Filling in for George Noory, Art Bell welcomed renegade thinker and scientist, Robert Lanza, who discussed how life and consciousness are essential to the existence of our universe -- a controversial theory called "biocentrism". Numerous experiments show that everything we see out there, every single particle, depends on the presence of an observer, he said.
Citing the two-hole experiment, in which particles are beamed toward a barrier with double slits, Lanza pointed out that an observed particle acts as one would expect and goes through a single hole. When unobserved, however, the particle behaves like a wave and passes through multiple slits at the same time. Lanza suggested that our observations effect the world around us as well, and without conscious observers (in the form of biological life) there would be no universe at all.
Space and time are not external objects and do not exist independent of an observer's mind, he continued. Lanza likened time to a vinyl record on a turntable. All of the songs exist simultaneously even if you only experience them one at a time. He further proposed that the choices we make in our present can effect the past, noting the conclusions of a recently published experiment in which scientists retroactively changed a quantum event that had already happened.
This theory of time may dramatically alter our understanding of what we think are linear-based events, such the Big Bang. According to Lanza, without a consciousness there to observe it, the Big Bang exists only as a probability state. As an example, he referenced the work of late physicist John Wheeler, who advanced the notion that light from distant quasars only existed when it was observed.
Lanza also spoke briefly about human cloning and stem cell research.
The latter half of the program featured Open Lines.
Art's Webcam 3/26/10
Home-made Space Pics
Amateur aerospace photographer Robert Harrison has captured amazing pictures of Earth using a digital camera, weather balloon, GPS locator, and some duct tape. The $750 device can travel to an altitude of more than 20 miles, where the balloon pops (because of air pressure) and sends the camera parachuting back to the surface. Harrison's images are so spectacular that NASA has reportedly been in contact with him. More from ABC News.
Bumper music from Friday March 26, 2010
- Midnight Express (The Chase)
- Wicked Game
- Boom Boom Ba
- Black Velvet
- The Chain
- Nothing But A Heartache
- Don't Leave Me This Way
- Ride My Seesaw
- Crunchy Granola Suite
- Temptation Eyes
- Year of the Cat
- Black Magic Woman
- Who Loves You
Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons
- Midnight in the Desert