Schrödinger's cat

And now for a brief journey into the bizarre world of quantum physics... and the promise of a spiritual bent at the end. I've blogged about this before, but I want to come back to it.

Schrödinger's cat.

Schrödinger was a physicist in the early 1900s who proposed that the quantum universe was a very strange place indeed. He found that quantum particles had no definite state until they were observed. They were all possible states until they were observed. He used the example of a cat in a box to make his point in case.

He asked that we believe a subatomic particle was a cat, in a box. You don't know if the cat is dead or alive inside the box until you open it to find out. But the real mindf*#% was that, according to quantum mechanics, the cat would be both dead AND alive until you observed it - and that by observing it you would be sealing its fate and it would become one or the other forever.

Now this information is interesting to think about in all kinds of ways - but my favourite way of thinking about it is in the personal sense - that this is true of us on a larger scale. The entire universe exists in a state of endless possibilities. We are not simply the one thing we think we are - but by thinking we are that one thing (by observing ourselves, we create that reality.

But we are made up of particles that do not exist as any one thing, they exist as everything - and they bounce in and out of existence by the second.

The next time I find myself saying I can't or I'm not.. I'll have to remember that I can and I am... unless I decide that I can't or I'm not. Because we are infinite until we decide we're not.

I'll leave you with this daily gem from Lolcats which inspired my post today:

Don't Look Now but...

Excuse my double post today - but this is truly exciting and maddening and awesome.

An article came out today arguing that by observing dark matter, we have determined the fate of our cosmos - and that we have inadvertently caused the end of of the known universe.

This works because of the laws of quantum physics - basically everything on a subatomic level exists in a state of possibility. Basically a subatomic particle might be an apple, an orange or a diesel submarine, but it is also none of those things until you observe it. Then, let's say you observe it as an orange - it will forever be an orange. (As a super tangential side note, proponents of the multiple universe idea would say that in other universes that particle will exist as an apple or a sub.)

So... what scientists are now arguing is that dark matter was, like everything in a quantum state, not a "sure thing" until we observed it - and by observing it we have now made it fact.

And now the universe will decay and expand until it grows cold and dies.

We as humans seem to have a whole lot of power. Doesn't it give you a little rush knowing how much of the universe seems to be determined by our ability to observe it? Kinda lends to the idea that each of us are gods in our own right - creating on the go.

Domo arigato, Mr. Emoto

I think all of this intention stuff is starting to get to me. And I'm starting to feel like a crazy person. In the middle of my yoga class last night I found myself staring at my water bottle, trying to alter the molecules of my water to give me more energy. I mean, Mr. Emoto! Look at what you've done to me!

Did it work? Well yes, actually. I found my water to be particularly refreshing, colder than expected and I had a very strong class. But I'm now starting to feel almost as crazy as Madonna with her Kabbalah water. Silly Madonna, don't you know you can bless your own water for free?

But seriously - all this reading about reiki and intention... Where it all comes together for me is just in the message of the hidden powers of the mind to affect our surroundings in a measurable, concrete way. For me, this is evolution, is finally accepting that we CAN heal, affect the outcome of things, change the mood of those around us, diffuse conflict, and do thousands of other things simply by thinking it.

The first step, as with anything, is acceptance. Without that, people would never even try to do something like heal their child's belly ache by channeling healing energy into their solar plexus. But if you accept that we are capable of such things, it becomes almost impossible to stop doing it.

I'm starting to believe that we are blessed - all of us - with powers beyond our comprehension. I think we can affect change by changing our thought patterns, by "connecting to the source" as Wayne Dyer would say, or more accurately (see Lynne McTaggart's work) by plugging into The Field.

What is The Field, you ask?

A bit like finding there is such a thing as The Force in Star Wars. The Field tells the story of respected frontier scientists all over the globe who have produced extraordinary evidence to show that an energy field -The Zero Point Field - connects everything in the universe, and we ourselves are part of this vast dynamic cobweb of energy exchange.

(Click here to read more about it. Visit the link in my right-hand menu to buy it so you can go crazy with power too!)

I swear, this stuff changes you.

Oh and if you are interested in learning more about The Field - Lynne McTaggart is giving a seminar in Toronto later this month. Go here for more details.

Hi Universe, It's Me, Diana

Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind. -Albert Einstein

I get really excited about people working to unite physics and metaphysics. I think part of the reason is that I found spirituality through science. I think, like a lot of people, I had been perfectly happy to side with science. We had proof, calculations that explained how we came to be. Religions had nothing but a book and a promise. Science 1, Religion 0.

But as I got older, things got a bit more muddied. I discovered space. Not the near planets, not the constellations and their Greek mythologies - but deep space. The space they don't tell you about in high school.

Because while I had been wading around in my blissful teenage self-absorption, some very smart people decided to send a telescope out into space. Then they decided to point it at a very empty-looking piece of blackness about the size of your pinky fingernail. And then they opened up the shutter for 11 days.

And when they finally blinked, they saw this:



Over 10,000 galaxies, as they existed billions of years ago.

The first time I saw it, I couldn't find my breath. My heart leapt. It was the most beautiful and humbling thing I had ever seen or known.

I wish this was mandatory learning - there should be centres where you can go and recline and look up at a great big IMAX dome projecting this image 24/7. Because seeing it, thinking about how every light in that picture represents a galaxy, comprised of billions of stars. To think that there are more stars in the universe than there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the earth.

It made me feel small, but special. And that's exactly what god does for most people, right? Makes one feel small, but special. I guess that's how I found (my) god. The universe became something much more complicated and abstract than I had thought - and it challenged all of my notions of how things work - because when it came to the bigger stuff, I soon discovered that even the best scientists out there just kind of shrug. They don't have all the answers either. Believe me.

I later came across quantum physics - another interesting little branch of science that had the lab coats scratching their heads. Particles acting like they have a memory? What on earth?!

But as we start to understand the universe in all its facets and functions. I hope that we'll also find out more about how we as a species fit into the bigger picture.