PHYSIOLOGY OF SQ- A HIGHER STATE OF CONSCIOUSNESS

Extracts from some original research of Prof.Madurasinghe- a pioneer in SQ and E-Consciousness


Breaking apart the atom

In the last century, several major discoveries in modern physics have completely shattered the classical Newtonian model of the universe. First, matter was found to be neither solid nor static. It was discovered that the atom is in fact mostly empty space in which invisible electrons whirl at velocities of approximately 600 miles per second around a tiny nucleus. The high velocity of the electrons in the atom give it the appearance of solidity, just as a rapidly rotating propeller might appear as a solid disc. Within the nucleus itself are particles that also move about at extremely high velocities – up to 400,000 miles per hour. The nucleus, being very dense, contains almost all the atom’s mass. In fact, it the human body were compressed to nuclear density, it would take up less space than a pinhead.

A second major discovery which came out of the very revolutionary theory of quantum mechanics is that matter has a dual aspect – it appears sometimes as particles and sometimes as waves. One of the consequences of the wave aspect of matter is that it is impossible to have a well-defined measurement of the momentum or velocity of the particle and at the same time to have a well defined, precise measurement of its position.

With the development of quantum physics some 70 years ago, the classical paradigm has been gradually replaced by the quantum paradigm. In the world of quantum physics, matter is no longer solid; it is only a perturbation, a condensation in an underlying field. The famous Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that we can only know either the position or momentum of a particle, never both at the same time. In the quantum world, paradoxes abound. For example, particles may appear sometimes as particles and sometimes as waves. Even when we describe a particle; it is only in terms of “probability amplitudes” a mathematical description of a wave or field that states the statistical chance of defining either its location or momentum.

A third important discovery, expressed in Einstein’s theory of special relativity as the famous equation E=mc2, is that matter is not indestructible, but is rather a form of energy that may be transformed into other forms of energy or matter.

We can no longer think of an atom as a solid particle; it is mostly empty space. Matter has a dual aspect – particle and wave. Further, matter is no longer seen as something dead but as a condensation of vibrating energy. In reality, solid matter is only a condensation or a concentrated manifestation of an underlying un manifest field of energy and intelligence that permeates and upholds everything in creation.

The discovery of the Unified Field of All the Laws of Nature

The recent achievements in mind-body research have paralleled breakthroughs in modern physics. In physics, matter and energy are viewed as expressions of four fundamental fields : gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. In the last few years quantum physics has reached such a profound level of understanding that it has been able to locate one unified field of all the laws of nature at the basis of these four fields. While the complete mathematical description of this field is still developing, it is clear that the unified field of natural law is the source of all material diversity. It transcends all existence; it is a field of pure information from which all the different forces and laws of nature sequentially emerged in the first microseconds of the creation of our universe, and from which this process is continually taking place at every moment.

This concept of one unified field of natural law at the basis of creation is found in many cultural traditions of both East and West. With the advent of modern science some three hundred years ago, these ancient ideas lost their prominence and were eventually displaced by the classical view of physics – the classical paradigm.

Following the development of the electro-weak theory it was discovered that the principle of broken symmetry could be extended to include the strong force. This led to the development of grand unified theories, in which the weak, electromagnetic and strong force were unified, at a distance scale of 10 – 29 cm. Finally, in 1974, the profound unifying concept of supersymmetry was introduced, making it possible to unite matter fields (Fermi fields) with force fields (Bose fields) at the level of the Planck scale,10 – 33 cm. This ultimate level of unification has led in recent years to the introduction of supergravity and supersymmetric unified field theories, such as extended super gravity theory and heterotic superstring theory.

From the perspective of these unified field theories, the property of self-interaction or self-referral reaches its ultimate degree of self-sufficient expression at the Planck scale, the level of unification where the extreme self-interaction of quantum gravity leads to a phase transition in the structure of space-time itself. At this level there is neither space nor time, only an infinitely dynamic sea, or “superfoam” as it is called.


Eastern models and Modern Physics

The experiences and insights presented through Eastern models are compatible with the view which modern quantum field theory presents about the origin of the material world. According to this view, particles at the level of atoms are really waves, described by the wave functions of quantum mechanics. At the sub-nuclear level, these waves are excitations of quantum fields. At even more fundamental levels, the various fields describing different types of particles and forces are seen as being progressively unified as components of what is eventually a single unified field. In the context of modern “theories of everything” such as superstring theories, this includes not only the sub-nuclear particles and forces, but also space-time itself (whose structure is, according to Einstein’s general relativity, determined by the gravitational field) Quantum fields are abstract conceptual entities, which cannot be reduced to a material basis, but rather provide the basis for an explanation of the apparent properties of material particles at the classical level. Adopting some of the language of modern physics, we could term consciousness, in its role as the basis of creation, the Unified Field of Natural Law.

The World View of Modern Physics

The world view of physics, or rather, implied by physics, has undergone a dramatic transformation within the last century or so, starting with the discovery of quantum mechanics around 1920, and continuing with the discovery of completely unified quantum field theories in the 1970s. The material world of diverse particles and fields is now understood to emerge from a single self-interacting, unified quantum field – a non-material, abstract entity, whose qualities and dynamics have much in common with the description of consciousness. Furthermore, quantum theory shows that the emerging classical properties of a quantum system depend in an essential manner upon the process of observation. This shows that the separation of reality into an independent outside world and an observing subject is impossible at the quantum level. These transformations in understanding have, however, gone largely unnoticed in the public, and even among scientists.

Classical mechanics, as we know it today, began with Isaac Newton’s formulation of his famous laws of motion in 1687. According to Newton, space and times are absolute realities, which point particles move under the influence of mutual forces, in particular the force of gravity, Newton also developed the mathematical tool of differential calculus with which to describe this motion quantitatively, and the resulting theory was successful in predicting and explaining the motion of both celestial and terrestrial bodies. Extended objects, which cannot be successfully modeled as being point-like, were

described by continuous distribution of mass, governed by equations of motion which were the appropriate generalizations of Newton’s equations.

The corresponding world view saw the physical world as being composed of matter, moving under the influence of forces according to precise mathematical laws. The origin and structure of matter was not explained or even discussed; these issues appeared to have no bearing on the laws governing the motion of matter, and were, therefore even considered to be outside the realm of physics. The outer world of matter, and the inner world of thought and feeling then appeared to have nothing in common – the success of the science of mechanics seemed to justify the Cartesian dualism of matter and mind.

A first challenge to this materialistic world view came from the theory which dealt with electricity and magnetism. The laws governing electrical and magnetic phenomena were given their first complete mathematical expression by James C. Maxwell in 1873. According to Maxwell’s equations, these phenomena are attributed to electric and magnetic fields, interacting with each other and with charges and currents carried by matter (a field is a physical quantity, which assumes values at any point in space) The wave phenomena predicted by Maxwell’s equations provided a successful explanation for the phenomenon of light. In fact, wave motion was nothing foreign to the discipline of mechanics, and its laws had successfully described sound waves in air and waves of vibration of elastic bodies. These waves were all the results of the motion of a material medium, be it air or something as inert as a steel plate. Thus it was initially thought that electromagnetic waves were likewise the waves of motion of a hypothetical material substrate, called ether. Attempts to detect this substrate, or effects of motion relative to it, failed, however, and in fact the mathematical structure of Maxwell’s equations was seen to be inconsistent with the notion of a material substrate.

Research in consciousness : Towards a New Paradigm for Physics

Physics has reached a point in its development where it becomes feasible to assess and re-evaluate its historical self-understanding as a purely objective science. Let us recall that this understanding has always been incomplete, and has been unable to explain or systematically improve upon the functioning of the indispensable subjective elements; intuition and reason. Furthermore, the materialistic and mechanistic concepts of classical physics have been shown to
apply to one realm of macroscopic objects. The microscopic realm is described by the wave and field concepts of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, which show striking similarity to the description of consciousness in Eastern world view.

This understanding naturally leads to the vision of a fully adequate research strategy for physics. This also demonstrates that the human mind is capable of gaining access to the full range of consciousness, from its most silent level in higher consciousness through all levels of complexity to the apparently objective and material structures of the physical

world. For most individuals, however, this natural ability is obstructed by stresses and strains located in the physical nervous system. In this situation, the direct subjective experience of laws of physics – intuition – occurs only occasionally and incompletely.


Understanding the Nature of Consciousness

The modern approach to understanding the nature of consciousness has been largely the domain of psychology. As objective matter is the principal topic of physics, subjective consciousness is the principle topic of psychology – or at least it should be. Early in the history of experimental psychology, scientists recognized that subjective reports of conscious experiences were highly variable. It was difficult, if not impossible, to use the objective methodology of science to study what was apparently highly subjective.

From this vacuum of reliable experimental data arose the field of behaviorism. Behaviorism avoided studying the subjective mind; instead, it focused entirely on measurable behavior. Behaviorism dominated psychology for many years primarily because it allowed psychologists to become a part of the existing paradigm of materialism. Materialism is the name given to the contemporary scientific view point that regards living organisms as purely Physio – chemical machines; it stems from the understanding that consciousness is an epiphenomenon – that is, it arises as the by-product of the functioning of a complex nervous system.

The emphasis in psychology for many years now has been in cognitive psychology, which is concerned mainly with information processing and selective attention. While cognitive psychology is an improvement over behaviorism, like so many other trends in psychology it has given us no real insight into the nature of consciousness.

Psychologists collectively generate over 100 research articles per day and have published about 800,000 articles since the first volume of Psychological Abstracts appeared in 1927. Studies have shown, however, that very little practical knowledge has come from this volume of research. The failure of the social sciences to produce many pragmatically important products would be perhaps tragic were it not for the fact that the world has survived and will likely continue to survive without them.

From the perspective of the Eastern model, modern psychology’s major shortcoming is its lack of a systematic technology to directly experience the state of pure consciousness, the basis of the mind and the foundation for all mental processes particularly SQ or Spiritual Intelligence.. Owing to this lack, psychology has focused primarily on addressed the underlying unity of the “quantum” or un- manifest, unbounded level of the mind. As a result, there is still no complete unified theory in psychology.


Neurophysiological models of consciousness


There is a compelling, desire among neuroscience researchers today to understand the nature of human behavior and human consciousness in terms of the structure and function of the parts of the brain. Innumerable theoretical models have been constructed at various levels of organization within the brain to explain such phenomena as memory, learning, motivation, and mental health. As mentioned earlier, the present approach of neuroscience is similar to the classical approach of physics. All the attention is on the more manifest level of localized excited states or parts; very little attention has been placed, and very little progress has taken place, in understanding the lesser excited and more integrated states of brain functioning.

The Unified Field theory provides modern neuroscience with a new research tool for understanding the brain in its simplest, least excited, least localized and most integrated state – the state of pure consciousness, where SQ originates. Based on the physiological and sociological research a number of models of brain functioning during the state of pure consciousness have been developed..

These models can be classified according to their degree of sophistication and their ability to explain the experimental findings concerning the nature of pure consciousness.

We can consider several levels of theoretical models, Level 1 corresponds to earlier models, which are primarily concerned with explaining the physiological changes during deep meditation and characterizing, in terms of a classical reductionistic model, the neurophysiological mechanism underlying the state of pure consciousness and the growth to higher states of consciousness. Level 2 corresponds to more advanced models, which go beyond the classical reductionistic approach and attempt to explain the more extended field effects of consciousness in terms of recent discoveries in quantum field theory.

While the Level 1 models are useful in describing the neural mechanisms that support the state of pure consciousness during deep meditation, they nevertheless remain at a superficial level. Only the Level 2 models offer an entirely new and profound approach to comprehending the neurophysiological basis of higher states of consciousness.



The neurophysiological basis of higher states of consciousness


What are the neurophysiological mechanisms responsible for the state of pure consciousness ? In order to discuss them it will be helpful to consider the models for waking, dreaming and sleeping states that have already been proposed. In these models a number of important major brain structures have been implicated, such as the thalamus,

reticular formation, brain stem nuclei, limbic system, and pre-frontal cortex. Let us consider each of these structures briefly.

The thalamus is located in the center of the brain and acts as a relay station for sensory information as it travels from a sense organ to the cerebral cortex. Cells within the thalamus project to sensory and association areas of the cortex; thus, their synchoronization may in turn cause widespread synchoronization within the cortex. Certain systems or centers within the thalamus have been suggested as being responsible for the maintenance of major states of consciousness. The diffuse thalamus system, a system of cells that indirectly has widespread connections throughout the cortex, has been proposed to cause internal inhibition leading to sleep.

Gellhorn (1967) emphasizes the influence of the hypothalamus and its control of autonomic and somatic activity in all states of consciousness. He suggests that the hypothalamus and RAS are the primary structures whose excitation and inhibition determine the particular state of consciousness. Instead of localizing the control of various states of consciousness to only specific areas within the RAS, Gellhorn emphasizes the importance of integrated action among the anterior and posterior regions of the hypothalamus, certain parts of the limbic system and other major structures and centers within the brain.


Cheers

Prof.Lakshman Madurasinghe