Yoga and science

Yoga Discussion General Yoga
#1

I would like to post a brief explanation of how science works to avoid confusion when talking about science and it’s relation to Yoga. I hope to provide some useful tools for anyone interested in truth, as I very much am.

My first suggestion is; whenever a scientific claim is made (particularly extraordinary claims such as evidence for god, chakras, prana, enlightenment etc) ask, has there been a peer reviewed paper on the topic appear in a mainstream scientific journal? This is a very good milestone for any scientific ideas to attain any credibility. The way science works is, first the crazy ideas are submitted to a peer review by other scientist who will find any flaws in the claims being made. If the crazy idea passes the peer review process, it will appear in a mainstream journal. Then other scientists who read the new idea, decide if the idea is important and useful (by the way, a claim for evidence of god would be considered crucially important and useful). The idea may even be referred to support any other findings made by other scientists.
Ok so if the idea has been subject to a peer review and had appeared in a mainstream journal, the idea now has credibility and can be taken seriously. If a claim has not gone through this process, and the person/persons making the claim say things like ‘no it hasn’t had a peer review cause science is a conspiracy to stop me from saying these thing’ or if they start whining etc, this is a pretty good indication that the claims being made are unscientific.

secondly, I would like to explain the difference between science (real) and pseudo-science (not real). Science is a process of examining the universe with a skeptical approach, in which the evidence does all the talking. It’s approached with a ‘clean slate’ and the evidence is all that matters. Not the opinions or interpretations.
pseudo-science on the other hand, is ‘science’ with an agenda. That is that rather than a ‘clean slate’, the examiner has a pre-existing idea that they wish to support with any evidence they can find. An example is ‘I believe in god, and I will use science to prove it’. This is separate from real science, as there is already a conclusion, and the evidence is used in an attempt to prove the pre-existing idea. The conclusion ‘I believe in god’, is not subject to questioning, but rather the evidence is subject to distortion and manipulation. The examiner then manipulates the public (just like they did, the evidence), and claims ‘we discovered god through scientific analysis’.

Lastly I would like to very briefly mention Quantum Mechanics (QM), and it’s popularity in religion. QM is a complex subject. The leaders in the field profess that if one claims to understand QM, they don’t understand QM. It is a very mysterious filed of science, and the fact that it is not fully understood, even by the top scientist in the field, makes it the perfect field of science to use when trying to ‘prove’ metaphysical claims. The line between fantasy and reality, can be easily blurred when talking about QM and religion. QM is easy to manipulate and distort to support any metaphysical claims like god etc. My advice is when anyone attempts to ‘prove’ supernatural claims through the use of QM, treat it like a magician on the street making things disappear and reappear via an optical illusion, as this is what QM is being popularly used as in religious circles. A magic trick.

#2

The beauty of Yoga is it has a very scientific ethic. If you talk to any Yoga teacher they will tell you: “Do the practice, and find out for yourself” You are not required to believe in anything in Yoga. You simply do the practice prescribed and the truth will be revealed. Buddha had this approach. He refused to deal with metaphysical questions. He simply said practice the 8-fold path and find out for yourself.

When you start having direct experiences of things, say the recall of past life memories, OBE’s, Kundalini awakening, seeing auras which you will if you maintain a spiritual practice such as pranayama and meditation, you will accept these things yourself.

It is obvious you do not accept rational evidence. You only accept what empirical science says, and that too only what classical physics says. In a way your approach mirrors what a religious person would do, only accept what their scripture says and nothing else. So rather than having an open-mind on this matter, it would be safe to say your mind is firmly closed on it. In which case you will have to just practice and find out yourself at some point in the future. If you are not even going to do that, then you will never find out if you’re right or wrong.

Your classification of science and pseudoscience is flawd I am afraid, because even science has an agenda. The most naive mistake is to think that science does not have an agenda. Science relies on funds and funds come either from governments or private companies. Scientists are hired to go out and do scientific research to back-up a hypothesis that private company or government has. This has been done for example with the millions spent on global warming research to push the agenda behind global warming. Drug companies do it all the time to produce favourable scientific data to support their drugs. A recent survey showed that scientists admit to fudging data to get a desired results. Some scientific proposals do not get any funding, and as a result they get sidelined.

It is naive to say that science has no agenda. There is politics galore in science. For example the peer-review process you tout as the defacto standard of deciding what is scientific is simply based on what a panel thinks of your research or whether they want to or can replicate your results. If they don’t like your research they can simply void it. This is a subjective process because it involves human judgement. Another area where human judgement creeps into the scientific process is known as the null hypothesis in science. The null hypothesis is the accepted hypothesis. If your scientific data contradicts the null hypothesis your contradictory data has to be rejected as just an anamolie unless there is significant contradictory data(who decides what is significant) in basic language it means science brushes under the carpet any scientific evidence that goes against the current theories and is highly reluctant to accept it. It took 20 years to accept Einstein’s work on the photoelectric effect. It has taken 80 years to accept some of the major findings of QM, and even today there is not wide acceptance.

Pseudoscience is basically something which has a made up scientific description which is not falsifiable. For example if I said the cause for gravity is the electrodynamic vortex energy in the atom. It sounds scientific, but it is nonsense. There is a lot of nonsense like this peddeled in the new age and merchanzie sold such the hyperdimensional energy machine.

Finally coming to QM. You keep citing somebodies opinion that if you claim to understand QM you do not really understand it as some kind of fundamental truth. No, it is somebodies opinion. My physics professor at college use to similar things about relativity, “If you claim to understand relativity theory, you don’t” There are plenty of people who understand QM and have written books on it. In the other thread I have already shown you that QM’s findings do indeed support Eastern metaphysics. I showed you a detailed breakdown of all the classical physics assumptions which QM contradicts and how it related to Eastern metaphysics.

QM simply does not support a materialist worldview. It supports very much an Eastern metaphysical and Yogic worldview. There are plenty of philosophers of science and physicists who have pointed this out, such as Fritjof Capra.

#3

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;37963]QM simply does not support a materialist worldview. It supports very much an Eastern metaphysical and Yogic worldview. There are plenty of philosophers of science and physicists who have pointed this out, such as Fritjof Capra.[/QUOTE]

I might take my own advice here and ask if you could lead me to any material that has been subject to a peer review and published in a mainstream scientific journal that supports eastern metaphysics and the yogic worldview or work put forward by Fritjof Capra? If yes, please enlighten me.

#4

Is there a peer-reviewed paper on love, Adam?

I’ve dated a scientist and one of my best friends is a scientist so I’ve had a fair bit of first-hand experience. What I acknowledge is that science is one branch of knowledge. It is not the entire tree.

So when speaking of science, you are right on, there is a protocol for determining what has scientific validity and what does not. However since all human beings are different it is slightly foolish to ascribe ONLY to a concept that something should be “true” across a population when said members of that population are not exact replicas.

In the practice of Yoga this is illustrated through the masculine and feminine energies. The masculine energy looks to replicate an experience across a group in order to validate it. This is a rational or mental energy.

The feminine energy is intuitive and is exactly opposite to the above scenario - if something can be replicated across a group it can’t possibly be “true” due to individuality of the population. The proof there is only if it is true for one person.

So from the yoga perspective these two forces must be balanced. Sound science must be incorporated AND heart-felt intuition must also be utilized - though both can be distorted by the person wielding. I believe the works of Greg Braden and Joseph Chilton Pearce reinforce this to a degree.

#5

[QUOTE=InnerAthlete;37971]Is there a peer-reviewed paper on love, Adam?

I’ve dated a scientist and one of my best friends is a scientist so I’ve had a fair bit of first-hand experience. What I acknowledge is that science is one branch of knowledge. It is not the entire tree.

So when speaking of science, you are right on, there is a protocol for determining what has scientific validity and what does not. However since all human beings are different it is slightly foolish to ascribe ONLY to a concept that something should be “true” across a population when said members of that population are not exact replicas.

In the practice of Yoga this is illustrated through the masculine and feminine energies. The masculine energy looks to replicate an experience across a group in order to validate it. This is a rational or mental energy.

The feminine energy is intuitive and is exactly opposite to the above scenario - if something can be replicated across a group it can’t possibly be “true” due to individuality of the population. The proof there is only if it is true for one person.

So from the yoga perspective these two forces must be balanced. Sound science must be incorporated AND heart-felt intuition must also be utilized - though both can be distorted by the person wielding. I believe the works of Greg Braden and Joseph Chilton Pearce reinforce this to a degree.[/QUOTE]

Yes, I absolutely appreciate where your coming from. This is the reason I included to mention ‘for anyone interested in truth’. I am aware that many people pursue happiness, and are not really concerned with what is true. It’s funny you should mention this as a feminine aspect, cause it’s people like my mum and girlfriend that are not concerned with truth, but more with happiness. Which I fully understand. On the other hand, I myself, for reasons unknown to me, am very concerned with truth. Now obviously truth is a singular phenomena, by definition. If, for example, we look at the origins of life, two explanations are 1) Evolution by natural selection, and 2) Creationism. When we are talking about which explanation is true, both explanation can not be true. Either one of them is true, or none of them is true. That’s obviously the nature of truth. Something is either true, or it is untrue. If I was to suggest that there are many truths, and everyone has to find their own truth, I’m failing to appreciate what the term truth actually means. I did used to concern my self with happiness, regardless of what is true, but I am solely now only concerned with truth. In this pursuit, I understand that science may not be totally adequate, but it is absolutely essential… but I fully can appreciate that one may be far interested in happiness, over truth. Ironically though, I am much happier to learn about the truth of reality, than seek after happiness.

#6

Interesting post Adam. What you say about peer review process is something that lot of people miss about science. They think that its enough to be rational to do science. But consent of peers is essential in scientific work to be recognized - so its also sociological phenomena. But it sometimes results in funny effects. E.g. how slow science is to recognize obvious facts. Like Ig Nobel prizes (it makes me laugh every time):

http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2010

It’s just hilarious that we have to make a proper research to scientifically claim that e.g. fleas living on dog can jump higher than those livings on cat :smiley:

In general, I find complexity of perception of the world using science just not practical in every day life and action. Basically every statement you make has to be backed up by references to previous studies (preferably repeated by different groups). For example, if you want to be scientific, you can’t think that your stomach hurts because you had some bad fast food for breakfast. You would have to make controlled experiment and map physiological pathways leading from a burger to nervous signals of pain reaching your brain. So avoiding fast food for breakfast next time wouldn’t be scientific approach - just guesswork.

People don’t appreciate how complex and demanding scientific thinking is. And sometimes ridiculous (as you can see at this website).

But apart from this painfully demanding reality of scientific work there is a huge amount of creativity. People have more ideas than they are able to realize. So obviously they will choose the most relevant ones. The ones that will be appreciated by peers and attract funding - thats reality.

I agree QM and spirituality is a mess. People tend to misuse it to promote metaphysical claims. The easiest way to check it is to analyze their language. For example if they use words “exist”. Nature of existence is a domain of philosophy, not QM. QM is just providing theoretical platform to explain relations between physical observables (energy, momentum, position etc.). Even this famous wave function is just artificial mathematical construct for maths to work. You can have your QM without any wave function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_mechanics). So people who use concept of wave function to explain how the world is constructed are just misusing the mathematical concepts.

#7

I am afraid you do not see see the problem in your request, but I indicated it in my earlier post. A peer reviewed journal article does not indicate anything other than that it has got the approval of a panel. If it does not get approval, it indicates the panel did not like it. It does not indicate it is false.

There are literally hundreds of journals in the world. If one journal does not like an article, another possibly will. Moreover, if one journal posts an article stating x view, another journal will post an article stating y view on the same matter. In any case just to prove to you the parallels between QM and spirituality/idealism/metaphysics are real and noted by many scholars and they do get published in journals, I have found the following journal articles:

http://iopscience.iop.org/0031-9120/22/1/002

Abstract:

In what light should a scientist regard the assertions of a religion, or of religions in general? One extreme position is the atheistic one of regarding the assertions of religion as falsehoods. Such a position can be sustained only by regarding the experiences which individuals consider as validating their religious beliefs as being explicable in other ways and, in the absence of an adequate research programme to support it, must be considered more as falling within the field of opinion that as within that of science. The alternative to this atheistic position is that there exists an aspect of reality-that one may for convenience call transcendental-which embraces the subject matter of religion (or as some may prefer to term it, the spiritual aspect of life) and which is not at present encompassed by science. The question then arises whether some future science may be able to cope with this aspect of reality, or whether it will remain forever beyond the scope of science. The author attempts to explain the ways in which current scientific orthodoxies are being challenged and to convey some idea of the alternatives presently emerging. A number of important themes here include the questions of the validity of reductionism and the universality of quantum mechanics, as well as that of the relevance of mystical experience

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v403/n6769/abs/403515a0.html

Abstract:

Bell's theorem1 states that certain statistical correlations predicted by quantum physics for measurements on two-particle systems cannot be understood within a realistic picture based on local properties of each individual particle—even if the two particles are separated by large distances. Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen first recognized2 the fundamental significance of these quantum correlations (termed 'entanglement' by Schr?dinger3) and the two-particle quantum predictions have found ever-increasing experimental support4. A more striking conflict between quantum mechanical and local realistic predictions (for perfect correlations) has been discovered5, 6; but experimental verification has been difficult, as it requires entanglement between at least three particles. Here we report experimental confirmation of this conflict, using our recently developed method7 to observe three-photon entanglement, or 'Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger' (GHZ) states. The results of three specific experiments, involving measurements of polarization correlations between three photons, lead to predictions for a fourth experiment; quantum physical predictions are mutually contradictory with expectations based on local realism. We find the results of the fourth experiment to be in agreement with the quantum prediction and in striking conflict with local realism.

It is shown that, in the contect of an idealized ‘‘macroscopic quantum coherence’’ experiment, the prediction of quantum mechanics are incompattible with the conjunction of two general assimptions which are designated ‘‘macroscopic realism’’ and ‘‘noninvasive measurability at the macroscopiclevel.’’ The conditions under which quantum mechanics can be tested against these assumptions in a realistic experiment are discussed.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v446/n7138/full/nature05677.html

Abstract:

Most working scientists hold fast to the concept of ‘realism’—a viewpoint according to which an external reality exists independent of observation. But quantum physics has shattered some of our cornerstone beliefs. According to Bell’s theorem, any theory that is based on the joint assumption of realism and locality (meaning that local events cannot be affected by actions in space-like separated regions) is at variance with certain quantum predictions. Experiments with entangled pairs of particles have amply confirmed these quantum predictions, thus rendering local realistic theories untenable. Maintaining realism as a fundamental concept would therefore necessitate the introduction of ‘spooky’ actions that defy locality. Here we show by both theory and experiment that a broad and rather reasonable class of such non-local realistic theories is incompatible with experimentally observable quantum correlations. In the experiment, we measure previously untested correlations between two entangled photons, and show that these correlations violate an inequality proposed by Leggett for non-local realistic theories. Our result suggests that giving up the concept of locality is not sufficient to be consistent with quantum experiments, unless certain intuitive features of realism are abandoned.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/j842v3324u512nx0/

Abstract:

Quantum nonlocality as an axiom
In the conventional approach to quantum mechanics, indeterminism is an axiom and nonlocality is a theorem. We consider inverting the logical order, making nonlocality an axiom and indeterminism a theorem. Nonlocal superquantum correlations, preserving relativistic causality, can violate the CHSH inequality more strongly than any quantum correlations.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/grm8305g7146507r/

Mind, matter, and quantum mechanics

Abstract:

A theory of psychophysical phenomena is proposed. It resolves simultaneously four basic problems of science, namely the problems of the connections between:(1) mind and matter,(2) quantum theory and reality,(3) relativity theory and becoming, and (4) relativity theory and Bell's theorem.
This work was supported by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Division of High Energy Physics of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract W-7405-EN-G-48.

#8

Some historical context is improtant to understand how destructive QM has been to the materialist and classical worldview. Prior to QM science spoke with a voice of authority and everybody would accept whatever scientists said, because science was considered to be fact and it was not open to any kind of debate or interpretation. QM absolutely changed that first when Max Plank discovered the discontinuity when studying black body radiation. He discovered energy was not given of continuously, but in discreet packets of quanta in a jumping like manner. Meanwhile, Einstein was working on the photoelectric effect and he showed that light was made up of photons. This is the first time there was varience in physics. Sometimes light exhibited the properties of a wave and sometimes of a particle. It took almost 20 years for the physics community to accept this duality was real.(Peer review process does not produce truth necessarily)

But the most damaging experiment to the classical worldview came with the double slit experiment. In this experiment you can “see” the electron turning into a wave and turning back into a particle on the moment of observation. How and why did it collapse into a wave? How did it turn back into a particle when it was observed. This was massively controversial in physics until Schrodinger solved the problem with his wavemechanics. He showed that the electron was originally a wavefunction which collapses into a particle. All things are wavefunctions before they are collapsed. But nobody understood why the collapse took place. Then Bhor and Heisenberg stated the obvious called the Copenhagen interpretation: the collapse took place because of the observers observation. Somehow consciousness itself collapses the wavefunction and brings reality into existence, presupposing that consciousness is prior to particles.

And this is where the controversy hit fever pitch. What the Copenhagen interpreation was suggesting that without an observer there is no reality. Almost all of the scientific community hated this conclusion, even Schordinger who tried to show how absurd it was with his cat paradox. It was posited there must be hidden variables that we cannot see which cause the wavefunction to collapse before observation. Others came up with even bizaree theories such Everett’s many worlds interpretation, that the wavefunction collapses into a parallel universe with every choice we make. But the fact was clear that the Copenhagen interpretation was the simplest one and every other interpretation a speculation. In order to test hidden variable John Bell developed the experiment of the Bell inequalities, which if violated, will disprove hidden variable theory. Alain aspect was the first to do the experiment. The experiment has since been done again and again disproving hidden variable theory and proving non-locality. The latest experiment done is a adapted version of Bell’s experiment, which tests for reality. Again the inequality has been violated.

There are no hidden variables. The observer causes reality to come into existence. The materialist needs to move on now and realise QM has disproven reality and locality.

#9

Correct me if I missed it, but I saw nothing on Yoga, prana, chakras, enlightenment etc… Did I miss the part that talks about that?

#10

No, I said the Yogic/Vedic worldview has been proven correct by QM. QM has proven that the physical universe is not real and that without an observer there will be no physical universe to perceive. In other words the physical universe only exists insofar as consciousness is present. Moreover, consciousness is prior to matter, in other words it existed even before the physical universe came into existence. Just as Yoga says: The self has always existed.

Finally, I have already showed you that the existence of Prana and Akasha has also been proven through the discovery of the zero point energy field from which quantum forces can be channeled and used for various purposes. Just as Prana is channeled from the akasha and used by the Yogi for various purposes.

Why oppose what is so obviously true?

#11

[QUOTE=Surya Deva;37979]No, I said the Yogic/Vedic worldview has been proven correct by QM. QM has proven that the physical universe is not real and that without an observer there will be no physical universe to perceive. In other words the physical universe only exists insofar as consciousness is present. Moreover, consciousness is prior to matter, in other words it existed even before the physical universe came into existence. Just as Yoga says: The self has always existed.

Finally, I have already showed you that the existence of Prana and Akasha has also been proven through the discovery of the zero point energy field from which quantum forces can be channeled and used for various purposes. Just as Prana is channeled from the akasha and used by the Yogi for various purposes.

Why oppose what is so obviously true?[/QUOTE]

Ok, well just as I suspected, there’s sweet F all anywhere about Yoga. It’s YOU asserting YOUR beliefs onto science. You look at QM, cause it’s easy to manipulate, and you can make it work for you. Why don’t you do what a true visionary scientist does, and drop your agenda, assertions and everything. Start from scratch with a clean slate, and unless you find a mainstream science journal or text book mention yoga, prana, enlightenment or god, take them as non-science. If you want to believe these things because they make you happy, then I don’t want to take that away from you. but don’t dress it up as science just to justify to yourself why you assert them. Contrary to what you like to tell yourself, science does not have an agenda, that’s the whole point. That’s the heart of what science is about. Saying science has an agenda, is like saying water is dry.

#12

Interesting thread! (I know that’s not much of a contribution just wanted to say I’m enjoying it!)

#13

[QUOTE=byrd62au;37983]Interesting thread! (I know that’s not much of a contribution just wanted to say I’m enjoying it!)[/QUOTE]

Thank you fellow Aussie! :slight_smile:

#14

[QUOTE=Pawel;37975]Interesting post Adam. What you say about peer review process is something that lot of people miss about science. They think that its enough to be rational to do science. But consent of peers is essential in scientific work to be recognized - so its also sociological phenomena. But it sometimes results in funny effects. E.g. how slow science is to recognize obvious facts. Like Ig Nobel prizes (it makes me laugh every time):

http://improbable.com/ig/ig-pastwinners.html#ig2010

It’s just hilarious that we have to make a proper research to scientifically claim that e.g. fleas living on dog can jump higher than those livings on cat :smiley:

In general, I find complexity of perception of the world using science just not practical in every day life and action. Basically every statement you make has to be backed up by references to previous studies (preferably repeated by different groups). For example, if you want to be scientific, you can’t think that your stomach hurts because you had some bad fast food for breakfast. You would have to make controlled experiment and map physiological pathways leading from a burger to nervous signals of pain reaching your brain. So avoiding fast food for breakfast next time wouldn’t be scientific approach - just guesswork.

People don’t appreciate how complex and demanding scientific thinking is. And sometimes ridiculous (as you can see at this website).

But apart from this painfully demanding reality of scientific work there is a huge amount of creativity. People have more ideas than they are able to realize. So obviously they will choose the most relevant ones. The ones that will be appreciated by peers and attract funding - thats reality.

I agree QM and spirituality is a mess. People tend to misuse it to promote metaphysical claims. The easiest way to check it is to analyze their language. For example if they use words “exist”. Nature of existence is a domain of philosophy, not QM. QM is just providing theoretical platform to explain relations between physical observables (energy, momentum, position etc.). Even this famous wave function is just artificial mathematical construct for maths to work. You can have your QM without any wave function (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matrix_mechanics). So people who use concept of wave function to explain how the world is constructed are just misusing the mathematical concepts.[/QUOTE]

I really enjoyed this post, thank you so much for the entertaining and educational links.

#15

Hi YogiAdam! I read your all post. All are fantastic. Yes Yoga as a Complete Science considers the structural anatomy of the body, the physiology of the body, organs and glands, the Quantum energy realities that make up the chemistry, the role of consciousness as the observer.

#16

Just read SDs posts and agree with his viewpoint (I checked online and, yes, it is a cold day in hell:)). I’ll post more when I can. Great thread.

#17

[QUOTE=YogiAdam;37981]Ok, well just as I suspected, there’s sweet F all anywhere about Yoga. It’s YOU asserting YOUR beliefs onto science. You look at QM, cause it’s easy to manipulate, and you can make it work for you. Why don’t you do what a true visionary scientist does, and drop your agenda, assertions and everything. Start from scratch with a clean slate, and unless you find a mainstream science journal or text book mention yoga, prana, enlightenment or god, take them as non-science. If you want to believe these things because they make you happy, then I don’t want to take that away from you. but don’t dress it up as science just to justify to yourself why you assert them. Contrary to what you like to tell yourself, science does not have an agenda, that’s the whole point. That’s the heart of what science is about. Saying science has an agenda, is like saying water is dry.[/QUOTE]

Yogadam with comments like this " Saying science has an agenda, is like saying water is dry" you are simplying showing us you have a fundamentalist belief in science, namely classical physics. This comment is not really that different to somebody saying to me, “The bible cannot be false, to say it is false is like saying water is dry”

No, a mainstream science journal does not mention yoga, prana, akasha and chakras etc. Why would they? They are Sanskrit terms from another culture. What mainstream science journal does mention is non-locality, non-realism, observer-dependent-universe, zero point energy field and channeling quantum forces.

You do not seem to realise these are identical descriptions to what the Yogic/Vedic worldview says. The Yogic worldview says reality is maya it is not real but an apparance. There is reality only because there is an observer and reality itself issues forth from the observer. There are various dimensions of reality beyond the physical such as ether, where pranic forces exist that we can channel into the physical.

Like I said QM simply does not support materialism anymore. Like Yoga, it says the fundamental substance of reality is non-material. Nothing actually exists before observation. They even coined a term for it, “virtual space”

In fact we will begin with a clean slate. Show me the proof that the mind and matter are the same thing? To date no scientist has been able to prove this. No materialist philosopher has been able to prove it. Science demands proof so where is your proof that the mind and matter are the same thing?

Every rational person will admit that the mind and matter are not the same thing. The part that you call “I” is not your body and every rational person comes to the same conclusion.

#18

Quantum physics says goodbye to reality
Apr 20, 2007

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/27640

Some physicists are uncomfortable with the idea that all individual quantum events are innately random. This is why many have proposed more complete theories, which suggest that events are at least partially governed by extra “hidden variables”. Now physicists from Austria claim to have performed an experiment that rules out a broad class of hidden-variables theories that focus on realism – giving the uneasy consequence that reality does not exist when we are not observing it (Nature 446 871).

Some 40 years ago the physicist John Bell predicted that many hidden-variables theories would be ruled out if a certain experimental inequality were violated – known as “Bell’s inequality”. In his thought experiment, a source fires entangled pairs of linearly-polarized photons in opposite directions towards two polarizers, which can be changed in orientation. Quantum mechanics says that there should be a high correlation between results at the polarizers because the photons instantaneously “decide” together which polarization to assume at the moment of measurement, even though they are separated in space. Hidden variables, however, says that such instantaneous decisions are not necessary, because the same strong correlation could be achieved if the photons were somehow informed of the orientation of the polarizers beforehand.

Bell’s trick, therefore, was to decide how to orient the polarizers only after the photons have left the source. If hidden variables did exist, they would be unable to know the orientation, and so the results would only be correlated half of the time. On the other hand, if quantum mechanics was right, the results would be much more correlated – in other words, Bell’s inequality would be violated.

Many realizations of the thought experiment have indeed verified the violation of Bell’s inequality. These have ruled out all hidden-variables theories based on joint assumptions of realism, meaning that reality exists when we are not observing it; and locality, meaning that separated events cannot influence one another instantaneously. But a violation of Bell’s inequality does not tell specifically which assumption – realism, locality or both – is discordant with quantum mechanics.

Markus Aspelmeyer, Anton Zeilinger and colleagues from the University of Vienna, however, have now shown that realism is more of a problem than locality in the quantum world. They devised an experiment that violates a different inequality proposed by physicist Anthony Leggett in 2003 that relies only on realism, and relaxes the reliance on locality. To do this, rather than taking measurements along just one plane of polarization, the Austrian team took measurements in additional, perpendicular planes to check for elliptical polarization.

They found that, just as in the realizations of Bell’s thought experiment, Leggett’s inequality is violated – thus stressing the quantum-mechanical assertion that reality does not exist when we’re not observing it. “Our study shows that ‘just’ giving up the concept of locality would not be enough to obtain a more complete description of quantum mechanics,” Aspelmeyer told Physics Web. “You would also have to give up certain intuitive features of realism.”

#19

I am always careful drawing conclusions on the research out there because, as pointed out earlier, for every published theory a counter-theory appears in another journal. Are mind and matter the same? If by mind you mean thought, some research suggests they are.

Several years ago I read a book by Eric J. Lerner "The Big Bang Never Happened’. In it he argues convincingly that the Big Bang is simply Creationism adopted by the scientific world. He shows that by accounting for all the dark matter in the universe, it could not have all been created in 13.7 billion years and we live in a much older universe full of bangs, of which this was only one. Basically plasma theory. At the time, many of his contemporaries jumped up and pointed out inconsistencies in his theory. But, in the past 10 years many of those inconsistencies have been proven possible.

I see this science like the old Indian analogy of blind men feeling an elephant. I think we are all holding on to the tail and arriving at all sorts of conclusions as to what the elephant looks like. Every now and then a blind scientist will bumb the backside of the elephant and go ‘hey, what’s that?’ The others tell him he’s imagining stuff and go back to feeling the tail. A few of them have reached out and are now feeling around the anus and bum, and so changing their theories based on that new bit of information. A long way from the truth, I think.

It may turn out that everything is related. That yoga and meditation does have a place in science. It may not and be merely a dream. Who knows, but it fun to watch!

#20

Karl Popper, the modern giant of philosophy of science(Although he too hated QM) argues that science advances through falsification of old theories, and progressively and asymptotically converges on the truth. He was of the opinion though, that science will never get to the absolute truth, but it will be able to falsify all of the bad theories and leave us with the closest theory to the truth. This is indeed true, we are not going to ever go back to Aristotlian physics or Newtonian physics, because they are bad theories and disproven now. Likewise, classical physics is now a disproven theory. QM has disproven all of its main assumptions(locality, causal determinism, realism, materialism etc)
and it is very safe to say they are disproven because now we are actually using technology based on QM which cannot exist according to classical physics.

Does this mean QM is the end of physics? Karl Popper hated this conclusion and had vicious arguments with Bohr on asserting this. According to Popper QM too will get falsified like its predecessors. Popper is right and QM is on its ways to getting falsified by string theory. But, as for the classical universe goes, it is dead and buried. QM has now shown us that beyond the physical universe there are non-physical dimensions. Something rational philosophers have known since the beginning of time that this universe is not just matter, it is also mind. Surely enough, while string theory is the theory that claims to falsify QM, string theory takes off where QM has left and posits just how many other dimensions there are. As these dimensions are not physical, string theory has to use another scientific method, pure mathematics to prove their existence.
This is why modern physics has become theoretical.

The mind and matter or mind and body problem has not yet been solved by any materialist philosopher or any scientist. There are attempts and claims, but no actual demonstrated solutions. Anybody who can solve this problem called the hard problem of consciousness is guaranteed an instant nobel prize. But some problems are actually not really problems. The attempt to reduce mind to matter is actually as illogical as trying to put a square peg in a triangle hole. If mind is not matter, how can you possibly reduce mind to matter?

As I said earlier, materialism has been a dying ontology in the 20th century. It has tried very hard to stay alive, but it has sustained one attack after the other by modern science and the death blow has finally been given to it in the 21st century where materialism has been completely destroyed. The title of the article gives it away, “Quantum physics says goodbye to reality” Similarly, in neurology the penny has dropped as well with the emergence of the holographic theory of the brain, where the scientist Karl Pribream has proven that memory is non-local. The biological sciences have been the slowest to accept the new theory of QM, but they too are changing now with the growing acceptance of bioenergetic fields and increasing number of biologists are starting to accept quantum energy healing(the equivalent of pranic healing)

We are at the cusp of a major paradigm shift from a materialist worldview into an idealist worldview. An idealist worldview is going to dominate the 21st century. This is why I maintain that the Yogic/Vedic worldview is the view emerging in modern science. The materialists now are a dying breed. One day we are going to look back at them as the modern equivalent of earth-earthers.