What is reality? It is defined as 'the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them.' Another definition from Wikipedia states that 'Reality is the sum or aggregate of all that is real or existent within a system, as opposed to that which is only imaginary.' This fits the bill for most people as they generally understand their reality to be what is there when their sense organs are operating and gathering data. But this does not really cover other aspects of reality such as when one is asleep. Are dreams reality too as they are not imagined, and you do exist and experience while within the dream. And what about thoughts that have no physical presence but very much exist for all people? The mental diarrhea that flows during almost every waking second definitely is real and experienced by the person who is generating it. So, we can at least state that reality is made up of physical and non-physical elements that combine in a multitude of ways to present what one perceives and experiences as reality. And this is why most humans don't ponder this question to any meaningful depth; everything seems so solid and "real", but closer examination makes it shift and change much like a mirage. Even science, with all its rigid methods and definitions, fails to understand, let alone explain very real human experiences such as emotions or dreams. The most common human reality experience of love has no real definition or understanding inside of science. Even scientific things such as gravity are not fully explained or its origin, understood. And what about color? What we perceive as blue is everything besides that color which is what we perceive because it's what is rejected and thus absorbed by our eye. Even all the investigations and experiments that have been done using modern computers and modeling seems to only deepen the mystery. To put it bluntly, reality has never felt more unreal than today.
Reality and the Human Body
Our bodies only perceive what we call reality through the five senses and their associated organs: sight/eyes, sound/ears, smell/nose, taste/tongue, touch/skin. These organs provide input to the brain that then interprets them to create what we call subjective reality. The brain, itself an organ, is locked up inside a dark and silent space in the skull and has never been in the reality that it perceives. But as science has shown, most of what reality is made of is far beyond the perception of the sense organs anyway. So, what we recognize as reality, is actually a subpar experience that is limited by biology. Take sound for example, we can only hear a small range (20Hz - 20 KHz) of all the frequencies that make up reality. A dog hears far more than us but even that is limited compared to other creatures like bats. Thus, each creature experiences the world we live in with a different perception of reality. Speaking of bats, they send sound impulses outward and use the resulting echoes to make precise determinations of distance, size, shape, motion, and even texture. While we both exist in the same reality and can see/sense each other, the what and how are far different. But what is amazing is that there are parts of this reality that bats can sense and experience and that we cannot, and vice versa. And since our minds are just a heap of memory we have accumulated, dissected, and categorized since birth, our reality is further constrained and tainted by our experiences. And for the mind, this can be true in the literal sense. There is a story of Michael May, who as a 3-year-old child lost his sight due to a chemical explosion. For 43 years since, his brain developed the capability to operate without the sense of sight. A breakthrough in stem-cell technology allowed doctors to mostly reverse his blindness but he still could not see as the brain cannot process that sensory stream. He only sees a confusing stream of images that most of us would interpret as visual reality. The reverse is also true, for example, with amputees whose brains can still "feel" a leg or arm even though it has long been removed. They even experience pain, itching, and other normal sensations because the brain continues to believe in the old reality and has not reprogrammed itself. The brain operates with electrochemical signals from which it extracts patterns and assigns meaning, creating our subjective world. But the brain does not know or care where the data comes from; it just figures out what to do with it quickly, efficiently, and with little conscious effort.
In that sense, the brain is nothing more than a computer motherboard to which we connect plug-and-play peripherals such as cameras or sound processing cards. But the brain itself is only a processing unit based on the software that is installed inside and the limitations of that software or the peripheral connected to it. Using vision as an example, we can see far less than 1% of the entire electromagnetic spectrum as shown in the figure below.
Figure 1: The electromagnetic spectrum.
(Source: AAG)
As you can see (no pun 😊), we see only a small fraction of the entire spectrum of reality. It is key to note that the brain, that which creates and lets us experience reality, is only a processing unit. But it contains a vast amount of power and many, many sub-processing systems for things such as vision. And what is most interesting is that it can create a reality that is even independent of what the sensory peripherals are sending. The best example to illustrate this is an experiment conducted in 2019 by Patrick Cavanagh, a research professor at Dartmouth College and a senior fellow at Glendon College in Canada. The experiment uses a fixed dot on the left side of a rectangle and a moving circle on the right that has an alternating black and white patch that moves left and right. With eyes fixed on the black dot, it appears as if the circle is moving in a diagonal manner even though, in reality, it is moving in a perfect vertical motion. This is because the alternating black and white suggests diagonal motion to our brain and confuses our senses. There are many such optical illusions you can try for yourself here. They repeated the experiment using a circle that was actually moving in a diagonal manner and this time, the brain got it right. Using fMRI neuroimaging, which allows researchers to map brain activity, Cavanagh and his team tried to determine where exactly in the brain did reality diverge from perceived reality. The obvious answer was the visual cortex which is located in the back of the brain and receives and processes the information coming from our eyes. But all tests on different participants showed the visual cortex was receiving the data just fine; vertical for the vertical and diagonal for the diagonal. Digging further, they discovered that the frontal lobes of the participants' brains is where the divergence was happening and causing the participants to see both cases as diagonal movement. This part of the brain is responsible for the higher-level functions such as anticipation and decision-making happen. So, this is where the story of reality is being constructed and where conscious perception diverges from physical reality. What is even more surprising is that the brain continued to create this "alternate" reality even after the participants were told what was going on. This shows you cannot consciously override the illusion even though you know it to be so.
We also know that there is a lag of about 100 milliseconds between our sense organs sending input to the brain and when it is processed and presented as reality. This is very similar to a computer where data is read from a hard disk, sent to subsystems like graphics or sound, then to the CPU, and finally to the screen where you get the desired result. Think about what it takes to perceive a moving car on a road. Once the image (light) from the car hits the back of our retinas, it is converted to an electrical signal that travels to the visual cortex. From there, it goes to the higher-order processing systems that then present you with what you (think you) are seeing. Now add in sound and smell and is it any wonder there is a lag between reality and us processing and digesting it? Our sensory and processing systems all are slow in terms of processing reality and if we had to rely on this outdated information, we would be very clumsy creatures. We would not be able to hit a ball or swat a fly away and would be generally less coordinated. Hence the brain must predict a path of motion before it happens and tell us that story which then creates our perception of reality. The most common test to prove this is by using a flash-lag effect where two aligned objects, one moving one not, seem not to be aligned (just search the Internet for it). The point of all the above is to show that what we perceive as reality is actually a story about reality that our brains create for us based on all inputs. The brain gives us this story and then uses the real-time sensory feed to course correct as needed. And this applies to almost everything the brain does. The other obvious one is color and that our perception of it is not absolute or even shared across humanity. Nothing illustrates this better than "the dress" controversy that happened in 2015 where more than 10 million people across the world could not agree on the color of a dress that was posted on Facebook. Some perceived it as white/gold while others as blue/black. This is because color is an inference our brain makes to paint the story and not try to give us precise wavelengths of what the eye is sending. For example, if a white object is bathed in blue light, we instinctively filter out the blue to know the object is white. This is how the color illusion tricks work… our brains use surrounding light and lighting to make a guess an objects true color and sometimes it is different from what somebody else's brain guesses.
Pascal Wallisch, a neuroscientist at New York University, believes he figured out the reason between the two main color groups (there was a small group that saw blue/white). His hypothesis is that people's brains are making an assumption of the type of light that is being cast on the dress. He took data points and discovered that people who go to bed late at night assumed it was artificial light and early risers assuming it was sunlight. Thus, the former saw the dress as blue/black and latter as white/gold. So, the early riser's brains assumed it is lit in sunlight, which has a lot of blue, and thus filtering it out, thus leaving behind yellow (gold). The overall lesson from this is that when confronted with ambiguity, the brain attempts to create the story from sensory feeds, it compensates by doing what it is most familiar with. Our brains are making these unconscious inferences and compensations all the time, but we have no idea about it. So, we are living in a reality that is an inferred story, curated and created by our brains based on what it is familiar with or guesses. Another simple example is Kanizsa's Triangle which uses PacMan-like shapes to force the brain to make an assumption of a triangle that is not really there. Since the corners suggest to the brain the existence of a triangle, it goes ahead and fills it in. Now imagine that all of humanity is living with a supercomputer in their heads called a brain that is flawed on many levels. More to the point, the story of reality that is being created for me may or may not be the same for you. The dress controversy is a very basic example of this, but the variance applies to all levels of the mind and that is a shocking realization.
From the moment we are born, our sense organs start functioning and building that heap of stuff we call memory, and which ultimately leads to self-identification and definition of 'me'. And what the 'me' really represents is nothing more than the sum of experiences till this moment, filtered through the million opinions, identities, biases, knowledge, and everything else we use to carve up reality. But, what if all that sensory data from the beginning was just created and fed to us by a computer? Yes, this is the realm of The Matrix, what I consider one of the best movies of all time as it gave humanity just a pause due to the 'what if'. But this is not far-fetched and something that we will see within the next 10 years when (not if) the man-machine interface (MMI) is created. Neuralink, one of Elon Musk's companies, is very close to releasing a brain implant that aims to create a communications pathway between the brain and a computer. Since all sensory information sent to the brain is electrical anyway, it is not that difficult for a computer to mimic and re-create these signals. It is at this point we can achieve what was shown in the Matrix as what if we fed a newborn baby its entire reality only from a MMI connected to a super-computer. To that child, for the entirety of her life, the life she experiences will be as real as what we experience. Further, at some point, she can achieve digital immortality by uploading the entirety of her life into the computer and continue to live there forever in new worlds and experiences created by the computer. Yes, I am utterly ignoring the soul (or whatever you want to call it) but what I just described is theoretically possible. And it is at that point that, I predict, human population will go into irreversible decline as most will choose the "perfect" life that the computer offers to the one filled with suffering in the real world. Humans may well be crafted and born in test tubes and plugged into an AI that creates reality for them. Anyway, this is not a rehash of the Matrix but my point is that we could be living in such an existence right now and not know it. We have video games today that are completely open-ended and in worlds that have no end. You can explore and do essentially whatever you want, and it feels like a very good representation of real life. So, is there any evidence that we are living in an illusion or any way to even start looking for such evidence? The answer is yes, and it requires a journey into the strange world of quantum mechanics. I will attempt to show why Musk is most probably right when he says "The chance we are not living in a computer simulation is 'one in billions'".
Quantum Mechanics- Where reality breaks
Modern science is pretty good at attempting to explain how we perceive and exist in this reality by following what we think are fixed features. These include things such as speed of light, theory of relativity, composition of matter, and the myriad of equations and formulae (Ex. E=MC2) that make up the different areas of science. But it falls woefully short when attempting to explain other common aspects of reality such as gravity (we don't know where it emanates from), love, where electrons go when they move between energy bands, and even one of the most mundane substance that is the basis of life… water. Where science ends, religion attempts to step in and fill the gap using the universal solution of God. But it requires blind belief without many experiential methods and thus also fails to provide an explanation. Spirituality is less mandated and more about an individual experience based on multiple paths and thus does provide more experiential results. But it too mostly fails to provide intellectual or scientific principles towards that understanding. A good example is Yoga which gives one all the means and techniques to pursue enlightenment but without any (easy) explanation that would satisfy a scientist or even an average human. But there is a third realm that straddles the space between these two extremes and that is the fascinating and often unexplainable world of quantum physics. It begins to start proving what religion has always espoused; that reality isn't as simple as we think it is and that human beings are far more extraordinary than just a mass of flesh and bones. At the scientific end, it answers questions that have confounded classical scientists for centuries, while at the religious end, it appears to be the science of spirituality. Set in motion by that other (to Einstein) German genius of a man named Max Plank, for decades scientists in various disciplines have been carrying out experiments whose results cannot be explained by current biology and physics. Like an explanation of why light behaves as a particle or a wave depending on the situation. What they have discovered is something beyond the norm and astonishing in the insight it offers into the very fabric of reality and the life experience. Their work points to the fact that every living being is a coalescence of energy within a field of energy that connects everything to everyone. This field is the source of our being and of our consciousness and drives everything that we think of as reality across the physical, mental, and metaphysical. Einstein himself said “There is no place in this new kind of physics (Quantum Physics) both for the field and matter, for the field is the only reality.” Everything that has been developed by the base of modern physics started with Isaac Newton’s views all the elements of our universe are separate, divisible, and isolated from each other. In essence, it is a view of separateness and applies to humans as well in that we are discrete individuals with a physical body and an intellectual mind that controls it. The world was composed of many of these discrete objects of which the most separated was the human being. What quantum is beginning to show scientifically is what the yogic sciences have known experientially for centuries, which is that we are all part of a very connected and conscious whole. And that our understanding and perception of reality is limited to a very small and gross physical part of the whole. Because of our attachment to the intellectual mind and the physical, most of us have completely ignored anything beyond that. As an aside, it is because of this perception of separateness, we have all these conflicts and such abject division of resources that half the planet is denied basic food and shelter.
Quantum physics is the study of matter and energy at the most fundamental level with a goal to uncover the properties and behaviors of the very building blocks of reality. In 1930, Max Planck, a German physicist, started the process by which quantum physics was born. Scientists used to believe that energy was on a continuous scale and an object could have any energy value on that scale. But they could not explain why hot objects, despite classical science telling them so, gave off almost no ultraviolet light. Planck showed that at a sub-atomic level, objects could only emit energy in small units which he called quanta (or quantities). A single quanta or quantity is called a quantum and hence the name. But he still did not know why. It wasn't until a few years later that Neils Bohr showed how electrons within an atom moved in fixed states of energy called orbitals and could jump between orbitals depending on whether energy was absorbed or emitted by these sub-atomic particles. Quantum mechanics is the framework and study of how sub-atomic particles behave- atoms, electrons, photons, quarks, and everything in the molecular and sub-molecular dimensions. In these dimensions, the laws of classical physics mostly cease to be relevant because it requires objects to be in a specific place, at a specific time, in a defined state. In the quantum world, things exist as a range of possibilities and only take on a state when observed or measured. There are three parts to quantum mechanics starting with the name itself, which state that properties of quantum particles such as energy or momentum comes in discrete levels or quanta. The second part is called the wave-particle duality where small things sometimes act as particles and sometimes as waves. The third part is that these things are ruled by probabilities and uncertainties. And one final fact is that as matter gets smaller and smaller, it eventually just becomes electromagnetic wave energy as shown.
Figure 2: Matter at its smallest is just wave energy.
(Image Source: WeeklyWisdomBlog)
Light, one of the most basic parts of the universe, can be used to showcase the "weirdness" of the world of quantum physics. Christian Huygens was the first to describe light as traveling in waves, while Isaac Newton thought light was composed of tiny particles. British scientist Thomas Young set out to find out who was right and conducted the 'double-slit' experiment, one of the most famous experiments in physics. It is the showcase of the type of phenomena in the quantum world that classical physical still cannot explain in the 200+ years since it was first performed. In his experiment, he had a light-source pointed at a wall that has two parallel slits in it and a light-sensor wall behind that to measure the light that made it through. What he discovered was that the two slits acted almost as independent light sources and light coming from each slit diffracted and overlapped with the light from the other slit. This caused an interference pattern to appear on the sensor screen which showed that light was behaving as a wave. Any type of wave (sound, light, water, etc.) can create an interference pattern where a crest of one wave hitting the trough of another causes a cancellation (destructive interference) or two crests hitting each other and causes an amplification (constructive interference). On the sensor, the constructive matches showed up as a bright band and the destructive ones as a dark band. Between them were all other possible combinations of everything between bright and dark. For Young, this settled it, and he declared light was a wave and not a particle. The experiment is shown in the diagram below.
Figure 3: Wave interference pattern of light
But other scientists were not so quick to write off somebody as intelligent as Newton and set out to do their own experiments. What they discovered was something that was utterly unexpected and to this day, defies explanation from any branch of science. Let's start by looking at what light really is. The smallest, measurable part of light is a subatomic particle called a photon. So, any light source is just many photons that are emitted and illuminate things that they hit including our eyes. In the same experiment as Figure 3, if we block off one of the slits and fire photons at the wall, the ones that make it through the slit will show up as discrete points of light on the sensor wall, in the same manner as had sand been shot at the wall. From this 'single slit' experiment, we can conclude that light acts as a particle as shown below.
Figure 4: Particle pattern of light
Next, we unblock the other slit and do the exact same as before by firing photons at the wall. One would expect to see two groupings of discrete points of light just opposite where the slits are located. But instead, we get the same interference pattern as we saw in Figure 3. For some reason, the photons are now going through the slits acting as waves. This is completely the opposite of what we would logically expect if light were made up of photons that are like grains of sand. Is it possible that the many photons going through the two slits somehow interfere with each other causing wave-like behavior? To test this, what if we further refine the experiment to fire photons at the wall one at a time and leave enough time between the shots to ensure they don't interfere with each other? This is done by replacing the light source with a photon “gun” (typically a laser) that fires a single photon at a time. This experiment was conducted by Dr. Akira Tonomura, a Japanese physicist. At first, the photons appear as two discrete groupings of discrete points of light on the sensor wall as would be expected. This means that light is acting as a particle. But, as the quantity of fired photons increases, the interference pattern of light begins to emerge. Each photon appears to be contributing towards the wave interference pattern even though they were fired one at a time and have no chance of interfering with each other. It is almost as if the photon is "aware" of the second slit and modifies its behavior. But how? Does it split into two, go through both slits, interfere with itself, and then reconverge on the sensor as a wave? If so, why? The following figure shows the wave-interference pattern appear as more and more photons, individually fired, hit the detector wall.
Figure 5: Single photons to wave-interference pattern
(Source: Wikimedia)
Even though the electrons were fired one after another (avoiding any wave interference), the resulting image after firing 140,000 electrons is similar to the wave-interference pattern as in Figure 3. In other words, all the individual photons ended up creating the wave-interference pattern anyway, even though they never interfered with each other. This strange behavior implies that the photon perhaps split into two, used both slits, and interfered with itself. To investigate this implication, scientists set up a detector on the wall to determine which slit the photon passes through or if it splits into two and passes through both. A detector was placed just in front of the wall with the slits. The same firing of photons, one at a time, was done as before and the detector found a roughly 50/50 distribution of photons between the slits. But, surprisingly, even after a large number of photons were fired, the pattern remained as in the single-slit experiment with two discrete groupings of discrete points of light on the sensor wall. It would seem that the act of detection (or observation) caused the photon to change its behavior and not act as a wave. This is shown in the figure below.
Figure 6: Single photons to particle pattern
Now, the experiment was repeated with the detector turned off with the expectation the results would be the same. After all, the detector is a passive device and does not introduce anything to affect the path of the photon. And this is where things get super weird. The photons, instead of creating two discrete groupings of points like in Figure 6, went back to acting as a wave and caused the interference pattern to appear. This is shown in Figure 7 below. This means at the mere act of observation causes the photon to change its behavior from a particle to a wave. How? Why? If you can answer that, you would be more famous than Einstein, at least in the scientific community 😊
Figure 7: Single photons to wave-interference pattern when observed.
But wait, there is more. Can things get beyond weird and into astonishing? In the world of quantum physics, of course. Using the same method as the experiment in Figure 7, we turn on the detector AFTER the photon has already hit the sensor wall. This is done by splitting the source photons into two entangled particles and measuring one long after the other has hit the sensor wall. Note that there is a lot to discuss about entanglement and I will do so a bit later. For now, understand that entanglement just means that if something changes in one particle, it is instantly reflected in the other. Since the photon has already hit the wall before its entangled brother was observed, it should behave the same as in Figure 6 and show the interference pattern of wave behavior as in the last experiment. But instead, the two discrete groupings of discrete points of light on the sensor wall is seen. This suggests that detecting a photon in the future (after it has hit the wall) alters its behavior in the past to make it act like a particle even though it acted as a wave (unobserved) when it went through the slit and hit the wall. A further twist to this experiment is to put another pair of detectors even farther away from the source but use a half-silvered mirror in front of the brother photons. This mirror reflects half the light and lets half pass through. The reflected half goes to a detector which can then tell which slit the photon went through. Let’s call these the A and B detectors, one for each slit. Now, for the photons that passed through the half-silvered mirror, we put a set of normal mirrors on each stream (one from each slit). Then, we put a single half-silvered mirror between them so half of the reflected stream goes to new detectors C and D. But, C and D get photons from both streams so don't know which slit the photons went through. We effectively 'erase' the knowledge A and B give us. So, if we only use A/B, we get the 'observed' particle effect, but if we only use C/D we get the 'unobserved' wave effect. This is even though C/D are much, much farther away from A/B which are already far away from the sensor screen. This implies that in the quantum world, time and space don't have the same relevance as they do in our world. So, quantum mechanics can be considered non-local (brother photons) and non-temporal because the future act of detection changes the past. This is known as the Quantum Eraser experiment and is perhaps the most mysterious of all quantum behavior. While it is shown in the diagram below, it is very complex to describe in words so watch this video to see it in action.
Figure 8: Delayed-choice, quantum eraser experiment
(Source: ResearchGate)
One thing that is for sure is that the entire field of quantum physics has a lot of uncertainty and much of it cannot be explained, to this day, by classical physics. The latter simply accepts quantum behavior and moves on until sometime in the future where we may be able to explain it. Perhaps what is most central, critical, and fascinating about quantum behavior is that such a fundamental part of reality, light, changes its behavior based on being observed. What's even more astounding is that this behavior changes based on observation after the event, in this case light hitting the sensor wall after the fact. If you measure or observe it, no matter when, behavior changes. It's as if light cannot accept the fact it behaved as a wave because it was not being observed when it hit the wall because it was observed after the fact. This behavior of light is called the Observer Effect. How is any of this possible? Scientists in the 1930s speculated that it was human consciousness that was responsible for the 'Observer Effect' in quantum mechanics. Through the years, this proposal has gained a lot of ground among individuals such as Deepak Chopra but, as would be expected, utterly rejected by classical science and the mainstream. One experiment that was repeated over hundreds of individuals over different sets was created to test the limits of observability. Using a closed system where the wall with, slits, lasers and detection wall were all hidden inside a sealed box, participants were asked to focus on the slits and light in their minds. One set of participants were told to only think of it whereas the other set were asked to focus on the system while in deep meditation. Both produced the familiar two groupings of discrete points of light which happens when the particles are observed. The results with the group focusing while meditating had the tightest grouping of points and negligible number of outliers. It seems that human consciousness does indeed affect quantum behavior.
The Zero-Point Energy Field
“Everything is energy.”
-Albert Einstein
Another aspect of quantum particles that bears mention is Heisenberg uncertainty principle, named after German physicist Werner Heisenberg, in 1927. He stated that we can never measure the exact position AND velocity of an object at the same time, even in theory. He was specifically referring to very, very small objects like the ones found in the quantum world. This is because as matter gets smaller and smaller, it eventually ends up as wave energy. From atoms we get to electrons and protons, then to quarks, and eventually to just waves. As mentioned earlier, a photon exists as a wave of all its particle possibilities and collapses into a particle in a specific place when it is observed. Hence, we can either know the velocity (wave) or the position (particle) but never both at once. This means that no particle ever stays completely at rest, but is constantly in motion due to a ground state field of energy that is constantly interacting with all subatomic matter. It means that the basic substructure of the universe is a sea of quantum fields that cannot be eliminated by any known laws of physics. This is not much different than waves in an ocean where we can measure the position of the wave at any given time but not know its velocity at the same time. Where is the wave anyway? It is spread out all over that part of the ocean. We can know where the wave is or where it is going, but not both at the same time. And underlying the wave is literally a massive ocean of water. This principle also applies to other related or conjugated pairs in nature such as time and energy; you can know one but not the other. And this seems to be one of those set-in-stone, unbreakable (to date) fact of the quantum world. And this paradox is what brings us to an amazing discovery that is called the Zero-Point Energy (ZPE) field. It is a field of energy that results from the principles of quantum mechanics and the physics of subatomic particles. Because we know that we can never know both the location and velocity of a particle at the same time, this also means that a particle can never really fully come to rest. Because if it did, we would be able to know its exact location and velocity, the latter of which would be a value of zero. Thus, we can conclude that molecules and sub-atomic particles can never really completely come to rest. Ironically, this is stated with certainty by Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle :-) This behavior has been proven many times with the simplest being liquid helium. When it is cooled to absolute zero, where in theory there is no energy, it still remains a liquid because of the irremovable ZPE energy. The name and phenomena were developed by Einstein and Otto Stern in 1913 as a corrective term to say that zero is not really zero but can be if you ignore ZPE, a process called renormalization.
We think that space and "emptiness" is nothing, devoid of any energy or any thing. Did you know that the inside of an atom is 99.9999999999% empty space in that it seems to be devoid of matter? Same with our universe where matter only occupies less than 1% despite all the planets, asteroids, meteors, etc. We always knew it was filled with known energy such as radio, microwave, or cellular waves. But we now know that beyond that, the emptiness is full of zero-point energy. In fact, this is also where the 'Zero' in the ZPE name came from; fluctuations in the field still occur in temperatures of absolute zero, the lowest possible energy state where all matter has been put to rest and no motion is supposed to exist. Using Einstein's theories, especially his famous E=mc2 relating energy to mass, we know now that all elementary particles or forces interact with each other by exchanging energy through other quantum particles. For example, virtual photons are the interaction medium between two electromagnetic forces that attract or repulse. These pop in and out of existence combining and annihilating each other in an instant (10-23 seconds to be exact), causing random fluctuations of energy without any apparent reason. These particles (a particle/anti-particle pair) generated in that brief moment are called virtual particles and only exist during that short time of 'uncertainty' allowed by the Uncertainty principle. They are not really particles at all and don't really exist other than as a disturbances in the field. We call them particles only because that is what we always have called the smallest units that form matter. Virtual particles only exist to mediate the interaction between elementary particles and then they disappear. This sort of creation/annihilation of virtual particles occurs not only among photons and electrons, but with all the quantum particles in the universe. Thus, the Zero Point Field is a repository of all fields, all ground energy states, and all virtual particles. Every exchange of every virtual particle radiates energy, though an unimaginably small amount. But, if you add up all the particles of all types in the entire expanse of the universe, it becomes a vast, almost infinite source of energy. It has been calculated that the total sum of ZPE exceeds all the energy in matter by a factor of 1040, or 1 followed by 40 zeros. So, what we think of as emptiness, is actually teeming with a maelstrom of energy across all space.
For the scientist, ZPE is tantalizing as it represents the Holy Grail of energy research. If we could tap into ZPE, we would have all the energy we would ever need and with no pollution or any negative effects. And even more interesting, it would finally provide an energy source for interstellar travel that is simply not feasible today (just going to the nearest start outside our solar system would require a tank of fuel as large as the sun). But for philosophers, the Field offers something far more existential and stunning. The implication of the Field is that all matter in the universe is connected by waves spread out through time and space. These waves can carry on to infinity and tying everything to everything at a very fundamental level. Since virtual particles mediate interaction between elemental particles, they must exist in all possibilities of that interaction, all at once in a quantum superposition. This goes back to the basics of quantum mechanics and the uncertainty principle. An interesting thought exercise on this that was proposed by Erwin Schrödinger to criticize this theory of superposition because of its implications. A cat is placed in a box with a vial of poison which will automatically be released if a radioactive particle decays. Radioactive decay is one of the probability-driven aspects of quantum physics. We can't say when the particle will decay as we only know the probability of it decaying in a certain period. After some time has elapsed, an unobserved particle will be in a superposition of decayed and not decayed states. But since the life of the cat depends on the state of that particle, does this mean the cat is simultaneously dead and alive? In theory, yes, because that is how quantum superposition works in that all possibilities exist until an observation (opening the box) is made. Note that superposition is not something theoretical and has been seen and measured in countless experiments. Recently, scientists placed part of a sapphire crystal into a quantum superposition, the largest known object ever to be observed. This was done by vibrating the billions of atoms inside a 16mg crystal and observing as it oscillated in two different directions at once. It was the first time this had been done to an object visible to the naked eye.
To go further down the philosophical path, let's start with a quote from Max Plank, the godfather of quantum; "I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much; there is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter." All our consciousness is connected to the Field and all our reality, including matter, emerges from this Field. We cannot perceive it with our sense organs because it is completely non-physical. Yoga offers a path via meditation to connect with this field which is known as Chitta or The Cosmic Intelligence. To provide an analogy, the top of the ocean with the waves and turbulence is like our physical world, always changing. But underneath it, is a vast quantity of still, quiet, and mostly dark water that has the potential to create an infinite number of waves. That is the quantum field! Since we are linked to the quantum field, we can tap into that infinite sum of possibilities and manifest a specific possibility. This is enacted via the Observer Effect which we discussed earlier, where an electron exists as a wave of infinite possibilities until it is observed and then collapses into one. The philosophical conclusion is that our thought creates reality by causing wave energy to collapse into matter, and thus a single, specific possibility. This was summed up quite nicely by Einstein when he said "Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want, and you cannot help but get into that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy, this is physics."
Quantum Entanglement
Another key aspect of quantum behavior is what is known as entanglement and is at the heart of quantum physics. We talked about entanglement earlier during the double-slit experiment and how it enables a lot of quantum behavior. When two particles become entangled, their states become linked such that a change or measurement to one causes an instantaneous reaction in the other. But what is truly astounding is that this change happens regardless of how far apart the particles are or what is between them. For example, let's say we have two entangled photons, Pa in New York and Pb in Sydney. When the polarization of Pa is observed to be 'up', Pb is automatically in 'down'. It is impossible to tell the polarization before it is measured because it is in superposition (all states, all at once), but once done, Pa's state collapses into one, and Pb's state is instantaneously known as the opposite of Pa. A real-life analogy would be sending two cards, Ace-Heart and Ace-Spade to New York and Sydney in sealed envelopes. You don't know which one went to which but the minute you open one, you instantly know the other. The superposition part says both cards are both suites (heart and spade) at the same time until you open and look, at which point the observed card collapses into one of the choices and the second card into the other choice :-) Entanglement can happen from something as simple as splitting a photon into two, each with half the energy of the original photon, like we did in the experiment before. Or the subatomic process of nuclear decay also produces entangled particles. Research conducted by Einstein and others in 1935 determined that when two particles become entangled or strongly correlated, they lose their individual quantum states and share a single, unified state. This unified state, which is maintained across any distance and time, is called entanglement. The change, no matter where the entangled particles are, is called ‘nonlocality’ and refers to the ability of a quantum particle to influence another quantum particle instantaneously, over any distance, despite there being no exchange of force or energy. Einstein called this ‘spooky action at a distance’, and it was one of the major reasons he was not comfortable quantum mechanics. Over the years since Einstein, experiments have repeatedly confirmed that entangled particles do influence each other regardless of distance.
But wait, there is more :-) Deeper experiments into what 'instantaneously' means has revealed that the change between entangled particles happens at about 10,000 times the speed of light! A team of physicists led by Juan Yin at the University of Science and Technology of China in Shanghai used a pair of entangled photons that were 10 miles apart. They measured the state of one photon and timed how long it would take for the entangled photon to change state. While they could not get an exact number, they found the slowest possible speed for the interaction would be 10,000 times the speed of light. This is why Einstein found quantum entanglement so disturbing as it proves the speed of light is no longer the fastest constant in our universe. This would go against his special theory of relativity which would break so many assumptions and theories of classical physics. The practical applications of this would be stunning in communications, for example. NASA used entanglement behavior to actually teleport information instantaneously over a distance of about 27 miles. And in 2017, a Chinese satellite named Micius sent entangled photons to three different ground stations, each separated by more than 1,200 kilometers, and broke the distance record for entangled particles. Using quantum bits (Qbits) which exist in a state of 0 and 1 simultaneously, quantum computing promises performance and capabilities that are magnitudes greater than anything in existence today. Finally, it should also be noted that entanglement can also occur among hundreds, millions, or even more particles. The phenomenon is thought to take place throughout nature, among the atoms and molecules in living beings and within all materials found in the universe. When many particles become entangled, they still act as one unified object. Like a school of fish, the particles become an entity unto themselves, without being in direct contact with one another. “The particles act together like a single object whose identity lies not with the individual components but in a higher plane. It becomes something larger than itself,” says Spyridon (Spiros) Michalakis, outreach manager of Caltech’s Institute for Quantum Information and Matter (IQIM). “Entanglement is like a thread that goes through every single one of the individual particles, telling them how to be connected to one another.” Theoretical physicists believe that space and time itself are the result of an underlying network of quantum connections.
Beings of Light
While most people have never heard of Dr. Fritz-Albert Popp, his contribution to the world of biophysics is remarkable in scope and implication. As a professor of Biophysics and Director of the International Institute of Biophysics in Germany, he uncovered stunning insights into the biophotonic nature of the human body. It all started when he was teaching radiology at the University of Marburg in Germany. Radiology dealt with the effects of electromagnetic radiation on biological systems. While experimenting with shining ultraviolet light (UV) on a cancer-causing chemical (benzo[a]pyrene), he discovered a very unusual optical property. The chemical would absorb the light but then re-emit it at a completely different wavelength. He then took a variant of the chemical (benzo[e]pyrene) with a very slight molecular difference that was completely harmless to humans and shone the same UV light on it. He was stunned to see light pass thorough unchanged. He tried this same experiment with 37 other chemicals, always with the same result. In every instance, the carcinogenic variants always scrambled the light at 380 nanometers. Further, each only reacted to light at a specific frequency of 380 nanometers. Further research into that frequency led Popp to a phenomenon called ‘photo-repair’. This is a process whereby cells can be blasted with UV light as to destroy 99% of the cell, including its DNA. But the same cell can be almost completely restored in a single day by illuminating it with the same wavelength but at a very low intensity. He was shocked to learn that photo-repair worked most efficiently at 380 nanometers. This is where Popp made his brilliant assertion that because carcinogens only react to this wavelength, there must be some light in the body also responsible for photo-repair. This meant that cancer is caused by some agent (like a chemical) that blocks or scrambles this light in the body and stops photo-repair.
During his lifetime, Popp conducted intensive research and published peer-reviewed papers which show that our body’s cells emit radiation of light which are called biophotons. This cloud of photons originating from the body is also called ultra-weak photon emission or UPE. It is spontaneously emitted from the DNA in living cells which naturally store biophotons and release them. They acquire these photons from the sun and also from plants which acquire them during photosynthesis. While this light is not visible to our eyes, Popp and his team used sensitive instruments to show that every body emits light. He further found that these biophotons form an intricate and highly organized communication system between all our body’s cells including neurons in our brains. As stated by Lynn McTaggart in her book ‘The Field’, "Photons switch on the body's processes like a conductor launching each individual instrument into the collective sound. At different frequencies they perform different functions." Another implication of this is that there was finally a viable answer to why body and mind processes like pain and emotions occur instantaneously versus having any lag. The classical biological explanation is that chemical reactions occur to send information around the body and same with inter-brain communications between neurons. But if you stub your toe, relying on chemical interactions to send that message to your brain would take many seconds to occur whereas we feel the pain in an instant. Modern science and technology are now showing Popp’s conclusions to be 100% correct and that we are literally a ‘being of light’ and that the body is actually using light to communicate within.
Quantum Coherence and the Language of Cells
Another factor that is important and relevant in quantum mechanics is what is known as coherence. This refers to the ability of a particle to maintain its quantum properties such as entanglement and superposition despite the interactions with other objects and effects of thermalization. As a reminder, superposition is the ability for a quantum particle to exist in all possible states until it collapses into one due to observation or measurement. This is a very complex term because it involves systems and their entanglements and the ability to maintain that state despite all the other things in the environment. In short, coherence means the ability of a quantum system to maintain its superposition over time. Going back to the discussion on the behavior of light and Figure 2, coherence means the waves of photons have a well-defined relationship and interfere with each other as expected and create the wave-interference pattern. Orderly wave interference can happen only if there is coherence in the oscillations of the interfering waves. If not, there can be no systematic meeting of peaks and troughs and no regular interference pattern, just random, featureless variations. Similarly, if the quantum wave functions of two states are not coherent, they cannot interfere or maintain superposition. This loss of coherence is called decoherence, which is the destruction of the fundamental quantum properties, and causes particles to behave more like classical systems.
Popp found that an intriguing characteristic of biophotons was their ability to create coherence. Cells that are in a healthy state emit light that is highly coherent and synchronized with one another. These wave particles of superposition interlink with each other by varying light bands of electromagnetic field and are able to communicate and give feedback to each other. This is akin to an orchestra where all the biophotons create the same overall song together while each plays a different instrument. Yet there is no single conductor and the biophotons form an exquisite communications system between themselves. Now imagine this orchestra playing throughout our bodies where every single cell is communicating with every other one and all in coherence. This led Popp to the conclusion that any issue with the body, a dis-ease, is the result of corrupted communication between biophotons where they go into a state of decoherence. He also observed that the coherence of the emissions, the intensity, and the rhythmic patterns varied in people with different illnesses. People with Multiple Sclerosis, for example, absorbed too much light and their photon emissions displayed too much coherence. Biophoton emissions from cancer patients lacked coherence and failed to follow coherent patterns. Too much light or not enough light, both lead to disease in the body. He concluded that it is only at a balanced state can health and vitality be maintained at optimum. Finally, Pop also found that raw fruits and vegetables have the most coherent intensity of light emissions while junk food was almost devoid of any biophotons. This is what Yoga has always maintained as its base methodology which is to create balanced coherence between the physical, mental, and energy bodies. Through its many practices, the goal always is to ensure these three bodies remain in perfect coherence and thus leading to an optimized existence. The key is the work required at the energy body level which has massive impact on the other two which are purely physical bodies and accumulated only since birth. And most yogic practices mandate a diet made up almost exclusively of raw fruits and vegetables with no processed, stale food, or meat. Health is a state of perfect sub-atomic communications and ill health is where this communication is interrupted or breaks down.
Popp went on to record his conclusions and hypotheses which are nothing short of fantastical as they start to paint a picture of a living cosmos where all beings and everything are always in communication with everything else and part of a beautiful whole. He proposed that each molecule in the universe had a unique frequency and the language it used to speak to the world was a resonating wave. It wasn’t till the late 1980s that Jacques Benveniste would conduct experiments that would prove what Popp had postulated. He was the senior director of the French medical research organization INSERM's Unit 200, which studied the immunology of allergy and inflammation. Without knowing it, he stumbled upon the incredible memory capacity of water to prove that white blood cells can be activated to provoke an immune response even though nothing of the original allergen remained in the water. This started by an accident in which an assistant diluted an allergen solution 10 times more than expected which still provoked the response. Between 1985-1989, Benveniste continued by diluting hundreds of times so that none of the allergen biomolecules remained. But he was still able to get the response which implied that the water somehow retained a memory of the allergen even though it was no longer present. Despite widespread skepticism, he continued to research and finally concluding that biomolecules communicate with their receptor molecules by sending out low-frequency electromagnetic signals, which the receptors pick up like radios tuned to a specific wavelength. And Benveniste’s studies demonstrated that molecular signals cannot be transmitted in the body unless you do so in the medium of water. This suggests that water as the natural medium of all cells, acts as the essential conductor of a molecule’s signature frequency in all biological processes and that water molecules organize themselves to form a pattern on which can be imprinted wave information. So, quite literally, there can be no life without water, or at least life as we know it.
The memory of water results prompted Benveniste to study how molecules communicate within a living cell where there are ten thousand molecules of water for each molecule of protein. It is here where he began to think and experiment on how this communication would happen. If each molecule had its unique signature frequency, its receptor or molecule with the matching spectrum of features could tune into this frequency. Like a radio that can tune into a specific station, so too the receptors in our body. His experiments demonstrated that cells use electromagnetic signaling at low frequencies (less than 20 Hz). His theory was that two molecules tuned to each other resonate at the same frequency. The resonance of the two creates another frequency that another molecule or groups of molecules could tune into. This explained why tiny changes in a molecule can have a radial effect on what that molecule does. As in Popp’s cancer-causing benzo[a]pyrene and its near-identical, non-carcinogenic twin, benzo[e]pyrene. And as science has shown, these molecular frequencies can be detected billions of light years away using modern radio telescopes. While physics has always known about these frequencies, it was Popp and Benveniste who paused to consider their purpose, especially in biology.
In an experiment that stunned the scientific community, Benveniste took the still-alive heart of a guinea pig to provide proof of his theory. Using chemicals that increased or decreased blood flow, his team showed that the heart would either contract or expand based on the chemical used. Except, instead of using actual chemicals, they used low-frequency waves of the electromagnetic frequencies of the molecules of these chemicals and played back using a standard computer. The played sound effectively was the signature of the chemical molecule’s signature frequency. Over thousands of experiments, Benveniste and his team recorded the frequencies of a molecule on a computer and played it back to a biological system that was sensitive to that substance. In every single case, the biological system acted as if it was in direct contact with the chemical and reacted accordingly. In what was probably his most dramatic experiment, he emailed the audio files to his colleagues at Northwestern university in Chicago. In every case, the target system acted as if it was directly exposed to the chemicals. This completely proved Popp’s theory that molecules speak to each other in oscillating frequencies.
The biophotons that Popp had observed in the body caused molecules to vibrate and create their own signature frequency. Benveniste had approached from the other side and heard these frequencies and determined they could be used in place of the original molecule. Every molecule of our body is speaking in its own frequency and communicating with every other molecule in our body. Finally, it appeared that the Zero Point Field creates a medium enabling the molecules to speak to each other nonlocally and virtually instantaneously. If quantum theory were applied to biology on a larger scale, we would be viewed more as a complex network of energy fields in some sort of dynamic interplay with our cellular systems.
Reflections
Long before we get to the mysterious and fascinating world of quantum mechanics, it is easy to understand that what we think is reality is fundamentally very limited given the significant limitations of our sense organs. We only see, hear, touch, smell, and taste a small fraction of all that is present on our planet, let alone the universe. Given that most of what we think is solid is actually greater than 99% empty, we only perceive a small fraction of the 1%. Further, what we do perceive, is not actually reality but a story of reality created by our brains after it receives, assimilates, filters, and finally presents. And our entire experience of reality is completely inside us and created by an organ that lives in a dark, silent chamber and never actually directly touches or experiences any part of what it is presenting. This is akin to being locked in a sound-proofed, dark room with no windows or doors. The only thing in the room is a monitor with a feed for the 5 senses which is our entire external experience of reality. With this context, there can be no doubt that we exist in some sort of crafted or engineered reality, and it is nothing like what we think it is.
This is not far from what most people experience every day when looking at a device with a screen such as a phone, laptop, or TV. A field of a few million pixels exists, in aggregate, only as billions of possibilities based on which one of the 5 elemental colors we choose to combine to make each one give off a specific range of light. Looking at each pixel yields nothing, but yet millions in aggregate yield fantastical images of reality, fantasy, space, or almost anything we can imagine. All because a processor on the device tells each of the pixels what to be at a specific moment in time and does so thousands of times per second. So, a pixel, like a photon, exists as a range of possibilities and only "collapses" into a single one when signaled by the processor. For the viewer, this is a close enough approximation of reality that much of the real-world fades or even disappears (for a short while) from our consciousness. How many times during a movie or show are you really engaged without random thoughts and checking your phone? Not nearly as much as when not watching TV which is just another view of reality. With virtual reality headsets now becoming commonplace, we see this presentation of crafted reality (what a screen does) go to a whole new level. Putting on a pair of goggles that use your phone as the viewing screen, a completely three-dimensional image of reality is presented to your eyes. Other than the minor limits on resolution and color range, it is reality as far as your eyes are concerned. Now add one more dimension by using headphones where yet another sense stream is created and delivered to the brain from the phone. I have personally seen friends and family in my living room with their legs kicking or screaming because they are on a virtual roller-coaster and a large part of their brain actually believes it as reality. A few have even felt nauseated to the point of having to take the headset off and go to the bathroom. Even though at a low-conscious level they know they are sitting on a sofa in the living room, the active part of the brain does not care or refuses to take that into consideration. This is also because sight, of all the senses, plays an exaggerated role in our perception of reality. It is closely followed by sound, both of which are key to our perception of depth and space. Together, they contribute some 60%-70% of what our brains process to give us the story of reality. With the latest headsets from the like of Meta sporting 4k screens and spatial audio, I have no doubt that in a few short years, a plug using a Man-Machine Interface will feed signals directly to our brains. At that point, we would have entered the world of the Matrix and a brave new world will be born.
Leaving aside gadgets, that supercomputer that is our brain also creates realities for us that are either a remix of our perceived reality or very far from it where there is no semblance. In their mild form, we call it daydreaming or "lost in thought" when a fictitious reality temporarily interjects itself over the perceived reality from our sense organs. In a more extreme form, we call them dreams because we cannot explain how they can be created, feel so real, yet disappear from our memory in a puff when you wake up. I could discuss dreams as a topic by itself but will refrain from doing so here. Another thing that we take for granted is time, but it does not really have much relevance in the quantum world and it's not really a requirement for the construction of reality. Time really is only a reflection of change that we humans have all agreed upon as a thing and just measures the progression of events. Time as a construct does not really exist in the universe which is probably why quantum particles like light seem to defy time and change past behavior based on a future observation. Also, the “instant” communication between entangled particles is a dimensionless point on a timeline. It is part of the scenario of time, but it completely excludes the concept of duration.
So, here is my fantastical take on what is reality, the question I started with so long ago. We know as fact that all what we can see or measure in our universe and beyond is in a field of unlimited energy called the ZPE field. At their smallest state, everything is just an electromagnetic wave, existing as an infinite number of possibilities. Quantum virtual particles are disturbances in these waves, and we only call them a particle because we can measure them. So electromagnetic waves form the smallest measurable unit which only exists for a very, very, very short amount of time as explained earlier. So, I believe that our specific and collective (all sentient beings) consciousness causes the observed parts of the ZPE field to collapse into possibilities that we call matter. The virtual particles are manifestations of our consciousness emerging as matter. And since information in the quantum world operates faster than light, our perceived reality is created (and destroyed) on-demand only when we look for it or try to measure it. This is exactly how video games work where all that you can perceive is only rendered to the limits of your perception. Anything beyond that only exists as a possibility until you venture into that area. Therefore, perceived reality is nothing more than a subjective expression of our consciousness. Our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, memories, dreams, wishes, and everything else that is part of our consciousness, all cause possibilities to manifest on the ZPE field. So, our body and mind are nothing more than a very, very advanced holographic headset creating for us a reality that we are manifesting, mostly unconsciously. But it is possible to become more conscious of this and maybe even transcend it and awaken from his holographic dream. This is why the yogic sciences and even religious prayer start with us closing our eyes first. It is only when we gain some distance from our sense organs, especially vision, do we truly begin to look inward. It is also why meditation is such a powerful tool as it allows you to rapidly go inward and further and further away from the sense organs. And it is only by going deeper inward do we have a chance at beginning to connect with what we really are… pure consciousness that is connected to everything, everywhere, all at once. We ultimately reach this truth when the body and mind go back to the earth to be recycled but the sum of our beliefs and experiences in this incarnation have a profound effect on the next remix. In this reality, we are bound by the limitations of time-space but not our true self. Dreams are but one example where neither time nor space have much meaning, at least not from this continuum, as dreams have their own time perception. To sum it up, reality is a subjective, holographic projection that we create for ourselves, mostly unconsciously.
Going a bit further, all of us are fragments of the same consciousness having an individual experience. But, because we subscribe to the same reality, we are all entangled for this incarnation. This is why we are able to interact with each other and generally agree on what this reality is which causes the ZPE field to present it to us in a similar manner. But, in reality (no pun intended :-)) we are just the same energy as everything and everyone, but yet think ourselves as individuals and separate. The Field is everywhere and creates whatever we want based on our thoughts and intent. What we call life is nothing more than the result of the sum of the millions of choices we have made, consciously and unconsciously, throughout our lives. We look at our accumulations of stuff and thoughts and call it life. But the minute the body and mind die, none of it has any relevance to you. Most of us think of this in a linear manner because of the artificial construct of time. Hence, our lives are like a funnel where we become more conservative in our choices as we get older because we live with the burden of the sum of our choices. But what is known among the yogic and "energy aware" circles is that our reality is created on the all-present Zero-Point Energy field by our thoughts. As we have already seen, our minds don't really present us with reality at all but a curated version of it. Thus, since we are nothing more than observers creating our own realities, what is a stunning conclusion is that every choice we can ever make at anytime, anywhere, already exists in superposition on the ZPE field. Just like when a photon exists as a wave in every possible state until it is observed and collapses into a single, measured state, so too with all the possibilities of our reality. As an example, the reality of you owning that car you always wanted, the job you think will make you happy, the boyfriend that got away, all of it exists already in a reality that just has not collapsed into your version of it. Because your thoughts always focus on what you don't have or self-defeat, even what you think you should have, the ZPE field just gives you what you think of most... "Oh I want a house in the mountains, but I will never be able to afford it." In the excellent book Dying to Be Me, Anita Moorjani describes how she was for most of her life terrified of getting cancer. It was literally all she could think about day after day and guess what, the Field obliged and gave it to her. But what happened after is the most amazing story, but I will leave it for you to read the book and find out. The ZPE field (or the universe, God, divine, etc.) is only aware of your thoughts and intent and responds accordingly. Thoughts create reality and that is all that should matter to us as we live our curated lives. If you can genuinely think the life you want versus being stuck on the repeat/remix cycle, I truly believe it will manifest.
But, why? Why do we need a reality that is created on-demand and reacts to our thoughts and consciousness? The only answer I have been able to find so far that is somewhat intellectually satisfying is one that comes from the yogic sciences and that is Karma. I really do believe that we are spiritual beings of pure, interconnected consciousness, but we need a means by which to test via the timebound experience of gross reality and all the limitations and sufferings that come with it. Hence, we take on an individual experience inside of a Karmic lab where we incarnate to run our experiments. And to make that possible, we are given limited-scope sense organs and a brain to process all that to create a curated reality that is the lab. And because it is of our free-will and choice that we can do anything we want inside this lab, we can experiment as needed. In that context, and I discuss this in detail in Karma, nothing you do really matters other than in the very limited context of what we call a lifetime. But, why you do something utterly matters as intent and thus manifestation of consciousness is the only thing relevant in this lab we have come to. When the body and mind die, I believe it is akin to what happens when we take off a pair of VR goggles. Our sense organs slowly return back to this reality and the virtual experience fades away after some laughter on 'how could I even believe that was real'. I believe we wake up as the being of pure consciousness we are and then reflect on what we learnt (or didn't) from this go around. But eventually, you learn all the lessons and there is no reason to come back anymore. In that sense, our beliefs, thoughts, and emotions have an effect on the probabilities available to us. Whenever we feel positive and think something is possible, we draw the possibility of our desire a little bit closer. Every time we have a doubt, fear, or have a negative thought, we connect with other possibilities that will not include the hoped-for-goal. This is the ZPE field reacting to us and creating (collapsing into) whatever our thoughts are telling it. And just like quantum particles, the thoughts in the present can change the past and future. This means that a shift towards positivity via thoughts and emotions stops the momentum of negativity and allows a break from the past. After all, every possibility of everything in your reality already exists; you only need to observe the ones you want for them to collapse into your reality. In this sense, you can even overcome your Karma (the program you set for yourself before you came here) to resolve or transcend it.
I truly believe that in the years ahead massive advances in quantum physics will begin to prove out what the yogic sciences tell us from an experiential viewpoint. Imagine fixing diseases using light therapy where coherence is once again restored inside our bodies where the diseases lie. And the practical applications of quantum are nothing short of astounding. From anti-gravity sails that propel spaceships far beyond our universe to instantaneous interstellar communications, it will be the world of fantasy and science-fiction bought to life. Instead of stringing cables all over the planet, pairs of entangled particles will be used to send all the data known to man in an instant, anywhere it needs to go. And with us being able to harness ZPE for clean, unlimited energy, mankind may finally evolve as a species towards more harmony with all beings and especially, each other. Well, maybe that is one step too far, but one can only hope for true human evolution at the level of consciousness. And finally, I believe a large part of humanity will learn to harness the ZPE field via a practice such as yoga and learn to evolve to a higher state of consciousness. Because the instant one realizes and is able to manifest any reality they want, the bondage and conflicts of materialism simply fades away. What emerges is a human with a core of universal love and one that works to raise the consciousness of all. It is only the perception of the self and individuality that causes such conflict for material resources and leads to all the ills of humanity such as poverty, war, crime, etc. When the realization and connection with the ZPE field enters one's awareness, then that is the end of that illusion and the beginning of what the eastern practices call "the ecstasy of unity". As Buddha said, "it is only when I had nothing, I realized I had everything." In that sense, most religions are correct in that God is indeed love as expressed by the ZPE field. Love everything, everywhere, all at once and you become the wave and stop being the particle.