Finding Spirit in the Fabric of Space and Time : An interview with Stuart Hameroff
Over the past thirty-five years, the mysterious connection between quantum physics and human consciousness has steadily become a central tenet of East-meets-West spirituality.
Somehow, people have managed to find an irresistibly compelling relationship between the intangible world of subatomic particles and the immaterial realms of consciousness and spirit. It began with Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics in 1975, shifted into high gear with Gary Zukav’s Dancing Wu Li Masters in 1979, and fired up the afterburners throughout the eighties and nineties—with the help of Deepak Chopra—until the idea became nearly impossible to avoid. Upon entering a Seattle bookstore one fateful afternoon in the summer of 1997, I encountered no fewer than three publications exploring the relationship between mind and matter through the lens of quantum physics: The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, The Spiritual Universe by Fred Alan Wolf, and Issue 11 of this magazine, whose cover posed the question “Can Science Enlighten Us?”
Somehow, people have managed to find an irresistibly compelling relationship between the intangible world of subatomic particles and the immaterial realms of consciousness and spirit. It began with Fritjof Capra’s Tao of Physics in 1975, shifted into high gear with Gary Zukav’s Dancing Wu Li Masters in 1979, and fired up the afterburners throughout the eighties and nineties—with the help of Deepak Chopra—until the idea became nearly impossible to avoid. Upon entering a Seattle bookstore one fateful afternoon in the summer of 1997, I encountered no fewer than three publications exploring the relationship between mind and matter through the lens of quantum physics: The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, The Spiritual Universe by Fred Alan Wolf, and Issue 11 of this magazine, whose cover posed the question “Can Science Enlighten Us?”I eagerly bought the first two, but after skimming through the magazine, I decided to leave it on the rack. Already a firm believer in the physics-equals-mysticism idea, I foundEnlightenNext’sspecial brand of playful skepticism off-putting. Why did they doubt, when the evidence was so clear? It was obvious that the deeper dimensions of consciousness and the deeper dimensions of matter converged in the mysterious realm of quantum physics. Right?
Not necessarily. I soon realized that just because the nature of consciousness is mysterious and the nature of quantum physics is also mysterious, it doesn’t mean that both mysteries are ultimately the same thing. By the time the enormously popular film What the Bleep Do We Know!? hit the scene in 2004, launching the physics-and-consciousness idea into a whole new quantum orbital, I was working as an editor for EnlightenNext and took it upon myself to review the movie with a newfound appreciation of the many subtleties involved. As it turned out, as far as I and my fellow editors were concerned, the supposedly perfect marriage between quantum physics and consciousness was probably little more than wishful New Age thinking. And when it came to the more serious scientific suggestions that physics had something to say about consciousness, we generally found the arguments less than persuasive.
But that was before we met Stuart Hameroff. (read more...)
Join Skeptiko host Alex Tsakiris for an interview with Dr. Stuart Hameroff. Dr. Hameroff is Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Anesthesiology and Psychology at the University of Arizona, where he also serves as the Director of the Center for Consciousness Studies. During the interview Mr. Tsakiris and Dr. Hameroff discuss whether DMT-based psychedelic experiences provide evidence that our consciousness exists outside of the brain:
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