Sunday, July 10th, 1983

SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod, Hector, NY

with Anthony Damiani (AD)

July 10, 1983

PHYSICS: QUANTUM MECHANICS

TOPIC: Physics

SUBJECT: Quantum Mechanics

SUBSUBJECTS: Wave/Particle, Point-Instants, Energy, Measurement Problem, Relation between Natal Chart and Transiting Planets, Productive Imagination, Earth's Memory, Witness-I/Observer, Kant, Dignaga, Identity vs. Continuity, Two Kinds of Knowledge, Arithmetization of the Ideas

CONTENTS:

Discussion of Vic's paper, "Speculations on Physics and Philosophy"

Problem: how is the potential world phenomenalized?

Is the apparatus or the sense perceiver the ultimate measurer?

Generator analogy

Natal chart as a collapse of the wave function

Productive imagination as intermediary between point-instants and perceived world

Problem expressed using astrological symbolism

No image as we know it until the soul inhabits the body

Dignaga's view

Natal chart has continuity but no identity; I AM has identity but no continuity; combination of both gives rise to notion of spurious ego

Multiple levels of wave collapse

Natal horoscope analogous to experimental apparatus

Collapse of wave function into horoscope at birth; another collapse when transits bring new knowledge

Von Neumann vs. Copenhagen school

Set-up of apparatus determines how electron will reveal itself; how I see myself (as psychosomatic or Witness-I) determines the kind of knowledge I get

Two kinds of knowledge

Particle/Wave

We are trying to understand the arithmetization of Ideas

Vic–ego and its world taken as initial framework; AD–take the point of view that it's within you

AD: future isn't fixed; World-Idea in throes of gestation and by our actions we will determine it

BOOKS READ FROM OR REFERENCED

• Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason

• F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, 2 Volumes

PAPER read in class:

• "Speculations on Physics and Philosophy" by Victor Mansfield

RETYPED AND REFORMATTED by IT 2022

NOTES:

• RETYPED PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT (hence V10). From 1983 0710 PHY F07.PDF. THERE ARE NO AUDIO CASSETTE TAPES EXTANT.

• 1983 0710 was a Sunday.

• Vic is Victor Mansfield, a member of Wisdom's Goldenrod, professor of physics and astronomy, Colgate University. See https://www.paulbrunton.org/victormansfield.php.

• Anthony is Anthony Damiani (AD).

• All spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and other errors corrected, all abbreviations and some numbers spelled out.

1983 07/10 SEMINAR at Wisdom's Goldenrod

Physics: Quantum Mechanics

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SEMINAR, SUN. JULY 10, 1983

SPECULATIONS ON PHYSICS AND PHILOSOPHY (VIC'S PAPER)

* Statement of the problem. We are located right in the middle of the problem. We are identifying ourselves with these 'discrete stillnesses', these point-instances of probabilities, whose nature we don't understand. The "packets", "unknowns", "nexus of possibilities" that the electron gun shoots off we can refer to as point-instants, discrete stillnesses, which we could refer to as Mind Energy. Other close terminology might be: "gunas", "sensible reals", "matrix of possibilities".

* At the other end we have the knowledge of the sensible world. The problem is how these supersensible realms are transformed into sense experience, or how the potential world is phenomenalized.

* Is the apparatus or the sense perceiver the ultimate measurer? Is the apparatus an extension of the sense perceiver, so that they are an indivisible whole?

* What is meant by an "irreversible process"--the transition from potentialities to sense perception? Elaborating on the example in the paper, when the packets of energy hit the body, and we experience warmth, that's where there's a collapse of the wave function. Some sort of registration has taken place; the mind has measured something; the undifferentiated has now become differentiated.

* If we build a generator to convert potential energy into actual electricity--it seems as though the generator takes the undifferentiated energy of the flowing river and channelizes that potential into one possibility. So the generator is some kind of actualizer.

* Let the senses take the place of the generator. The sense function takes that energy and interprets it according to the mode of its own being. These point-instants or discrete stillnesses get concretized by the measuring device. The wave function is relatively undifferentiated; the packet or the sensation is relatively differentiated.

* What is the distinction between the flow of the water and the generator? Using this analogy -- You have Mind; Mind wants to manifest itself to itself. In order to do so, it has to create a series of intermediary steps--organize the body, etc. to become aware of its own origin.

* A problem with the generator analogy (and also the role of the apparatus) is the point of sense perception. There is a difference of status--the flowing water is not electricity and we have to elevate it to that status.

What are the intermediaries required for the experience of a thought?

* Mind has the attribute of energy. If energy had no means of transformation into various grades, no manifestation could occur.

* We're speaking of matter in its most primitive state--the most primitive organization of mind. (This is different and prior to the karmic seeds already containing the world to be manifested.)

* The natal chart, i.e., the birth moment, is a collapse of the wave function. Moment by moment, the changing position of the planets, and at every moment a concretization takes place. Moment by moment the World Idea is being projected; the ego and its world is being concretized.

* Is the moment-by-moment activity that is taking place the same as the point-instants? Between the point-instants and the world we perceive an intermediary that translates the point-instants into the perceived world. This is the productive imagination.

What would be logically prior?--the Mind takes these point-instants and translates them into the perceived world. (Kant says the productive imagination seizes the thing-in-itself and the categories transform it into a perceived object.) [Note: See Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason.] (The Mind gets the World Idea, which is streaming into it as these discrete stillnesses, and the Mind has to make a world of it).

* Using the astrology symbolism, there are the degrees, the orbiting planets, and the aspects they are making to one another. These correlate to:

the orbiting planets -- the vitality, the life itself

the degrees -- the forms in the Soul

the aspects -- the intermediary between the above two.

These three are concretized into the World Image, or we could say, they organize the elements in the Earth's memory into the World Image.

* Could we speak at the same time of the existence of the ego and its world? There is no ego and its world unless that consciousness identifies with the body--it has to work through the body to experience the world in the five different ways of the senses.

This mind which has organized the point-instants into a psychosomatic organism has to go live in that body; otherwise there's "nobody" there; this process happens endlessly.

* There is one mind ruling this world, and also this one mind seemingly divided.

* The planets organize the sensorial or imaginal essences of the world into bodies. The mind getting the World Idea gets point-instants -- the mind perceiving in the body gets an entirely different thing. There is no image as we know it until the Soul inhabits the body.

* Dignaga's view is that what understanding we have of the World Idea is through the intermediary of the productive imagination -- our mentation is not reality. The thought of fire is not the thing-in-itself. [Note: See F. Th. Stcherbatsky, Buddhist Logic, 2 Volumes.] Anything we could know through the intermediary of the body and the sense organs has been transformed into sense images, but our body is included in that imagery. Therefore we could not get to the Real through the body, we have to have a pure perception to get to the Real. Pure perception would exclude the categories of the imagination, and is prior to the functioning of the psychosomatic organism.

* This intermediary is what we don't understand.

* If these things are being constructed moment-by-moment, what kind of identity would the ego have? There is none in the true meaning of the world [sic; word], because the World Idea, including the ego, is being manifested moment by moment.

* Then why do 'I' refer to this natal chart as myself? There's no identity, but there is continuity. (See below discussion.)

* In the natal chart there is continuity . This continuity is coming from the World Mind's Idea. If the World Idea is being concretized moment by moment the ego is part of the World Idea.

* On the other hand, the I AM has identity but not continuity. So the identity (of the 'I') is coming from the I AM, and the continuity from the World Idea, so ordinary human beings think the ego is self-identical. The combination of the Mind-I AM (identity) and the ego-thought from the World Idea (continuity) gives rise to the notion that we have an ego. …

The mind is taking in the World Idea, and translates the World Idea. It organizes the imaginal essences, the memories of the Earth, into a representation, an image of that abstract idea that came into it. In that incessantly moving World Idea, this representation (a body) is our psychosomatic organism which has not [sic; no] identity but continuity. The mind identifying with the psychosomatic organism provides the self-identity, both combined gives rise to the spurious ego.

* Using the example of a movie: I can identify with the hero, but still know the movie is a series of stills.

* Is the [Note: The following in parentheses is unclear in scan.] (moment by moment/movement) of the planetary spheres, organizing the imaginal essences, etc, a collapse (of the wave function)? Is the concretization of the World Image a collapse? The instant the images are organized there is a collapse.

* A series of collapses was seen.

The first wave collapse is when the world is concreted, with the ego perceiving the world. The consciousness of the planetary spheres and my I AM identifying with the body becomes the empirical subject and the Witness consciousness.

The second wave collapse is within the empirical subject, the relation between its body and the objects around this body.

(There is perhaps a third level of wave function collapse at the level of the fixed stars.)

* An individual's natal horoscope is analogous to the experimental apparatus. Different natal horoscopes are analogous to different apparatuses and produce a different experience of the world. That's (natal chart) in fact our measurement.

* At birth there is a 'collapse' of the wave function into the natal horoscope. Thirty years later say, there is another collapse of [sic] when a new piece of knowledge becomes available (by transit to the natal chart). In physics, when a potential wave function collapses into a particle, does one mode go into another (see astrology analogy) or are they distinct modes?

* Vic sees physics as still debating this point. The Copenhagen school is taking the divided stance, with the acceptance of the interdependence of the apparatus and the object. The Von Neumann point of view says the whole picture is a continuous connection. Anthony suggests both points of view may be correct. (The Von Neumann school can't account for the continuity of phenomena.)

* One standard of reality is the ego and its world together. Another is the ego-world and the observer outside the world.

* How you set the apparatus up implies which point of view we depend on--whether you think the subject is the ego or the subject is outside the ego. Or, the way you set up your apparatus determines how the electron will reveal itself. The 'quasi-object' reveals itself in a particular way depending on the experimental configuration. Or, the kind of knowledge I get depends on whether I perceive myself as the psychosomatic organism or the Observer.

* (2 kinds of knowledge) The ego's point of view is in the realm of possibilities.

The observer's point of view is fixed knowledge.

Or, the particle knowledge would indicate the fixation of something.

The wave knowledge would indicate the realm of probabilities.

* It's not quite correct to say waves and particles are different. Individual particles on a plate form a larger pattern. The particle point of view is within the wave point of view, but not vice versa. The wave points back to the wave equation which is a higher level of phenomena--non-determined--turning back to the universal in some way. The wave function indicates the pattern in the first place, like the World Idea unfolding.

* We are looking for a mathematical correlation, like the combination of 1-3-5 in a 7-tone scale gives rise to certain forms expressive of a certain quality. We are trying to understand the "music of the spheres" or "the arithmetization of the Ideas".

* Vic says the ego and its world is taken as the framework. There is the supposition that objects have properties which can be measured; "something out there" that I want to know. Then one comes to the realization that it's not so separate, a more unified view of the object and the apparatus.

* Anthony says you have to take the point of view that it's within you.

* The mind is a process of unfoldment--the object has taken on a fluid nature.

* Anthony: We have to take the context, of how the ego has evolved that world. Before the Idea (point-instants of World Idea) gets translated it's indetermined [sic; undetermined]. That means the future isn't fixed, so the World Idea is still in the throes of gestation and by our actions we will determine it; what we do will determine the World Idea.

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