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Kingsley Dennis on Quatum Consciousness

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Quantum Consciousness

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The following is excerpted from The Struggle for Your Mind: Conscious Evolution and the Battle to Control How We Think, available from Inner Traditions. 
The human body is a constant flux of thousands of chemical/biological interreactions and processes connecting molecules, cells, organs, and fluids, throughout the brain, body, and nervous system. Up until recently it was thought that all these interactions operated in a linear sequence, passing on information much like a runner passing the baton to the next runner. However, the latest findings in quantum biology and biophysics have discovered that there is in fact a tremendous degree of coherence within all living systems.

Extensive scientific investigation has found that a form of quantum coherence operates within living biological systems through what is known as biological excitations and biophoton emission. What this means is that metabolic energy is stored as a form of electromechanical and electromagnetic excitations. These coherent excitations are considered responsible for generating and maintaining long-range order via the transformation of energy and very weak electromagnetic signals. After nearly twenty years of experimental research, Fritz-Albert Popp put forward the hypothesis that biophotons are e mitted from a coherent electrodynamic field within the living system.2

What this means is that each living cell is giving off, or resonating, a biophoton field of coherent energy. If each cell is emitting this field, then the whole living system is, in effect, a resonating field-a ubiquitous nonlocal field. And since biophotons are the entities through which the living system communicates, there is near-instantaneous intercommunication throughout. And this, claims Popp, is the basis for coherent biological organization — referred to as quantum coherence. This discovery led Popp to state that the capacity for evolution rests not on aggressive struggle and rivalry but on the capacity for communication and cooperation. In this sense the built-in capacity for species evolution is not based on the individual but rather living systems that are interlinked within a coherent whole: Living systems are thus neither the subjects alone, nor objects isolated, but both subjects and objects in a mutually communicating universe of meaning. . . . Just as the cells in an organism take on different tasks for the whole, different populations enfold information not only for themselves, but for all other organisms, expanding the consciousness of the whole, while at the same time becoming more and more aware of this collective consciousness.3

Biophysicist Mae-Wan Ho describes how the living organism, including the human body, is coordinated throughout and is “coherent beyond our wildest dreams.” It appears that every part of our body is “in communication with every other part through a dynamic, tuneable, responsive, liquid crystalline medium that pervades the whole body, from organs and tissues to the interior of every cell.”4

What this tells us is that the medium of our bodies is a form of liquid crystal, an ideal transmitter of communication, resonance, and coherence. These relatively new developments in biophysics have discovered that all biological organisms are constituted of a liquid crystalline medium. Further, DNA is a liquid-crystal, lattice-type structure (which some refer to as a liquid crystal gel), whereby body cells are involved in a holographic instantaneous communication via the emitting of biophotons (a source based on light). This implies that all living biological organisms continuously emit radiations of light that form a field of coherence and communication. Moreover, biophysics has discovered that living organisms are permeated by quantum wave forms. Ho informs us that

. . . the visible body just happens to be where the wave function of the organism is most dense. Invisible quantum waves are spreading out from each of us and permeating into all other organisms. At the same time, each of us has the waves of every other organism entangled within our own make-up. . . . We are participants in the creation drama that is constantly unfolding. We are constantly co-creating and re-creating ourselves and other organisms in the universe. . . .5

This incredible new information actually positions each living being within a nonlocal quantum field consisting of wave interferences (where bodies meet). The liquid crystalline structure within living systems is also responsible for the direct current (DC) electrodynamic field that permeates the entire body of all animals. It has also been noted that the DC field has a mode of semiconduction that is much faster than the nervous system.6 If biological living systems are operating within a nonlocal interwoven field of resonating energy, then perhaps it is possible to see this manifesting in physical behavior?

Mae-Wan Ho describes how coherent excitations in living systems operate in much the same way as a boat race, where the oars (people) must row in step so as to create a phase transition. This indicates that there is an inherent tendency in Nature and in living systems to resonate in sync as a way of maintaining order and coherency. This type of behavior serves to reinforce the relationship between the individual and the collective that before had been thought random. This discovery is important in that it lends validity to the emerging paradigm of the global brain and of the growth of a planetary empathy-the third revolution (as discussed in chapter 6). Each person is thus not only in an empathic relationship with others but also entangled. This view has recently been corroborated by neuroscience with its finding of mirror neurons.

A mirror neuron is a brain neuron that is activated (fires) when a living being (such as a human, other primates, or mammal) observes the action of another. In other words, if an individual watches another person eat an apple, then the exact same brain neurons will fire in the person observing the action as if he were performing the act. Such neuron behavior has been found in humans to operate in the premotor and inferior parietal cortex. This phenomenon of mirror neurons was first discovered by a research team in Italy in the 1990s when studying the neuronal activity of macaques. This discovery has led to many notable neuroscientists to declare that mirror neurons are important for learning processes (imitation) as well as language acquisition. In more modern general terms we might also say that this capacity is what ties a person in sympathy and empathy to another’s situation. It may also explain why people become so emotionally attached to events on television, and even cry in response to watching someone crying on the screen. In this way we are emotionally entangled through a mirroring of brain neuronal firing. When we also consider that our bodies are entangled through a quantum field of electrical bio-photon resonance, it explains how we are affected by and from others — via wave/field interference. This information is significant when considering a shift toward heightened empathy between people both near and at a distance (via digital communications) as well as the potential for catalyzing future abilities for telepathic communication between individuals.

Neuroscience, quantum biology, and quantum physics are all beginning to converge to reveal that our bodies are not only biochemical systems but also a sophisticated resonating quantum system. This helps us to understand how the body can be efficiently coherent, as well as explaining how we feel drawn to others, especially when we use terms such as good vibes, good energies, and we just seem to click. Our bodies, then, as well as our brains appear to function like receivers/decoders within a constantly in-flux information energy field. This explains how the human brain is able to store a lifetime of memories and experiences* as a wealth of data may well be stored within the informational field that encompasses the brain, and indeed the whole body. (Eminent mathematician John von Neumann calculated that during an average lifetime of seventy years we accumulate some 280 trillion bits of information.)

This new understanding of the quantum human informational field also gives credibility to the existence of extrasensory perceptions (ESP) and related abilities. Human consciousness is not only empathic, in a “wave-interference” relationship with other mind fields, but also is constantly transmitting and receiving information.  If this is indeed an inherent aspect of human functionality then we can see why the power hierarchies maintained by a minority have been active in suppressing its operation. As children we are told/conditioned from very young age to dismiss our fantasies-to grow out of and grow up from such illusions and get with the “real world” (whose world?). Early educational and social-peer conditioning serves to wire our brain neurons into a particular set: a fixed pattern of receiving and interpreting the world. Thus we are literally hardwired into a specific reality paradigm and social operating system. Within this paradigm any thought of extrasensory perceptions are sneered at as childish nonsense (manufactured social peer pressure). Many of our early expressions of intuition are thus suppressed and stifled and replaced with “normal” thoughts and perceptions. Imaginative insights and visions are usually left to the eccentric artists, mystics, and fringe creative innovators. Much of our modern minds have been denied their left-right brain full function and pulled into a tight left-brain rational functioning that operates as mechanical, linear, competitive, and narrow.

The Modernity Project has fashioned a mind-set that is a highly focused and logical narrow-band receiver. This arrangement has been further strengthened by modern social institutions in order to suppress visionary and creative insights and our intuitive capacities. The abstract right brain, with its magical world of creative visionary thinking, has been sidelined. Much of this right-brain activity was the source for indigenous wisdom, shamanic practices, and similar traditions that modern materialism has mercilessly eliminated over the years. We have been conditioned to think of such “magical practices” as primitive, barbaric, and worthy of little more than Western colonialism and imperial rule.

The social institutions in our modern materialistic age act to influence us to reject anything extrasensory as a load of nonsense, wishful thinking, or New Age delusion. Thus with our left-hemisphere-dominated brain we live in the everyday world of matter: of material objects and external attractions. We are shown to exist as separate forces, as islands in a chaotic sea of physical and natural impacts, and at the whim of random neutral influences. Yet we now know that this is not the case.

To recap, quantum biology has shown that the body displays an incredible degree of quantum coherence, and that a quantum consciousness field exists throughout the human DNA and thus the human nervous system. Our biochemical structure is composed of a confluence of energies in complete entanglement and that operate as a nonlocal field within and outside the human body. Further DNA is a liquid-crystal, lattice-type structure that emits biophotons, which are light based. What this leads to is a new understanding that human DNA operates also as a quantum field. In other words, we can begin referring to DNA as quantum DNA. Therefore the 97 percent of human DNA that is not involved in protein building is active within a quantum state. It may well be that a future manifestation of quantum consciousness will come from part activation of the 97 percent quantum DNA that so far has baffled our scientists with its function. This quantum DNA activation may likely be related to the state of human consciousness and has remained dormant in response to human consciousness not being sufficiently prepared, or made ready, for its manifestation. This field “life force” may be similar to the pervasive pranic energy that, as Gopi Krishna states, forms the impulse for evolutionary growth in the human nervous system:

. . . . An ever-present possibility, existing in all human beings by virtue of the evolutionary process still at work in the race, tending to create a condition of the brain and nervous system that can enable one to transcend the existing boundaries of the mind and acquire a state of consciousness far above that which is the normal heritage of mankind at present.7

This transcendental stage of consciousness that is depicted above as being a part of our natural evolutionary heritage is connected with the human brain and nervous system. We now know that we have a DNA quantum field activated within our bodies. Some biophysicists are already discussing whether quantum behavior may not be a common denominator for all living processes. As such a quantum informational field throughout the human body will determine the coherence of our light (biophoton) resonance as a vibratory rate. If human consciousness begins to shift its vibratory rate then there is every likelihood that DNA — as a quantum field — will likewise undergo a resonance shift, bringing into activation parts of its 97 percent hitherto “inactive” capacities. This may or may not be linked to the increase in electromagnetic frequencies now impacting our solar system from the galactic core. Is there a possibility that a phase step in the “engine of evolutionary energies” is under way?

The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev, who has studied human DNA with his research team in Moscow, found that the 97 percent “inactive” DNA actually has complex properties. Garjajev discovered that the DNA, which is not used for protein synthesis, is instead actually used for communication — more exactly for hypercommunication. In their terms, hypercommunication is a data exchange on a DNA level. Garjajev and his group analyzed the vibration response of the DNA and concluded that it can function much like networked intelligence, and that it allows for hypercommunication of information among all sentient beings.

For example, the Moscow research group proved that damaged chromosomes (such as those harmed by x-rays) can be repaired. Their method was to capture the information patterns of particular DNA and then transmit these patterns, using focused light frequencies, onto another genome as a way of reprogramming the cells. In this way they successfully transformed frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns. Garjajev’s research shows that certain frequency patterns can be “beamed” (such as with a laser) to transfer genetic information. This shows how DNA operates through resonance and vibratory frequencies. It also shows that human DNA can be modified — or altered — through the impact of external frequencies. This may also help to go some way toward validating the existence of such phenomena as remote acts of healing and other psychic attributes. It also suggests that DNA is a living, fluid, and dynamic “language” that as a quantum informational field is responsive not only to laser waves (as in the above experiment) but also EM waves and sound, given that the correct frequencies are applied.

The knowledge that human DNA can be influenced and modulated by frequencies (sound, light, language, and thought) is likely to have been known to various spiritual traditions, mystics, and teachers over the ages. This is perhaps why a variety of exercises have existed that utilize thought focus (prayer), sounds (music, chanting, singing), light (both natural light and produced light, such as in stained glass), and language (specific recitations such as a mantra and zikr). DNA appears to function not only as a protein builder (the minority function) but also as a medium for the storage, receiving, and communication of information.

Somewhat more controversially, Garjajev and his Russian colleagues also found examples where DNA could cause disturbing patterns in a vacuum, resulting in the production of what seemed to be magnetized wormholes. (For more information see the work of Grazyna Fosar and Franz Bludorf.) These wormholes appeared to function as connections outside our normal fields of time and space (which hints at interdimensional communication). This phenomenon is indeed worthy of further analysis and experimentation. Yet it does seem probable that DNA is involved with various forms of hypercommunication of which, at present, we know very little about. However, there are examples of hypercommunication at work in Nature. For example, the organization of ant colonies appears to make use of this distributed form of communication. When a queen ant is separated from her colony, the worker ants continue to build and construct the colony as if following some form of blueprint. Yet if the queen ant is killed, then all work in the colony ceases, as if the blueprint had suddenly been taken offline. This suggests that the queen ant need not be in physical contact to continue to transmit the blueprint, yet upon her death the group consciousness ceases to operate within a hypercommunicative informational field. We can thus refer to these forms of hypercommunication as quantum-field consciousness, or simply as quantum consciousness (since quantum implies non-local field effect).

At-a-distance human phenomena such as remote healing, remote sensing, and telepathy may work along comparable lines. On a more basic level we could say that many of us experience this as the sense of intuition and moments of inspiration. We may even be receiving these forms of hypercommunication when we are asleep. There are countless examples of people, artists, and designers who gained inspiration for their work in their dreams. One example is the Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini who one night dreamt that a devil sat beside his bed playing the violin. The next morning Tartini wrote down the piece from memory and called it the Devil’s Trill sonata. Not only do these experiences seem to be increasing (or perhaps people are more open to speaking of them?), but also newer generations of children are manifesting a higher level of clairvoyance and other extrasensory capacities. In recent times they have been referred to as indigo children, or the “new children.” These developments may indicate that a higher form of group consciousness is emerging within humanity and that these abilities are now finding greater expression. This does not, however, deny the presence of negative influences against collective quantum consciousness since stress, fear, and similar impacts (see Armageddon meme) all serve to disrupt awareness and manifestation of quantum states. In this context we would do well to return to those practices recommended for centuries by spiritual traditions and teachers, that is, mediation, reflection, watchfulness, and mindfulness. Einstein was famous as a daydreamer throughout his life, and he often claimed that his greatest inspiration came to him when in such states. Enhanced connectivity between humanity may thus be served by each of us paying more attention to our inner states and striving for harmony and balance in our lives.

for the notes, comments, etc., go to:    http://www.realitysandwich.com/quantum_consciousness_0

Ervin Lazlo on Quantum Consciousness

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Quantum Consciousness: Our Evolution, Our Salvation

by Ervin Laszlo on May 16, 2012

I was delighted and honored to have the following article posted in the Pathways to Family Wellness magazine Spring 2012 issue. The article, as printed in the New Edge Science section of the magazine, is available in pdf format.

 Pathways to Family Wellness is a non-profit quarterly print and digital magazine with a mission to support you and your family’s quest for wellness.

I call it “quantum consciousness”: the consciousness we access when we use the potential of our quantum-computer brains. The brain is a macroscopic quantum system, yet we use it as if it were exclusively a classical biochemical system. With its quantum-system functions, our brain can receive information not only from our eyes and ears, but directly from the wider world with which we are “entangled”–nonlocally connected. Insightful people throughout history, whether shamans or scientists, poets or prophets, have extensively used this capacity, innate to all human beings. Today it is widely neglected. This impoverishes our world picture, and causes a nagging sense that we are separate from the world around us.

I believe that quantum consciousness could be the next stage in the evolution of our consciousness–and that this evolution could be our salvation. Let me explain.

The first thing I ask you to note is that human consciousness is not static, fixed once and for all. It’s the product of a long evolutionary development, and is capable of further development. In the 50 thousand–year history of the species we proudly call homo sapien, the human body didn’t change significantly, but human consciousness did. And it can change again.

In a variety of “alternative cultures,” a new consciousness is already emerging. The members of these cultures–the green movement, the peace movement, the sustainable living movement, the movement of cultural creatives, and others–share similar social values and are open and interactive with the larger society; they don’t seek isolation or indulge in promiscuous sex.

They aim to rethink accepted beliefs and values, and adopt a more responsible style of living. They shift from matter- and energy-wasteful ostentation toward voluntary simplicity and the search for sustainability and harmony with nature.

A new consciousness is now struggling to be born. Does this mean that the consciousness of humanity itself is evolving? Some famous thinkers have said so. The Indian sage Sri Aurobindo spoke of the emergence of superconsciousness in ever more people, and this, he said, is the harbinger of the next evolution of human consciousness. In a similar vein, the Swiss philosopher Jean Gebser spoke of the coming of four-dimensional integral consciousness, rising from the prior stages of archaic, magical and mythical consciousness. The Canadian mystic Richard Bucke called the new consciousness “cosmic,” and in the colorful spiral dynamics developed by Chris Cowan and Don Beck, it’s the turquoise stage of collective individualism, cosmic spirituality and Earth changes. For philosopher Ken Wilber, these developments signify an evolutionary transition from the mental consciousness characteristic of both animals and humans, to subtle consciousness, which is archetypal, transindividual and intuitive, to causal consciousness, and then, ultimately, to “consciousness as such.”

Psychiatrist Stanislav Grof summed up the characteristics of the emerging consciousness as “transpersonal.”

There is remarkable agreement among these visionary concepts. Superconsciousness, integral consciousness, cosmic consciousness, turquoise-stage consciousness, and consciousness as such are all forms of consciousness that transcend the divide between you and me, the individual and the world, the human being and nature. If these thinkers are right, this kind of consciousness will be the next stage in the evolution of the consciousness of our species.

Quantum consciousness–QC–could perhaps be the next stage in the evolution of the mind of humanity, but why would it be our salvation?

The answer is simple common sense: because QC is a consciousness of directly intuited, felt connection to the world. It inspires empathy with people and with nature; it brings an experience of oneness and belonging. Quantum consciousness makes us realize that, being one with others and with nature, what we do to them, we do to ourselves.

Not only will QC make us behave more responsibly toward other people and the planet, it will also encourage us to join together to cope with the problems we face.

Most of us cooperate with members of our own families and communities. But cooperation has now become vitally necessary on the global level: It’s in all our best interest to cooperate with our fellows in the global community. Without such cooperation we’ll be hard put to overcome the global threats and problems that face us. Without cooperation we risk joining the countless species that became extinct because they couldn’t adjust to changed circumstances.

With dedicated and purposeful cooperation we can meet the challenges of human survival: We can have 7 billion or more people living peacefully and sustainably on the planet. We have the technologies, the skills and the necessary financial and human resources. Abject forms of poverty can be eliminated, energy- and resource-efficient technologies can be made widely available, water can be recycled and seawater desalinized, and sustainable forms of agriculture adopted. We can be more efficient and effective in harvesting the vast stream of energy that flows from the sun to our planet. And to finance these projects we would only need a small part of the enormous sums of money that we now commit to speculative, self-serving or downright destructive ends.

Cooperation on the global level is a new requirement in the history of our civilization, and we are not prepared for it. Our institutions and organizations were designed to protect their own interests in competition with others; the need for them to join together in the shared interest has been limited to territorial aspirations and defense, and to economic gain in selected domains. The will to cooperate in globally cooperative projects that subordinate immediate self-interest to the vital interests of a wider community is still lacking in the political and economic domains.

When all is said and done, the fundamental need of our time, the precondition of creating a peaceful and sustainable world, is the spread of a new and more evolutionarily adaptive consciousness—the quantum consciousness of oneness and belonging.

Forms and intimations of the new consciousness are already emerging in the world, but they haven’t yet reached the mainstream. When QC becomes mainstream, humanity will have reached a higher stage of maturity. It will have become a species that has not only the technologies and the skills, but also the wisdom and the will, to survive in the world it has itself created.

from:    http://ervinlaszlo.com/notebook/2012/05/16/quantum-consciousness-our-evolution-our-salvation/#more-1389

Kingsley Dennis on Quantum Consciousness

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Quantum Consciousness, the Way to Reconcile Science & Spirituality

by KINGSLEY DENNIS on JULY 12, 2010

Human thought in the 21st century needs to work towards a new model that immerses the human being within a vibrant energetic universe. However, this need not demand that we throw away what we already have; rather, we can expand upon the tools that have brought us to our present position. There is an eastern proverb that roughly translates as: ‘You may ride your donkey up to your front door, but would you ride it into your house?’ In other words, when we have arrived at a particular destination we are often required to make a transition in order to continue the journey. In this sense we can be grateful to a vast knowledge base of scientific and religious thought for helping us to arrive at where we presently stand. Yet it is now imperative that we move forward. As Deepak Chopra suggested in his opening contribution to this Forum, how we move forward is likely to be centered in our understanding of consciousness.

Our physical apparatus is spectacular; consider that each of us carries around a 100 billion-cell bioelectric quantum computer that creates our realities, with almost all of its neurons established the day we were born. Still, this phenomenal ‘reality shaper’ has undergone monumental perceptual change over our evolutionary history. What is required, at this significant juncture, is again another catalyst of consciousness change. This may come about through discoveries in the field of quantum biology, and the idea, emphasized by Ervin Laszlo in his previous blogs, that the form of consciousness we possess is likely to be the result ofquantum coherence.

The human body is a constant flux of thousands of inter-reactions and processes connecting molecules, cells, organs, fluids, throughout the brain, body and nervous system. Up until recently it was thought that all these countless interactions operated in a linear sequence, passing on information much like a runner passing the baton to the next runner. However, the latest findings in quantum biology and biophysics have discovered that there is in fact a tremendous degree of coherence within all living systems. It has been found through extensive scientific investigation that a form of quantum coherence operates within living biological systems through what is known as biological excitations and biophoton emission. What this means is that metabolic energy is stored as a form of electromechanical and electromagnetic excitations. It is these coherent excitations that are considered responsible for generating and maintaining long-range order via the transformation of energy and very weak electromagnetic signals.

After nearly twenty years of experimental research, Fritz-Albert Popp put forward the hypothesis that biophotons are emitted from a coherent electrodynamic field within the living system. What this effectively means is that each living cell is giving off, and resonating with, a biophoton field of coherent energy. If each cell is emitting this field then the whole living system is, in effect, a resonating field—a ubiquitous non-local field. And since it is by the means of biophotons that the living system communicates, then there is near instantaneous intercommunication throughout. And this, claims Popp, is the basis for coherent biological organization—referred to as quantum coherence.

Biophysicist Mae Wan Ho has described how the living organism, including the human body, is “coherent beyond our wildest dreams” in that our bodies are constituted by a form of liquid crystal, which is an ideal transmitter of communication, resonance, and coherence. All living biological organisms continuously emit radiations of light that form a field of coherence and communication.

Moreover, biophysicists have discovered that living organisms are permeated by quantum wave forms. Ho informs us that,

…the visible body just happens to be where the wave function of the organism is most dense. Invisible quantum waves are spreading out from each of us and permeating into all other organisms. At the same time, each of us has the waves of every other organism entangled within our own make-up… (Ho, Mae-Wan, (1998) The Rainbow and the Worm: The Physics of Organisms. Singapore: World Scientific)

This incredible new discovery actually positions each living being within a non-local quantum field consisting of wave interferences (where bodies meet). Each person is thus not only in an emphatic relationship with each other but is also entangled with one another.

Neuroscience, quantum biology, and quantum physics are now beginning to converge to reveal that our bodies are not only biochemical systems but also sophisticated resonating quantum systems. These new discoveries show that a form of nonlocal connected consciousness has a physical-scientific basis. Further, it demonstrates that certain spiritual or transcendental states of collective Oneness have a valid basis within the new scientific paradigm.

If we are willing to step down from the donkey we will find that our new path ahead has a place for reconciling science and spirituality. We should focus on the best of both worlds: engage in cooperation, not in conflict and competition.

from:    http://ervinlaszlo.com/forum/2010/07/12/quantum-consciousness-the-way-to-reconcile-science-spirituality/

Ervin Lazlo on Quantum Consciousness

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Cosmic Symphony — A Deeper Look at Quantum Consciousness

by Ervin Laszlo on April 9, 2010

The rise of quantum consciousness could be the biggest step our species has taken since it came down from the trees. It would bring us to a new stage of species maturity — and could also enable us to surmount the problems that threaten our life and our future.

But just what is quantum consciousness — QC? I have spoken about QC in my previous posts, but the question merits a further, deeper look.

First of all, what is consciousness? The commonsense assumption is that consciousness is a stream of experience produced by the brain. As long as the brain functions, there is consciousness; when the brain shuts down, consciousness vanishes. This, however, is not necessarily the case. It could be that our brain no more produces consciousness than the radio produces the symphony that comes through its speakers. The symphony, too, disappears when the radio is shut down, yet we know that it’s not produced by the radio. Both the radio and the brain pick up signals, transform them, and display the result in our stream of conscious experience.

According to received wisdom, the things and events that make up our experience of the world originate in the world. People and things around us reflect light and make sound; for the most part they can be seen, heard, touched, smelled, or tasted. The corresponding signals reach our eye and ear in the form of waves in the electromagnetic field, in the air, and in the physical, chemical, and biological fields in and around our body. Our exteroceptive senses transform this information into nerve signals, and the signals are analyzed, sharpened, and interpreted by our brain. The result is the experience that appears in our consciousness.

This is the gist of the standard scientific explanation of our perception of the world, but it’s not complete. It’s incomplete not only because it fails to solve the age-old philosophers’ puzzle, how physical signals can transmute into intimately felt conscious experience (is this transmutation the work of the brain, or does the brain also transmit forms of consciousness from the external world?), but also because it doesn’t account for all the things that appear in our consciousness. Some of the things that appear in our consciousness convey information about the world even though we cannot see how they could be based on sense-perceivable events. Happily, unlike the philosophers’ “hard problem,” this is no longer an unsolved puzzle. We now realize that our brain is not limited to capturing sense-organ conveyed information, for it’s not just a classical biochemical system. It’s also a “macroscopic quantum system,” and such a system can “resonate” with the world. On the quantum level it can capture and process signals that far exceed the range of the signals available to the bodily senses.

The quantum-perception of the world is just as real as its sensory perception. Here, in brief, is why.

All things in space and time emit waves, and these waves interact with the waves produced by other things. They create wave interference patterns. Pressure waves in the air, and electric and magnetic waves in the EM field diminish with distance and the patterns they produce are limited to our immediate vicinity. Quantum waves, however (waves that propagate in the nearly infinite virtual-energy domain that fills cosmic space), move instantly over any distance. The kinds of interference patterns they create constitute quantum holograms, and quantum holograms are “entangled” with each other — they are instantly connected. As a result the information carried by one quantum hologram can be transferred to any other quantum hologram. Thus a system that can “read” the information in one hologram has access to the information carried by all. Our quantum-resonance-decoding brain could in principle capture information on anything and everything that creates quantum-interference waves in the universe.

Evidently, to capture this kind of information our brain must have the corresponding receptivity. Scientists are now beginning to understand how quantum-hologram receptivity might be built into the brain.

It appears that quantum-level signals are picked up by microstructures in our brain’s cytoskeleton (the cytoskeleton is a protein-based structure that maintains the integrity of living cells, including neurons). The neurons in the brain are organized into a network of microtubules of microscopic size but astronomical number. There are about 10**18 microtubules in the human brain, and “merely” 10**11 neurons (though this number is still larger than the number of stars in the galaxy). With filaments just 5 to 6 nanometers in diameter, our network of microtubules — the so-called “microtrabecular lattice” — is believed to capture, process, and convey information.

Physicist Roger Penrose and neurophysiologist Stuart Hameroff claim that consciousness emerges from these quantum-level elements of the brain’s cytoskeleton. The microtrabecular lattice could be responsible for the quantum-receptivity of our brain, picking up, transforming, and interpreting information based on phase-conjugate resonance.

If this is the case, there is not just one mode of perceiving the world available to us, but two. We have what neuroscientist Ede Frecska and anthropologist Luis Eduardo Luna call the classical “perceptual-cognitive-symbolic” mode, based on information conveyed by our bodily senses, and we also have the “direct-intuitive-nonlocal” mode, enabled by the quantum receptivity of our brain’s microstructures.

In today’s world we tend to perceive the world in the classical mode, yet we could, and sometimes do, perceive aspects of it in the direct mode as well. However, our left-hemisphere dominated perceptual mode represses information that doesn’t accord with our established ways of thinking. Only in spiritual, religious, or mystical experience does such information penetrate to our everyday awareness — and then, just fleetingly.

Yet our brain could operate in a more balanced way: the cerebral functions underlying our everyday awareness could be more embracing than those in the classical perceptual mode. Operating in this way is possible, and has already been achieved by a few people. This was the finding of British psychophysiologist Maxwell Cade, who in the 1970s examined the EEG patterns of more than 3,000 individuals. He had found four typical patterns, made up of specific combinations of alpha, beta, and theta waves. (He did not consider dreamless deep sleep, where delta waves predominate.) Each combination turned out to be associated with a particular state of consciousness. The consciousness accompanying dreamful sleep, the state between waking and sleeping, and deep meditation each exhibits a typical combination of EEG waves. Dreamful sleep, the transitory state between waking and sleeping, and meditation all show pronounced alpha and theta waves. Our state of ordinary awareness is dominated by beta waves.

But Cade also found a “fifth state.” This is the remarkable state that comes to light in the EEG-portrait of accomplished healers. Cade called the consciousness associated with this state “awakened mind.” Here alpha and theta waves are strong, much as in the meditative state, but there are also beta waves. In some healers this state has become the norm, maintained not only during active healing, but also in everyday life.

Just as remarkably, in the fifth state the EEG waves are balanced across the left and the right hemispheres. This is important. The brain-state underlying ordinary consciousness is left-hemisphere dominated, and we know that the left hemisphere filters out experiences that do not mesh with our established beliefs and expectations. We also know that deep prayer and meditation activate the right hemisphere, and tend to synchronize the two hemispheres. A hemisphere-synchronized brain can operate in the direct quantum-resonance mode: as experiments I have witnessed myself demonstrate, expert meditators synchronize not only their own left and right hemispheres, but can also synchronize their left and right hemispheres with the synchronized hemispheres of others who meditate with them. And this synchronization occurs in the entire absence of sensory contact among the meditators. They can be in different rooms, different cities, even on different continents. (I reported on these experiments in my book, Science and the Akashic Field, and in other books.)

Unfortunately, a state of deep prayer and meditation is not functional in the everyday context: in most cases we need to sit with closed eyes, detached from the world around us.

A truly evolved consciousness would have the quantum-receptivity of deep prayer and meditation, but it would operate also in the everyday context. It would display a broad EEG wave-spectrum, embracing alpha and theta as well as beta waves. And it would show that the two brain hemispheres are highly coordinated, so that the information processed by the quantum-mode receiving right hemisphere is readily communicated to the sensory-information processing left. An evolved consciousness is wider and deeper than the everyday consciousness of people today, and more functional than the consciousness of those engaged in deep prayer and meditation.

In the past this kind of consciousness has been limited to exceptionally sensitive and creative people: to healers and poets, prophets and spiritual masters. In the future it could spread to a wider segment of the population. Humanity could be evolving its consciousness.

In closing, let us return to the example of the radio. Tuned to the right station, our radio can pick up and bring to us a great symphony. Imagine what our quantum brain could bring to us when, in the expanded and balanced mode, it would be tuned to the information encoded at the heart of the cosmos. This would be veritably a cosmic symphony. Of course, we could never capture all of it — only God could do that — but we could capture far more than we do today. This would make us more empathetic as individuals, and more cooperative as citizens in our interactive and interdependent global community. The rise of these attributes in a critical mass could be the key to our continued survival. QC may be not only the next step in our species evolution; it could also be our collective salvation.

Published at Huffington Post

from:    http://ervinlaszlo.com/notebook/2010/04/09/cosmic-symphony-a-deeper-look-at-quantum-consciousness-2/