Physics and Enlightenment

Here is an extract from the book "The Dancing Wu Li Masters":

""What does physics have in common with enlightenment? Physics and enlightenment apparently belong to two realms which are forever separate. One of them (physics) belongs to the external world of physical phenomena and the other of them (enlightenment) belongs to the internal world of perceptions. A closer examination, however, reveals that physics and enlightenment are not so incongruous as we might think. First,
there is the fact that only through our perceptions can we observe physical phenomena. In addition to this obvious bridge, however, there are more intrinsic similarities.
Enlightenment entails casting off the bonds of concept ("veils of ignorance") in order to perceive directly the inexpressible nature of undifferentiated reality. "Undifferentiated reality" is the same reality that we are a part of now, and always have been a part of, and always will be a part of. The difference is that we do not look at it in the same way as an enlightened being. As everyone knows(?), words only represent (re-present) something else. They are not real things. They are only symbols. According to the philosophy of enlightenment, everything (everything) is a symbol. The reality of symbols is an illusory reality. Nonetheless, it is the one in which we live. Although undifferentiated reality is inexpressible, we can talk around it (using more symbols). The physical world, as it appears to the unenlightened, consists of many separate parts. These separate parts, however, are not really separate. According to mystics from around the world, each moment of enlightenment (grace/insight/samadhi/satori) reveals that everything—all the separate parts of the universe—are manifestations of the same whole There is only one reality, and it is whole and unified. It is one.

We already have learned that understanding quantum physics requires a modification of ordinary conceptions (like the idea that something cannot be a wave and a particle). Now we shall see that physics may require a more complete alteration of our thought processes than we ever conceived or, in fact,
than we ever could conceive. Likewise we previously have seen that quantum phenomena seem to make decisions, to "know" what is happening elsewhere (page 62). Now we shall see how quantum phenomena may be connected so intimately that things once dismissed as 'occult' could become topics of
serious consideration among physicists. In short, both in the need to cast off ordinary thought
processes (and ultimately to go beyond thought altogether), and in the perception of reality as one unity, the phenomenon of enlightenment and the science of physics have much in common. Enlightenment is a state of being. Like all states of being it is indescribable. It is a common misconception to mistake the description of a state of being for the state itself For example, try to describe happiness. It is impossible. We can talk around it, we can describe the perspectives and actions that usually accompany a state of happiness, but we cannot describe happiness itself. Happiness and the description of happiness are two different things. Happiness is a state of being. That means that it exists in the realm of direct experience. It is the intimate perception of
emotions and sensations which, indescribable in themselves, constitute the state of happiness. The word  "happiness" is the label, or symbol, which we pin on this indescribable state. ' Happiness" belongs to the realm of abstractions, or concepts. A state of being is an experience. A description of a state of being is a symbol. Symbols and experience do not follow, the same rules. This discovery, that symbols and experience do not follow the same rules, has come to the science of physics under the formidable title of quantum logic. The possibility that separate parts of reality (like you and I and tugboats) may be connected in ways which both our common experience and the laws of physics belie, has found its way into physics under the name
of Bell's theorem. Bell's theorem and quantum logic take us to the farthest edges of theoretical physics. Many physicists have not even heard of them. Bell's theorem and quantum logic (currently) are unrelated. Proponents of one seldom are interested in the other. Nonetheless, they have much in common. They are what is really new in physics. Of course, laser fusion (fusing atoms with high-energy light beams) and the search for quarks generally are considered to be the frontiers of theoretical physics. In a certain sense, they are. However, there is a big difference between these projects and Bell's theorem and quantum logic.
Laser fusion research and the great quark hunt are endeavors within the existing paradigms of physics. A paradigm is an established thought process, a framework. Both quantum logic and Bell's theorem are  potentially explosive in terms of existing frameworks. The first (quantum logic) calls us back from the
realm of symbols to the realm of experience. The second (Bell's theorem) tells us that there is no such thing as "separate parts ". All of the " parts " of the universe are connected in an intimate and immediate way  previously claimed only by mystics and other scientifically objectionable people. The central mathematical  element in quantum theory, the hero of the story, is the "wave function".

The wave function is that mathematical entity which allows us to determine the possible results of an interaction between an observed  system and an observing system. The celebrated position held by the wave function is due not only to Erwin  Schrodinger, who discovered it, but also to the Hungarian mathematician, John von Neumann. In 1932, von  Neumann published a famous mathematical analysis of quantum theory called 'The Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Mechanics '. In this book von Neumann, in effect, asked the question, "If a wave function , this  purely abstract mathematical creation, actually should describe something in the real world, what would that something be like?" The answer that he deduced is exactly the description of a wave function that we already have discussed (page 73). This strange animal constantly would change with the passage of time. Each moment it would be different than the moment before. It would be a composite of all the possibilities of the  observed system which it describes. It would not be a simple mixture of possibilities, it would be a sort of  organic whole whose parts are changing constantly but which, nonetheless, is somehow a thing-in-itself. This thing-in-itself would continue to develop indefinitely until an observation (measurement) is made on the  observed system which it represents. If the observed system is a photon propagating in isolation the wave  function representing this photon would contain all of the possible results of the photon's interaction with a  measuring device, like a photographic plate (For example, the possibilities contained in the wave function might be that the photon will be detected in area A of the photographic plate, that the photon will be detected in area B of the photographic plate and that the photon will be detected in area C of the photographic plate).
Once the photon is set in motion the wave function associated with it would continue to develop (change) according to a causal law (the Schrodinger wave equation) until the photon interacts with the observing system. At that instant, one of the possibilities contained in the wave function would actualize and the other possibilities contained in the wave function would cease to exist. They simply would disappear. The wave
function, that strange animal that von Neumann was attempting to describe, would collapse. The collapse of this particular wave function would mean that the probability of one of the possible results of the photon-measuring-device interaction became one (it happened) and the probability of the other possibilities became zero (they were no longer possible). After all a photon can be detected only in one place at a time.

The wave function, according to this view, is not quite a thing yet it is more than an idea. It occupies that strange middle ground between idea and reality, where all things are possible but none are actual. Heisenberg likened it to Aristotle's potentia (page 66). This approach has unconsciously shaped the language and therefore the  thinking of most physicists, even those who consider the wave function to be a mathematical fiction, an abstract creation whose manipulation somehow yields the probabilities of real events which happen in real (versus mathematical) space and time. ""
- [Ref 4]