Janus (38 page)

^[13]
Among more recent writers, Dr E. Harris Walker,
a ballistics expert, has developed an ingenious quantum-mechanical
theory, in which the hypothetical 'hidden variables' are identified
with consciousness as 'non-physical, but real entities', independent
of space and time, and 'connected to the physical world by means of the
quantum-mechanical wave function'.
^[14]
His theory includes
parapsychological phenomena, but it involves advanced mathematics and
is altogether too technical to be discussed here.

 

* Neutrinos are particles of cosmic origin, devoid of physical
attributes (mass, weight, charge, magnetic field) traversing the
earth (and our bodies) in swarms of billions at the speed of light.

 

Lifting our sights from the bubble chamber to the starry skies, our
commonsense notions of space, time, and causality turn out to be as
inadequate as when we try to apply them to the sub-atomic domain. In the
relativistic universe space is curved and the flow of time is speeded up
or slowed down according to the time-keeper's state of motion. Moreover,
if parts of the universe are furnished with galaxies of anti-matter,*
which many astronomers believe to be the case, there is a fair chance
that in these galaxies the flow of time is reversed.

 

* Anti-matter consists of atoms in which the electric charges of
their constituents are reversed.

 

Switching back from macrocosmos to microcosmos, we remember that in
Feynman's diagrams, particles are supposed to move for a short while
backwards in time. Heisenberg himself endorsed this hypothesis:

 

The only consolation [when faced with the paradoxes of quantum theory]
is the assumption that in very small regions of space-time of the
order of magnitude of the elementary particles, the notions of space
and time become unclear, i.e., in very small intervals even the
concepts 'earlier' and 'later' can no longer be properly defined. Of
course nothing is altered in space-time on the large scale, but we
must bear in mind the possibility that experiment may well prove
that small-scale space -- time processes may run in reverse to the
causal sequence. [15]

 

Thus our medium-sized world with its homely commonsense notions of
space, time and causality appears to be sandwiched in between the macro-
and micro-realms of reality, to which those parochial notions no longer
apply. As Sir James Jeans wrote: 'The history of physical science in the
twentieth century is one of progressive emancipation from the purely
human angle of vision.'
^[16]
On the macrocosmic scale of
large distances and high speeds, relativity played havoc with that
vision. On the micro-cosmic scale, relativity combined with quantum
theory had the same effect. The physicist's concept of time is totally
different today from what it was during Queen Victoria's reign. The most
eminent among contemporary astronomers, Sir Fred Hoyle, has put it in
his provocative way:

 

You're stuck with a grotesque and absurd illusion . . . the idea
of time as an ever-rolling stream . . . There's one thing quite
certain in this business: the idea of time as a steady progression
from past to future is wrong. I know very well we feel this way about
it subjectively. But we're the victims of a confidence trick. [17]

 

But if the irreversibility of time is derived from a 'confidence trick'
-- that is, from a subjective illusion -- we are no longer justified
in excluding on
a priori
grounds the theoretical possibility of
precognitive phenomena such as veridical dreams. The logical paradox
that predicting a future event may prevent it or alter its course, is
at least partly circumvented by the indeterminateness of the future in
modern physics, and the probabilistic nature of all forecasts.

 

 

 

6

 

 

The revolution in physics which thus transformed our world-view took place
in the 1920s. But in the second half of our century it took an even more
surrealistic turn. At the time of writing, the universe appears to be
pock-marked with so-called 'black holes'. The term was coined by John
A. Wheeler, Professor of Physics at Princeton University, and a leading
figure among contemporary physicists.* Black holes are hypothetical pits
or sumps in distant space into which the mass of a burnt-out star which
has suffered gravitational collapse is sucked at the speed of light,
to be annihilated and vanish from our universe. The loci at which these
apocalyptic events take place are referred to as 'singularities' in
the continuum; here, according to the equations of general relativity,
the curvature of space becomes infinite, time is frozen, and the laws
of physics are invalidated. The universe is turning out to be a very
odd place indeed, and we do not need ghosts to make our hair stand on end.

 

* Wheeler's book, Geometrodynamics, published in 1962,
is considered a modern classic.

 

One might be tempted to ask the naive question where the matter which
has fallen into the black hole 'goes' (for not all of it can have been
converted into energy). Wheeler has a tentative answer to that: it might
emerge in the shape of a 'white hole' somewhere in another universe,
located in superspace (his italics):

 

The stage on which the space of the universe moves is certainly not
space itself. Nobody can be a stage for himself; he has to have a
larger arena in which to move. The arena in which space does its
changing is not even the space-time of Einstein, for space-time is
the history of space changing with time. The arena must be a larger
object: super-space . . . It is not endowed with three or
four dimensions -- it's endowed with an infinite number of
dimensions. Any single point in superspace represents an entire,
three-dimensional world; nearby points represent slightly different
three-dimensional worlds. [18]

 

Superspace -- or hyperspace -- has been an old stand-by of science
fiction, together with the notion of parallel universes and reversed
or multidimensional time. Now, thanks to radio-telescopes and
particle-accelerators, they are acquiring academic respectability. The
stranger the hard, experimental data, the stranger the theories which
attempt to account for them.

 

 

Wheeler's version of superspace has some remarkable features:

 

The space of quantum geometrodynamics can be compared to a carpet of
foam spread over a slowly undulating landscape . . . The continual
microscopic changes in the carpet of foam as new bubbles appear and
old ones disappear symbolize the quantum fluctuations in the geometry
. . . [19]

 

Another remarkable attribute of Wheeler's superspace is multiple
connectivity. This means -- put into simple and over-simplified language
-- that regions which in our homespun three-dimensional world are far
apart, may be brought temporarily into direct contact through tunnels or
'holes' in superspace. They are called wormholes. The universe is supposed
to be criss-crossed with these wormholes, which appear and disappear
in immensely rapid fluctuations, resulting in ever-changing patterns --
a cosmic kaleidoscope shaken by an invisible hand.

 

 

 

7

 

 

An essential feature of modern physics is its increasingly
holistic
trend, based on the insight that the whole is as necessary for the
understanding of its parts as the parts are necessary for understanding
the whole. An early expression of this trend, dating from the turn of
the century, was 'Mach's Principle', endorsed by Einstein. It states
that the inertial properties of terrestrial matter are determined by
the total mass of the universe around us. There is no satisfactory
causal explanation as to how this influence is exerted, yet Mach's
Principle is an integral part of relativistic cosmology. The metaphysical
implications are fundamental -- for it follows from it not only that
the universe as a whole influences local, terrestrial events, but also
that local events have an influence, however small, on the universe
as a whole. Philosophically-minded physicists are acutely aware of
these implications -- which remind one of the ancient Chinese proverb:
'If you cut a blade of grass, you shake the Universe.'

 

 

Bertrand Russell flippantly remarked that Mach's Principle, though formally
correct, 'savours of astrology', while Henry Margenau, Professor of Physics
at Yale, commented in an address to the American Society for Psychical
Research:

 

Inertia is not intrinsic in the body; it is induced by the circumstance
that the body is surrounded by the whole universe . . . We know
of no physical effect conveying this action; very few people worry
about a physical agency transmitting it. As far as I can see, Mach's
Principle is as mysterious as your unexplained psychic phenomena,
and its formulation seems to me almost as obscure . . . [20]

 

Switching once more from macro- to microcosmos, we are confronted with
the famous 'Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox'. It has been the subject of
controversy ever since Einstein formulated it in 1933, and has recently
been given a more precise expression by J. S. Bell, a theoretical physicist
at CERN. 'Bell's Theorem' states that when two particles have interacted
and then flown off in opposite directions, interference with one particle
will instantly affect the other particle, regardless of the distance
between them. The correctness of Bell's experimental results is not in
dispute, but its interpretation poses a major problem because it seems
to imply a sort of 'telepathy' between the particles in question. This
is how David Bohm, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Birkbeck College,
University of London, has summed up the situation (his italics):

 

It is generally acknowledged that the quantum theory has many
strikingly novel features . . . However, there has been too little
emphasis on what is, in our view, the most fundamentally different
new feature of all, i.e. the intimate interconnection of different
systems that are not in spatial contact. This has been especially
clearly revealed through the . . . well-known experiments of Einstein,
Podolsky and Rosen . . .
Recently interest in this question has been stimulated by
the work of Bell, who obtained precise mathematical criteria,
distinguishing the experimental consequences of this feature of
'quantum interconnectedness of distant systems' . . . Thus, one is
led to a new notion of unbroken wholeness which denies the
classical idea of analysability of the world into separately and
independently existent parts . . . [21]

 

I must mention one more apparently non-causal law of nature: the so-called
Pauli Exclusion Principle. Wolfgang Pauli, whom I have quoted before, got
the Nobel Prize in 1945 for having discovered it. It says (very roughly
speaking) that any one of the 'planetary orbits' inside an atom can only
be occupied by one electron at a time. If it were not so, chaos would
result and the atom would collapse -- but
why
is it so? The answer --
or rather, absence of an answer -- is vividly indicated in this passage
quoted from Margenau (compressed):

 

Most of the organizing actions that occur in nature are brought about
by the Pauli Principle, which is simply a principle of symmetry,
a formal mathematical characteristic of the equations which in
the end regulate phenomena in nature. Almost miraculously it calls
into being the forces which bind atoms into molecules and molecules
into crystals. The impenetrability of matter, its very stability,
can be directly traced to the Pauli Exclusion Principle. Now, this
principle has no dynamic aspect to it at all. It acts like a force
though it is not a force. We cannot speak of it as doing anything
by mechanical action. No, it is a very general and elusive thing; a
mathematical symmetry imposed upon the basic equations of nature. [22]

 

These quotations (which could be multiplied indefinitely) do not represent
solo voices, but rather a chorus of eminent physicists, aware of the
revolutionary implications of quantum theory and of the new cosmology
-- which are bound to transform man's image of the universe even more
radically than the Copernican revolution had done. But, as already said,
the general public is slow in becoming aware of this change. The dogmas
and taboos of nineteenth-century materialist science relating to space,
time, matter and energy, contained within a rigid framework of causality
and determinism, still dominate the habits of thought of the educated
public which prides itself on its rational outlook, and feels compelled
to deny the existence of ESP-type phenomena which seemingly contradict
the 'Laws of Nature'. In fact our physicists have been engaged, over
the last fifty years, in ruthlessly discarding previously sacrosanct
'Laws of Nature' and replacing them with obscure mental constructs which
cannot be represented in three-dimensional space, and whose quasi-mystical
implications are hidden in technical jargon and mathematical formalism. If
Galileo were resurrected, he would certainly accuse Heisenberg, Pauli et al.
of 'dabbling in occult fancies'.

 

 

Curiously enough, during the same period parapsychology took on a more
'hard-nosed' appearance by relying more and more on statistical methods,
rigorous controls, mechanical gadgets and electronic computers. Thus the
climate in the two camps seemed to be changing in opposite directions:
Rhine's successors are sometimes accused of drab pedantry, while
Einstein's successors have been accused of flirting with ghosts in
the guise of particles which have no mass, no weight, nor any precise
location in space. These convergent trends are certainly significant,
but that does not mean that physics will provide explanations for the
phenomena of parapsychology in the near or even in the distant future.
What both have in common is an attitude defying commonsense and defying
'Laws of Nature' previously considered as inviolable. Both are provocative
and iconoclastic. And, to say it once more, the baffling paradoxa of physics
make the baffling phenomena of parapsychology appear a little less
preposterous. If distant regions of the universe can be brought into
contact through wormholes in superspace, is telepathy still unthinkable?
The analogies can be treacherous -- but it is encouraging to know that
if the parapsychologist is out on a limb, the physicist is out on
a tightrope.