cremo & Thompson and Hancock is shown in Table 1, below. "Conventional scientific thinking" (which should be an oxymoron, in itself, but, sadly, isn't in this case) in these fields really needs to re-evaluate and see where turf wars and egos have definitely not served humanity.
Update on 10/08/07: Yet the "conventionally acceptable science" may be also under attack from unlikely sources. On a National Geographic Channel Naked Science Series program entitled "Prehistoric Americas" the conventional concept of migrations across the Bering Straight only 13,500 years ago is yielding to a much earlier multinational, highly skilled migration with evidence being presented of earlier grass cutting tools, lance heads comparable to ancient Siberian sources, skulls that "flesh out" to no distinct species, 40,000 year-old footprints in Central America (I thought they looked more like shoe prints), evidence of tightly woven fabrics, with potential training aids etched in stone, etc. In deference to "conventionally acceptable science," all this evidence is presented as "controversial," but the tide of truth does seem to be shifting to a more objective version... or, perhaps, set of versions, with many stated unknowns, as opposed to current uncontested theory.
This field, FAR more than the string theory distractions of physics/cosmology, seems to be prone to the "acceptable conclusion syndrome so well depicted in the cartoon. below.
Actually, this field was really opened to me when I made a presentation in June 2007. While this may seem quite a bit too "far out" to most people at this time, I have corraborated the basics through sufficient independent resources to become convinced in my own mind. These pages have been synopsized and are updated periodically:
The External Threat to Earth & Humanity and World Peace Exercise, A New Way to Assist Earth and Humanity.
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THE SOCIAL SCIENCES OF PSYCHIATRY, PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIOLOGY:
To one that does not look too deep into these "soft sciences," they appear to be in a total state of disarray within the mainstream of each. To all appearances, there seem to be many in these fields trying to publish something... anything... no matter how insignificant and apparently irrelevant to the establishment of human behavior models. Occasionally, someone surfaces that is interested in accomplishing the equivalent of cosmology's GUT, but these are few and far between, such as John B. Watson, 1878 - 1958, who outlined the major categories of behavior (explicit and implicit, hereditary and acquired) toward establishing an all-inclusive psychology. Abraham Maslow, 1908 - 1970, established the modern school of humanistic psychology, determining what constitutes positive mental health, updating work by earlier researchers.
Another researcher, Hans Eysenck, 1916 - 1997, sometimes referred to as a temperament theorist, who advocated, based primarily on physiology and genetics, that aspects of our personalities are genetically based, inborn from birth or even before. This was not new on our planet, when considering the profiles that have been layed down by Indian ayuvedic doshas(8), Buddhist personality types(9), the ancient Greek enneagram(10), astrological personality types (Eastern and/or Western), Jungian personality types(11), or more modern testing concepts, such as the Myers-Briggs typology system.
Coming from the engineering/physics disciplines, my choice would be for an expansion of the work initiated by Raymond B. Cattell, 1905 - 1998, who, having a "hard science" background, introduced factor analysis to psychology. THIS is the way to accomplish an analysis. However, in attempting to develop such a concept to build a psychological Grand Unified Theory, as with cosmology, one would have to accommodate DNA sequencing, personality testing and analysis, behavioral psychology factors (if they could be quantified), and then, to satisfy everyone, individual belief systems and attitudes, astrological influences, past life experiences, karmic factors past and present, and who knows what other considerations. Admittedly, this could be a daunting task, considering the complexities of the human psyche and behavior. A head-ache-and-a-half, which makes the Grand Unified Theories (GUTs) of physics/cosmology look like a piece of cake! However, the true giants of these fields are "long gone" and there appears to be no one in these fields, today, that has the capability to accomplish any more theory consolidation. Or, if that is going on, they don't appear to be publishing in the mainstream journals. (There might be a PhD research candidate project in here, however, if someone would be interested in setting up a comparison of the various personality evaluators and tests to see to what extent the various cultures, over time, might compare in a sample population, such as started by Baron(12).)
In my investigations of these fields, I was rather bemused by the fine-line distinctions the practitioners made of themselves: i.e., separating themselves into psychologists, social psychologists and sociologists. Admittedly, a psychologist (and psychiatrist) would be interested in studying an individual that has internal demons to address. However, most of us aren't really aware of such demons without interactions with others... a social situation, which could be covered by the fields of either social psychiatry or sociology, correct? On the other extreme, are those sociologists that work with larger populations of national or regional flavor, potentially even including cultural anthropologists. The science and engineering fields can often get just as blurred when an engineer is called upon to do original research or a physicist is called upon to design something from a field he/she is somewhat familiar with.
While there is some potentially promising work going on in attempting to "reprogram" the subconscious, even this field is referred to as "energy work." My skepticism of this methodology was more heavily reinforced when I took a class in EFT applications in order to allay my reservations, but simply confirmed that this field is simply based on theories of short-term applications, with no knowledge of long-term effects. While there may have been some "spectacular results" in certain situations, my concern has to do with attempting to alleviate the symptoms of a perceived problem, while not addressing the root cause, quite typical of Western medicine. An analogy comes to mind of a pianist that has absolutely no idea of what produces the sound coming from the piano... s/he simply presses keys, knowing nothing of the inner workings. In comparison to techniques presented on the Light Path Resources web site, I can only repeat the words attributed to Jesus from the cross, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do." More on these techniques at http://lprww.us/lprwwBk1Ch6-Looking At Yourself.html.
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THE MEDICAL SCIENCES:
Briefly, you don't have to be too much involved with the news to know that this is a field of considerable controversy..., HMO versus independent practice, medical malpractice insurance (another result of the legal "profession"), research costs which often result in conflicting study results, high drug development costs (as claimed by the pharmaceutical industry), mushrooming treatment and drug costs which may be only addressable by legislation, yet a virtually recession-proof industry. Then there is the conundrum between conventional western treatment (AMA-style) versus allopathic and even spiritual healing, with far too many references to list here. (My comment to my son who was intending to go deeper into the medical profession... from paramedic to doctor... was that you go to a Western-oriented doctor for emergency/corrective treatment, but to an Eastern-oriented or allopathic professional for preventative treatment.)
Despite the advances and promise of DNA research, it has become increasingly obvious, even to some members of the "establishment," that conventional Western healing practices, while taking credit for longer life spans in the Western world, really don't have the answers their profession would want the public to believe and are beginning to break new ground (Joy(13), Weill(14) and Chopra(8)). Additionally, there is even a call, within and without the profession, to re-look at the Newtonian assumptions upon which Western medicine is based (Chopra(15) and Dossey(16)), particularly when you get medical practitioners saying that some surgeries are completely unneccessary (an .rtf file), and seeing articles about other abuses of the medical profession such as "Ties That Bind" and problems within Big Pharma (both .pdf files).
It's a well-known fact that the vast majority of doctors get their prescription information from the TRUE "pill pushers" (salesmen/saleswomen) sent out by big Pharma. A prime example is the water fluoridation controversy, where the medical profession has (until lately) gone along with big Pharma without questioning the fact that water/toothpaste fluoridation is simply a way in which industry can dump fluoride waste... and it is actually detrimental to our bodies. (Ref. two separate articles on the topic in "Maybe the End of Fluoridation?", a .pdf file.)
Yet when a mainstream article such as "Thoughts Can Heal Your Body" (an .rtf file) from the March 9, 2008 issue of Parade Magazine, then it is a strong indicator that even conventional medicine may HAVE to tolerate a little change. Then, there's this lead-off "New research shows that improved diet, meditation and other non-medical interventions can actually 'turn off' the disease-promoting process..." in this article and an even more positive situation in Healing Alternatives. And, as additional evidence that inroads ARE being made in conventional medicine, there is this Washington Post article extract "Despite Skeptics", which, in turn, has a link to that author's religion of Jainism, and this placebo treatment survey, which may be indicating that some Westernized medical practitioners have been catching on to the power of the mind, even if it has been tricked!
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NANOTECHNOLOGY:
Taking another approach, let’s briefly discuss a somewhat "new" technological field not presented above; that of nanotechnology and "nanobots." This convergence of nanoscience, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science, as it was originally proposed by the visionary, Erik Drexler(17)(18), provides a potential for considerable improvement in our quality of life. This field was popularized by Michael Creighton in his well-researched book "Prey(19)." However, Creighton took a "dark side" approach, in that a wrongly programmed nanobot output of this technology could ‘prey’ on mankind. However, the concepts he presented have interesting, although somewhat crude, parallels to the concepts of a "Self-Aware Universe." (Unfortunately, nanotechnology is now being stretched into the market lexicon where the term is often being used in quite different ways/applications that most nanotechnology scientists would apply it... caveat emptor.)
If and when mankind can successfully marry the computer hardware field of distributed processing, with the incredible potential of nanotechnology to obtain molecular-sized calculators… if these "nanobots" do increase their capabilities, including learning, self-regeneration and even "creation," as they accumulate additional "units"… then we have that crude analogy for the "Self-Aware Universe," a universe that is self-aware, but "programmed" very differently than Creighton’s creations. From a technological approach, think of the potentials of these same capabilities being "programmed" on "energy units," on the origins of light itself, so much smaller than our concepts of molecules or atoms that it is far beyond our current imagination. Hold this concept in mind when we go on to the "next Chapter" at http://lprww.us/lprwwBk1Ch2-The Nature of Reality.html.
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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER:
And so, we have the various engineering disciplines that, collectively and in their essence, do not possess the true level of knowledge that appears to be in existence from the proliferation of goods that is evident in the world today. We have the physical sciences that, while making some progress, readily admit to their lack of the deeper understanding they are pursuing, even as some of their more thoughtful participants look to a universal integrated solution which also incorporates Eastern and Western philosophies. In that regard, the "philosophy" aspect of these sciences as in Aristotle's time through to Galileo's, and even as late as the first part of the 19th century, seems to be re-appearing. This time around, it is also somewhat reinforced by implications from quantum mechanics, if any of the references authored by established physicists are an indication.
Unfortunately, in so many 'scientific' fields, we also have far too many bury-your-head-in-the-sand conventionally oriented 'scientists' that are primarily out to defend their own limited-knowledge areas, not willing, for one reason or another, to look at the greater picture that is emerging in our world of science, which is considerably beyond our conventional 'knowledge.' Again unfortunately, these 'scientists' (including 'science writers') typically quite actively put down anything they can't understand, rather than attempting to be objective. As such, they are simply performing at an extremely limited level of understanding and performance, yet they have access to a wide audience simply because they possess Ph.D.s, and are generally in academia! With the preponderance of this attitude among so many influencial Ph.D.s, I'm getting to the point that I'm almost ashamed to admit that I am also a Ph.D.) :-( One of the growing number of "establishment" scientists, John O'M. Bockris, in "The New Paradigm: A Confrontation Between Physics and the Paranormal Phenomena," has come out with much of what I have attempted to present above. Doonsbury caught the essence in this cartoon:
As Herman Weyl has been quoted: "Scientists would be wrong to ignore the fact that theoretical construction is not the only approach to the phenomena of life; another way, that of understanding from within, is open to us... Of myself, of my own acts of perception, thought, volition feeling and doing, I have a direct knowledge entirely different from the theoretical knowledge that represents the 'parallel' cerebral processes in symbols. This inner awareness of myself is the basis for the understanding of my fellowmen whom I meet and acknowledge as beings of my own kind, with whom I communicate sometimes so intimately as to share joy and sorrow with them(20)."
And as Livio states: "There have been many attempts to make various comparisons between the big bang and religious descriptions of the moment of creation. Most of these concentrate either on the biblical account or on Far Eastern religions. Examples include Gary Zukov's The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, and Richard Elliot Friedman's The Disappearance of God(21)." Of course, these opinions have to be weighed against the "science will prevail" philosophies of Pagels(22) and Wilbur(23). Interestingly, Wilbur writes in his preface: "The theme of this book, if I may briefly summarize the argument of the physicists presented herein, is that modern physics offers no positive support (let alone proof) for a mystical worldview. Nevertheless, every one of the physicists in this volume was a mystic." The roster of these physicists comprises a who's-who of the field: Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Einstein, DeBroglie, Jeans, Planck, Pauli and Eddington.
In Gary Zukav's The Seat of the Soul, his sequel to The Dancing Wu Li Masters, he writes in the Foreword: "During the years that I was writing The Dancing Wu Li Masters and after, I was drawn again and again to the writings of William James, Carl Jung, Benjamin Lee Worf, Niels Bohr and Albert Einstein. I returned to them repeatedly. I found in them something special, although it was not until later that I was able to understand that specialness: these fellow humans reached for something greater than they were able to express through their work. They saw more than they could express in the language of psychology or linguistics or physics, and they sought to share what they saw. It is what they sought to share through the medium of their work that drew me to them. They were mystics. That is my word. They would not use such language, but they knew it(24)."
Going back to Livio, he continues with: "I personally have always regarded the description of creation in Genesis as a wonderful metaphor and a truly poetic account of what was surely in ancient times, and to a large extent still today, an incomprehensible event. This is actually nicely expressed by one concept in the Cabala, a somewhat mystical medieval movement in Judaism. In the Cabala, the creation of the universe is so inseparable from the concept of the deity itself that the creation of the universe actually occurs within God(21)."
Now, this last quote is very interesting, considering that this is a somewhat ancient concept. In our recent past, Alice Bailey's channeled works(25) also seemed to hint at a similar concept. Then, along comes quantum theory/quantum mechanics with many mind-numbing concepts when compared to our traditional mechanistic view of the universe, and the rash of writers, including highly educated physicists, that exhibit every indication of puzzlement and wonder, even being labeled with the term "mystic." The true summing up, however, was published in 1995(26), when Amit Goswami's works came out. The Self-Aware Universe, to me, sums up everything the ancient and modern mystics, the religions of the world and quantum theory/quantum mechanics has been telling us for years: That everything is part of everything else. If we look at the universe from THAT perspective, I believe our learning will accelerate, as well as our internal development.
'Way back in 1932, Bailey published another book entitled From Intellect to Intuition(27). From my personal experiences, this was somewhat misstated, since, today, I would suggest that a more appropriate title as "From Intellect to Intuition and Intellect"... for that is, from the human perspective, also a goal well worth pursuing and one the great thinkers of the past, from Galileo to Einstein, were capable of. (I would seriously doubt that it was Galileo's intent for us to initiate scientific methods in such a mechanistic manner that we would turn away from our deeper selves to assist in our investigations of the universe!)
It is from that perspective that this book originates: To enable as many as are willing to get in touch with that part of themselves; to accelerate that learning and development toward the integration of the intellect and intuition in addition to inspiring a re-connection with the universe... a connection we once had, but have long since forgotten.
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