[God and Quantum Physics]
This is the Rude Guy. Assassin of ignorance. Corncob up the ass of pretentious people. Leo Tolstoy of podcasting. Welcoming you to the Reality Cult. The show with something to offend everybody. The show where we believe, as Rumi said: that everyone who is calm and sensible is insane. The show that’s about ideas. Not news items, not gossip, not opinions. Ideas.
[RZ voice] I’m still in that noisy Mexican town, as you will no doubt hear. I asked my neighbor, Bernardo, the guy with the power saws and planers and carpentry shop, to give me two hours of quiet from 7 to 9 am SUNDAY morning, which is right now, so I can record this show. He’s the one who I paid to build the canvas stretcher for my new painting, The Herd. So, since I’m an occasional client of his, perhaps he’ll respect my wishes. I’m getting better at this. Living in this noisy hell. Now if I could only poison all the dogs. Or maybe poison the owners of the dogs, who won’t shut them up, when they’re barking to raise the dead, every night at 3 am. What’s the point of training dogs to bark when burglars come, if they’re barking all night long anyway?
[RG voice: ugh or wretch]
And why do I call myself the Leo Tolstoy of podcasting? Because this is how Tolstoy wrote.
[bird squawk, or gulls]
A black parrot squawks in a palm tree. It’s cool, cause the morning sun is still hidden behind the cliff. The high tide swishes and hisses in the cove next to the concrete pier in the small harbor. Weary fishermen goose their outboards and plow their boats high up, onto the sand, where local women rush toward the boat, while it’s still rocketing up onto the beach, and swarm over it, grabbing fish off the floorboards. Mysteriously, I never see any money change hands, but I know these women will catch a ride on a truck and sell the fish in the big Monday market, in the city.
Frigate birds wheel overhead. An Indian woman rushes by with a cell phone slapped to her ear, her other hand holding up one side of a huge plastic tub, full of fish. Taking phone orders. Strangely, there are no radios blasting. Just calm Indian voices, muffled by the waves. Teenage girls weave through the crowd, selling ice cream cups and pineapple turnovers. A baby shrieks. A truck horn bleats.
It’s a very high tide today, and sometimes huge Pacific rollers, break around the point, and toss the fishing boats, like toys in a tub. One guy is gutting a fish that’s still slapping its tail. A woman grabs it, and holds it still for him. And slowly comes the sun, tracing palm leaf shadows, across the sand, baking off the stinking fish slime, evaporating into another bright hot day.
[bird gull]
[RZ voice] I’m sitting in the shade of the wall by the local “naval base” – the naval base that has no boat of any kind. I’m waiting for the fruit and vegetable store – Frutas y Verduras – to get a delivery. I’m dieting. Heavy dieting. I eat NOthing of what I like, and as much as I want, of whatever I DON’t like; these days mostly grapefruit and spinach. I’m a vegan junkie, hanging out on the dusty street outside the store, scratching my arms, waiting for my veggie connection. I yell inside:
“Got any grapefruit?”
“No.”
“Spinach?”
“No.”
“NO! You GOTTA be KIDDING!”
“Maybe in an hour.”
“An hour!… Jesus…OK, OK, I’ll wait.” I go next door to the internet place to check emails, kill some time.
After I’ve eaten a grapefruit I calm down a bit. Go sit on the steps of my friend Reina’s store. What I like about Mexico, there’s a little store on every little street. You can always get milk and onions and noodles right there, outside your front door, a minute away, and no driving. Had a forbidden taco offered me by Reina’s 93-year-old antie. A rare lapse in my dieting regimen, but I didn’t want to turn the old woman down. Tia, antie, has crinkled brown Indian skin, and an eNORmous hooked beak of a nose. Like a toucan almost. But it only looks like a beak because she hasn’t had any teeth for 30 years, and her mouth funnels into her face in a crinkled brown whirlpool, making her nose look enormous. Tough old bird. She finally stopped smoking… 20 years ago, at the age of seventy. There’s hope for me yet. I stopped two years ago. And felt so shitty for two years straight I decided I might as well have some good reason for feeling shitty. So I stopped eating too.
Lost 25 pounds in five weeks. Best thing about not eating is my knee pains have gone away, and my heartbeat has slowed from 78 to a steady 60. I felt crappy when I stopped drinking, wretched when I stopped smoking, but I feel GREAT not eating. Never would have guessed it.
[bird, gulls]
OK, maybe that isn’t really like Tolstoy.
[RG voice:] Yeah, but it started OUT like him.
Yeah, simple descriptions. That’s who Hemingway learned to write from. BUT… unlike Ernest Hemingway… Leo Tolstoy and I… are both DEEP believers. Our faith is awesome. It has no bounds.
That said, I have one original idea, a SPIRitual idea, I want to record, before we go into the The Rude Guy Podcast reruns, which will start this summer, and post on the web every couple of weeks. My original idea, like most original ideas, is patched together from other people’s discoveries. The same way Thomas Edison worked. It goes like this:
The more we focus our consciousness on the Supreme Consciousness, the more present IT becomes in this world. Another way to put it is: the more we think about God, the more real He becomes.
And I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean the more we pray, the more really real God becomes in this world. Sounds like the ravings of a medieval monk huh? Actually it’s built on the back of the ravings of Quantum Physics. The more we think about God, the more real he becomes.
Let me give you a couple examples.
There’s a movie called Down the Rabbit Hole, which is the best movie ever made. It’s PREquel was called, What the Bleep do we Know? That movie was pretty awful. Mostly the ravings of a cigar smoking, drunk, hermaphrodite named Ramtha, telling us how we are all addicted to our emotions, and that when we get over that problem, we become gods. Like him/slash/her. Completely awful. Send this goon to A.A. Ego driven psychic crap. However… the sequel, Down the Rabbit Hole, had real interviews with real scientists and, wonderful animated demonstrations, that did a better job of teaching about the mysteries of life, than any other movie I’ve ever seen.
But I digress.
In both movies there’s a scene where the beautiful red-haired girl, is standing facing us. Behind her is a basketball court. And on the court, hundreds of ghostly basketballs are bouncing at the same time.
But… when the woman turns around, and faces the court… all the balls disappear, except one. And that one ball is no longer ghostly, but very solid looking. When she turns back to face us, a hundred ghostly balls start bouncing again, and the solid one disappears.
This is a GREAT illustration of the quantum probability functions, that comprise our universe. Those basketballs are meant to represent photons or electrons. The basic minimum measurable sizes of, the wads of energy, that make up this universe. When she’s not observing them, those balls, those electrons POTENTIALLY exist on all parts of the court. But when she actually LOOKS at them, the probability function collapses, and only ONE ball exists, in one place, at one time. But it really really exists there. It’s not a ghostly probability.
So think of the Supreme Consciousness. It’s everywhere in the universe in everything, as a potentiality. A potential presence everywhere. But it’s not really really present, until we pray to it, meditate on it. Focus our attention on it. OBSERVE IT.
The instant I close my eyes and throw myself at God, he throws himself back at me. I feel the connection instantly. The probability wave has collapsed, and I can FEEL his presence. I am absolutely certain most people, if not all people, who try this, get that same feedback. That feeling of connection.
Now here’s what used to drive me crazy. I was brought up believing that God WANTS us to pray to Him. That he NEEDS us to pray to Him. NEEDS US to pray to him? The biggest, baddest entity in all creation gives a shit, if Rich Zubaty notices him or not. Didn’t make any sense to me.
Until the quantum lightbulb went off in my brain, and I thought yeah!. If the more we think about God, focus on God, pray to God, the more actually PRESENT in this world he beCOMES. Then maybe that’s the whole reason we conscious beings exist. To think about God. To make God more present.
Plenty of religions believe that the best way to spend our life, is to think about God, all day long. Why? It makes HIM present. That’s why monks are admired, all over the world. They don’t get married and go to work for their wives so they can get laid. They pray to God, for ALL of us, all day long. While WE’re humping at the salt mines, they’re praying. Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Moslem. Same everywhere. Monks make God more present. And people realize it. And toss ‘em a few pennies.
[RG voice] But there’s more.
There’s the famous two slit experiment. More proof, of this seemingly insane notion, that the more we think about God, the more real he becomes.
Scientists set up a piece of cardboard, with two parallel slits in it. They shot photons at the slits. On a wall behind the cardboard, a wave pattern was formed, darkish and lightish, and darkish and lightish. What’s called an interference pattern. Kind of odd, but no big deal. Maybe the light waves were getting bent or something.
BUT… when the scientists decided to OBSERVE HOW the photons went through the slits, to create this wave pattern, something really really bizarre happened. The photons STOPPed making a wave pattern, and STARTed appearing on the wall as particles. They registered on the wall, directly behind each slit as… entirely light. And left the areas on the wall on the sides of each slit, entirely dark. Dark or light. Off/on. No interference pattern… Particles not waves.
[RG voice] How the hell could that be?
Didn’t make any sense at all.
And mind bogglingly, when the scientists stopped observing the photons, they went right back to making waves.
[RG voice: incroyable]
RZ voice: incredible
In our day-to-day world of Newtonian physics, this makes no sense at all. Watch the thing, and it appears as a particle. Ignore it, and it appears as a wave.
Said the physicist Werner Heisenberg: Atoms are not things, they are only tendencies.
[RG voice:] Atoms are not things, they are only tendencies.
And… there’s more. Sometimes, the observed particles have actually been observed, existing in TWO places at once. Not two particles. One particle, in two places at the same time.
Kinda like when me and The Rude Guy… talk at the same time.
[RG voice] Talk at the same time… And there’s more.
When the scientists linked their observation device, to a random event generator, so no one could know, in advance, whether the photons were going to be observed or not, the photons NEVER FAILED to get it right. Being watched, particle. Not being watched, wave.
[RG voice:] What does that mean?
It means that they could literally SEE into the future. Little tiny photons. Little tiny electrons. Could SEE the future. Could tell if they were going to be observed as particles, or waves, and adjusted themselves accordingly. Like they knew to get dressed up, either to go to church or to work on the car, before they knew where they were going.
How far into the future could they see? A thousandth of a second? Five years? Five billion years? Another fabulous mystery. No one knows.
There’s another fascinating part of the film, Down the Rabbit Hole, where a neuroscientist says: everyone knows, if you touch a hot stove, your brain receives a neuro-transmission, and instantly gives an order to your muscles, to yank your finger back, away from the heat. Scientists wanted to find out how LONG it took for the neuro-transmission to travel, from the hot finger, through the nervous system of the arm, to the place in the brain, that would order the hand to pull back.
So… they attached sensors to someone’s finger, and to the spot in their brain where the stimulus was known to be headed. Then the subject touched the stove. And something absolutely astounding was recorded.
It turns out, that the sensor in the brain recorded the pain message, beFORE the neuro-transmission arrived from the finger. The brain started sending the message to yank the finger, beFORE the nervous system had let it know that the finger was getting burned.
[RG voice] How in God’s name could that happen?
Only one way. The brain could see into the future. Like a stupid little electron. Now… when you put it that way, it doesn’t seem that remarkable, does it? Our conscious human brain is as visionary as a lowly electron… as able to see into the future as any one of the trillions of electrons, that the brain is MADE of.
And here’s another important part of that. The brain could NOT FOREsee the burn coming, and avoid it. Oh no. The burn had to happen. The brain was only capable of seeing an event, in the future, that actually HAPpened. Then it could respond faster than normal neural responses could physically respond.
[RG voice] Our perception of time is about as adequate as a tuna’s perception of algebra.
But back to the original point, when we look for God he looks for us. When we think about God, throw our consciousness right in his face, HE becomes more present in this world. The more we think about Pure Consciousness, the more alive it becomes in our world. And the more times I say it, the more obvious it seems to be. Consciousness breeds consciousness. Consciousness FEEDS consciousness. That’s really what the universe is made of. Consciousness.
[bird or cosmic echo]
Then… the film… Down the Rabbit Hole, goes on to make a big deal about how, IF we change our thoughts, we can change our feelings. We accomplish this by changing the protein peptides that bathe our cells.
Fair enough. Good science. I think there’s something to that. Something we can all use. Change our thinking, and we can literally change our body chemistry.
But then these BLEEPS [make sonic bleep] go on to say that they are THEREby, creating their world. Creating their world. Psychic cowshit. No ladies and gentlemen. By changing your peptides you are creating your REACTION, to your world. The world is still the world. When the red-haired girl looks at the basketball court, the probability field, she does not create the basketball where she wants it to be. She finds it, where it is. She is not creating her world. She is FINDing her world.
There’s an important distinction to be made here. I believe that focusing on God brings him into the world. I believe that consciousness feeds consciousness.
I do not believe that by making myself feel happier, I am creating a different world. I’m just changing MY attitude, making myself feel a little happier… less depressed by war and pain and disaster. Less motivated, less driven, to do ANYthing, to alleviate suffering and injustice. Fact is, ladies and gentlemen, changing your peptides might make YOU feel better, but don’t kid yourself. It’s not much use to the cosmos, and may even take you farther from God. Was Jesus having a nice time when he was getting nailed to the cross? Were his peptides vibrating with joy?
As George Bernard Shaw said: reasonable men adjust themselves to fit the world. Unreasonable men adjust the world to fit them. Therefore, the only social progress we ever make, comes from UNreasonable men.
[RG voice:] ha ha ha, Righto.
I took up this issue of feelings versus spiritual growth, psychic versus spiritual phenomena, in depth, in Podcast number 36. Might be worthwhile to revisit that one. Podcast 36
And here’s something else to ponder… all this emotional self improvement we wish to enjoy is accomplished by thoughts. But. What are thoughts? What are thoughts made of? We don’t know. Another way to put it is: Who is the observer? Who, or what, is the thing inside us, that’s watching this world? What are thoughts made of? Who is the observer? We don’t know.
Science has looked everywhere in the brain, and cannot find the observer. Cannot find the us, that we call us. The me, that I call me. We don’t know where it is. We don’t know where thoughts are located. Where consciousness is located. Where memory is stored. Are there invisible energy fields that surround us, and suffuse us… that somehow serve as a container for our consciousness? We don’t know. Does our consciousness outlast death. We don’t know. Where is memory? We don’t know. Yet we ALL have an observer, who is us. We all have a consciousness that is us. We all have our memories.
[bird]
Here’s another important point. Really important to me. Philosophers for centuries have been telling us there is no free will. That’s as far as reason takes them. They are not capable of seeing invisible worlds, photons or peptides… and that’s as far as their best thinking goes. No free will. And have another brewski.
[buzzer or gong]
Well here’s one for them. It’s called Logic. Something they KNOW about. It goes like this:
1) It is not possible to be a philosopher in the modern world, without completely understanding quantum physics.
2) It is not possible for ANYone to completely understand quantum physics.
3) Therefore, it is not possible to be a philosopher, in the modern world.
Logic.
Here’s the facts Jack.
[RG voice] Here’s the scene Irene.
The quantum world does not merely ALLOW for free will. It deMANDS it.
[RG VOICE] The quantum world does not merely ALLOW for free will. It deMANDS free will.
This is really simple to understand. According to quantum physics, if we do not make the conscious choice to observe our universe, our universe does not exist.
[RG voice] If we do not make the conscious choice to observe our universe, our universe does not exist.
We have to choose to observe the photon, and then that photon becomes a particle in our world… present in our world. We have to choose to think about God, and God becomes present in our world. We have to dissolve ourselves in Pure Consciousness, and then Pure Consciousness dissolves, ITself, in us. When we look at IT, IT looks at us. We are both in the process of becoming, by the same action, in the same moment.
As Meister Eckhart said: the eye we see God with, is the same eye he sees US with. Consiousness breeds consiousness.
[bird]
And just in case you think we’re just discovering all this stuff now, listen to this. A reading from one of the Upanishads, the 4000 year-old-Hindu holy book, titled Kena.
Quote: That which cannot be expressed in words, but by which the tongue speaks – know that to be Brahman. Brahman, is not the being, who is worshipped by men.
[RG voice] That which is not comprehended by the mind, but by which the mind comprehends – know that to be Brahman. Brahman, is not the being, who is worshipped by men.
That which is not heard by the ear, but by which the ear hears – know that to be Brahman. Brahman, is not the being, who is worshipped by men.
[RG voice] That which is not drawn by the breath, but by which the breath draws – know that to be Brahman. Brahman is not the being, who is worshipped by men.
What you think to be Brahman in your self, or in the gods – that is not Brahman. Unquote.
Are you listening Ramtha?
[RG voice] I doubt it.
[bird]
If you wanna help, send money. Make a donation. We need it. Buy a book or DVD, or have some wealthy friend buy an oil painting. www.happyfool.orG… or go to therudeguy.com, and vote for us at Podcast Alley. The direct link to The Rude Guy at Podcast Alley is right on that page.
This is The Rude Guy. We’ll be back. At least one more time. Stay strong. Don’t let anybody intimidate you. Don’t let anybody shame you. No more bullshit. That’s our motto…. No more BULLssshhhiiittt.
Ahhhh, feels a little better already
[RZ voice] Bugama bugama bugama… AAAUUUmmmmm…..
