Monthly Archives: September 2018

Upcoming Talk: What Psychologists & Quantum Physicists Can Teach Each Other

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By Doug Marman

I will be giving a talk at a university in Toronto on Friday, October 5 at 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM, EDT, at York University, 4700 Keele Street, Toronto, ON, Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3. The public is welcome to attend.

You can find more information at these links:
Facebook, Meetup, The Hidden Teachings of Rumi webpage

Here is an overview of what I will be talking about:

For the last 100 years, psychologists have been moving toward a more scientific approach, to find principles that can be established on the firm ground of objectivity. At the same time, quantum physicists have been turning the foundations of physics in exactly the opposite direction, toward the realization that objectivity is impossible when observing quantum behavior; that “forces” do not force particles, they only influence them; and that it is quantum entanglement between particles and the environment that create the appearance of a solid objective reality.

Psychology can learn important lessons from these quantum discoveries. For example, it offers new insights into the recent “replication crisis” in psychology experiments by showing that there is a direct relationship between the replication problem and the “measurement problem” in quantum physics. I recently published an interpretation of quantum mechanics that also suggests the possibility that subatomic particles may behave so strangely because they possess an element of sentience, and all of the strangest aspects of quantum mechanics can be explained by this sentience. This new interpretation predicts that quantum behavior should also be present whenever relationships form between sentient agents, including organisms and human beings. If this is true, then psychology will never become a hard science like classical physics because there are too many quantum effects involved in human perception and experience.

At the same time, psychology has lessons it can teach physics. Over the last century, physicists have failed to find a way to understand the quantum mystery. Perceptual “sets” and “schemas” offer insights that open the door to a deeper understanding. The scientific lens of perception comes from schemas learned from centuries of studying mechanisms and reactions to forces. This is why the principle of objectivity became the foundation of science at the same time as the Industrial Revolution took off. But this lens of perception has not been able to solve the paradoxes of quantum mechanics, the mystery of what makes organisms alive, or the enigma of consciousness. An understanding of perceptual sets can play a role in expanding the reach of quantum physics, especially when it gives us insights into why quantum relationships between sentient quanta should indeed create forces of attraction and repulsion, as physicists have learned.

If have questions, comments, feedback, or would just like to engage in dialogue on this subject, feel free to start the discussion below.

Science Paper Published: The Lenses of Perception Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

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By Doug Marman

A paper I wrote for the peer reviewed Integral Review Journal was just published. You can read the paper here: http://integral-review.org/current_issue/vol-14-no-1-aug-2018/

This paper is a formal scientific paper that I have been working on for two years. I have tried to write it to be understandable to anyone who enjoys science and knows something about quantum physics. If you have read my book, Lenses of Perception, you will see that this paper presents the same ideas in a more formal and more thorough scientific manner.

The Editor-in-Chief of Integral Review Journal, Jonathan Reams, introduces my paper with these comments:

40 years ago I began my university education studying physics, but dropped out and later turned to studying consciousness (and leadership). Along the way I have encountered numerous perspectives on the relationship between the two subjects, with a polarity in perspectives, from materialist interpretations to idealist ones. This conversation continues today, being taken more and more seriously as it becomes apparent that we cannot ignore an integral view of the intimately intertwined nature of consciousness and matter. The science magazine Nature recently highlighted this as an ongoing conundrum (see article here). An example of an integrative perspective comes in the notion of panpsychism, that consciousness is a fundamental feature of physical matter, which is being taken seriously by a wider range of mainstream physicists and others (see article here). All of this leads into the territory IR has always been intended to serve as a platform for new thinking from an integral view.

Thus we fittingly begin this issue with Doug Marman’s The Lenses of Perception Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics. At IR, we are always on the lookout for new thought and Marman delivers on this. His article is a substantive piece of investigation into some of the most fundamental questions science has ever tried to answer. In true transdisciplinary fashion, Marman covers a wide range of disciplinary knowledge. He begins by showing similarities between quanta and living organisms, leading to an inescapable predication that quantum behaviour is driven by sentience. This leads naturally into a detailed examination of consciousness itself and how participation is a creative process of perception…. Marman then lays out a set of nine postulates that lay a more formal foundation to show how his Lenses of Perception interpretation can address a wide ranging and essential set of issues generally held as necessary for any theory to be able to bring coherence to our understanding of all physical processes. Having done this, an examination of quantum formalism and how the LoP interpretation (using first, second and third person lenses) not only meets the tests of quantum formalism, but even shows why the second person lens of relationship is necessary for understanding it. Finally, Marman lays out how his LoP interpretation meets a variety of challenges, including the five unsolved problems of physics, and points to ways to test out this interpretation. The overall scope, depth, breadth and rigor of Marman’s work makes this article a seminal contribution to discourse around these fundamental questions, and IR is pleased to publish it here.

If you have any technical questions, comments, feedback, or if you are interested in dialogue over any of the issues raised in my paper, please feel free to start the discussion below.