Quantum Mechanics – To Understand or Not Understand, that is the question

Quantum Mechanics – To Understand or Not Understand, that is the question

Introduction About 100 years ago the birth of quantum theory changed forever how humans perceive the universe… sort of.  Certainly “quantum physics” is a phrase found far outside the boundaries of physics classrooms, and has even achieved a fairly wide popularity through movies such as What the Bleep and works like Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics.  Does this...

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Chaos theory and fractals: 3/4

Chaos theory and fractals: 3/4

3. And so, there's all this talk about 'deterministic chaotic systems'... What exactly, is the stunning significance of this? I think I get that every shape in nature is ultimately created by patterns of itself within itself, but I'm confused as a biologist or physiologist or biochemist because things like continents are made of...

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Evidence, science, and spiritual knowing: developing organs of spiritual perception

Evidence can be gained through a variety of means.  Just as you would wish to use a sensitive detector of particular frequencies of light if you are doing x-ray crystallography, and not, say, an acoustic detector, so too we need to develop and use detectors that are appropriate to the realm in which we...

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Gasp! Newton LIED to you about his three laws of motion!

I've been thinking about the co-existence of multiple descriptions of reality lately.  In particular, as someone who has taught high-school physics, I run up against a philosophical quandary when I'm presenting, say Newton's laws of motion.  Am I presenting a lie to the students, because quantum mechanics and general relativity replaced the Newtonian physics? On...

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observing the observer

So then to begin in the middle I have many questions:     What constitutes an observer? How do we think about what an observer is/does? Is it as simply complex as the recursive: “An observer creates distinctions; distinctions create observers.”?     What is a distinction? In order for it to occur, does it require...

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