FROM PARTICLES TO WAVES
Understanding Spirituality through the frequency of Quantum Physics and La La Land... Part 2. Are you a particle or a wave?... or both?
The ideas in this article series are inspired by and based on the ideas and research from Dr. Lisa Miller in her book The Awakened Brain. This part in particular draws ideas from my favorite chapter in the book: “Chapter 7: When Inner and Outer Align”.
I know Quantum Physics can sound like a daunting term. But believe me, without getting into complex maths or equations, a conceptual grasp of how the quantum world behaves is perfect for helping us understand how spirituality is present in our daily lives. And what's more, it can show us some beautiful truths underlying our reality and our perception of it.
Let's begin with what came before Quantum Physics: Newtonian Physics. This is the physics we learned in middle school and high school: velocity, mass, acceleration, action, and reaction. Newtonian Physics presents a framework of reality based on the idea that every action has a clear cause and consequence that can be modeled through equations and with which we can predict every physical phenomenon. This is very similar to what Dr. Miller calls Achieving Awareness, a way of perception of life in which our mind is focused on our goals and desires. Just like in Newtonian Physics, we set a goal and think that if we put in certain actions, we'll get the desired reaction. Of course, this is a beneficial way of thinking as it helps us thrive and succeed in life. However, it is a limited one too, as things don't always turn out as we expect. There are factors in the equation we can't consider, and if we keep holding on tight to those goals and desires, this can lead us to a dangerous mindset. Just as Dr. Miller explains, the motivation and reward transform into craving and addiction, wanting to have control over everything and leading to anxiety, and in the long run, maybe even depression.
But don't worry, there's an alternative to Achieving Awareness… Let's go back to Physics. Newtonian Physics had been ruling the scientific world for centuries. Scientists believed they could use math to predict everything. They felt powerful; they felt like they could foresee the future. However, trouble arose. When they started to apply the same rules to smaller and smaller particles, atoms, and electrons (quantum particles) they realized this didn't work as well anymore.
More specifically, light was causing them trouble. When scientists back in the day tried to apply the same rules of Newtonian Physics to the small particles that form light, called photons, they realized something weird. While photons appeared as particles in some experiments, they also appeared as waves in others. Scientists were confused. Was light a particle or a wave? Well, it turns out it is BOTH. You can see this wave-particle duality happening in our daily lives. For example, light in a rainbow behaves as a wave, we can’t touch it but its vibration at different frequencies causes us to see it as different colors. Alternatively, when we’re outside we can feel the Sun’s particles actually hitting us, possibly causing suntanning. But how could it possibly be both? What determines whether we encounter it in one form or the other?
In 1925, German Physicist Werner Heisenberg answered this through his reinterpretation of Quantum Mechanics. He explained that quantum particles, such as photons or electrons in an atom, didn’t exist in a specific location as fixed particles, but rather appeared as a wave of probability; particles were more or less likely to appear in certain locations. It isn’t until these particles are measured (in an experiment for instance) that this wave of probability materializes into a fixed particle we can see.1
Scientists throughout the globe were flabbergasted. This was a game changer in the way we understand our reality. For years, we thought there was a deterministic universe with a clear cause and effect as explained by Newtonian Physics. However, Quantum Physics revealed that the particles that make up our universe appear as waves of probability; every outcome is possible to more or less degree. But these outcomes don’t actually materialize until we observe. Note that this transition happens “until WE OBSERVE”. Heisenberg explains this through his famous Uncertainty Principle2: the act of measuring a system naturally affects its behavior. This leads to what we know as the Observer Effect, which reveals a magical underlying truth of our universe: that we humans actively shape our reality through our observation of it.
This new view of Physics and our reality is equivalent to what Dr. Miller defines as Awakened Awareness. This form of awareness opposes the Top-Down perception of Achieving Awareness, in which we have an a priori goal and direct our perception (often limiting it) and actions to achieve them. Awakened Awareness uses Bottom-Up perception, in which instead of having a fixed goal beforehand, we open up to the wave of probability of life, actively observing what’s around us and being open to finding new meaning and purpose in everything that happens to us.
Of course, it ain't easy to live in Awakened Awareness mode all the time.3 It requires purposefully activating this state of our mind through practices such as meditation and mindfulness. It is worth it though, as this perceptual mode can be very beneficial. This way of awareness makes us more likely to appreciate a magical mechanism of spirituality: synchronicity.
Remember my example of your middle school friend you hadn't talked to in years and suddenly calls you after you had just thought about him or her? Well, this is what we call a synchronistic event. An event in our lives in which something we think surprisingly connects to something that happens to us, two things that happen to us are somehow linked, or two things that happen to different people are connected. There are plenty of examples of this, and I'm pretty sure you have lived one at least once in your life… You're thinking about a song, you open TikTok, and the first video in your feed uses that specific one; you were talking to your friend about your favorite food and when you get home your mom had prepared that specific dish; or you and your friend text each other at the exact same time.
Yes, we can attribute this to randomness or the TikTok algorithm. But remember Quantum Physics shows us we actively shape our reality through our observation of it. If this happens with the quantum particles that form all of our reality, why not think that this can also happen in the events in our daily lives? Say you just met a boy or girl in your math class in your senior year of high school. You both have been attending that same school for a couple of years but you had never seen each other. Somehow, after you talk once, you start seeing him or her everywhere. Or maybe it happens that a friend recommended you a song from an artist you had never listened to before. Somehow, you now start listening to songs from that same artist everywhere. That boy or girl was already there, and that artist's songs were already out there, it is just that you weren't paying attention. When we look, that wave of probability materializes into particles. In those moments, we encounter events in which we can find new purpose and meaning, all through our active observation of the magical universe we live in.
I know this is a lot to take in, and you may still be wondering: are these synchronistic events beneficial for me? Should I care about them at all?
Well, don't worry. In the next part of FROM PARTICLES TO WAVES, we'll be using La La Land to help us better understand the impact these new ideas can have in our lives. So if you haven't watched the movie, I recommend you to do it during this week, and don't forget to subscribe so you get Part 3 of this series straight to your inbox!
Thank you for reading! Let me know what synchronistic events you can find this week, and remember: instead of thinking of fixed particles, embrace uncertainty, be open to the wave of probability of life, and engage in Awakened Awareness, as Quantum Physics shows that our observation of reality is more powerful than we might realize.
Of course, this article doesn’t fully explain Quantum Mechanics, I simplified and focused on the conceptual understanding useful for our purposes, but there’s still a lot more to learn. If you found the Physics in this article interesting and you’d like to know more I recommend this cool video as a starting point, as it explains all the fundamentals in a very intuitive way. If you feel like you want to go even further, here’s a series of videos from the channel Quantum Fracture (in Spanish) which goes more in-depth into different topics within Quantum Physics such as wave-particle duality, the double-slit experiment, Heisenber’s Uncertainty Principle, etc.
The Observer Effect is more of a conceptual interpretation of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, which explains that we cannot simultaneously know two properties of a quantum particle with complete accuracy. As we measure, say, its position more precisely, we know less about its momentum. Therefore, we can conclude that measuring of the system is affecting its state. The main takeaway here is that this isn’t a problem of our measurement tools but rather the nature of quantum particles and of our universe itself. If you’d like to know about the Uncertainty Principle check out the videos I recommend in footnote 1 which have great explanations about it.
And of course, the best recommendation is to seek a balance between Achieving and Awakened awareness.