ARE QUANTUM PHYSICS AND SPIRITUALITY
RELATED?*
Ian Thompson1
Discussing questions concerning quantum physics and spirituality
together is particularly valuable in order to see the connection between them from a New Church standpoint. An urgent reason for discussing this link is that some people want to identify these things. The feeling is widespread that somehow they are connected, but some "new age" people want to say that quantum physics tells us about spirituality. We know from Swedenborg that the connection is not quite so simple, so we need to understand in more detail what is going on.
Quantum Physics and Wave-particle Duality
To review where quantum physics comes in, I will remind those of you who have taken physics courses in which quantum physics has been introduced, of some of the problems we have. One of the problems is that the particles discovered in modern physics are not just little lumps that travel around, but behave as waves. The electrons, which we think of as a prime example of a little particle, can be scattered with interference patterns: diffracted through slits, around corners, or from crystals. They can be reflected as a wave. Furthermore, these waves are probability waves, so we do not say that an electron is definitely in one place, but that it has or is a distribution of probabilities. The form of this distribution can be worked out accurately in quantum physics, which makes very precise predictions. But only the probabilities are predicted: physics does not tell us exactly where the particle is. This is one of the puzzles: why and how particles behave as waves.
* Article based on the Annual Address to the Swedenborg Scientific Association in Bryn
Athyn, Pennsylvania on April 20, 2002.
1 Dr. Ian Thompson is Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey in Guildford,
England. He graduated from Auckland University, New Zealand in 1979, and came to Surrey
in 1988. He specializes in theoretical nuclear physics, using quantum models of few-body
structure and reactions to understand neutron-rich and halo nuclei. He has had parallel
interests in foundations of quantum physics and psychology, and since finding Swedenborg’s
works via an article by Wilson van Dusen in 1973, has sought to develop an integrated view.
He has recently outlined proposals for such views at: www.theisticscience.org.
His email address is I.Thompson@surrey.ac.uk.
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