Medical Questions and Quantum Physics
Lately I have been receiving a lot of inquiries concerning the field of medicine and its relationship with quantum physics. Of course since quantum physics is the basis for all physical processes including those that happen in the body, it would seem that its findings should somehow be made relevant to discovering cures for diseases or perhaps for enhancing the mind-body interaction.
One of the chief elements of a possible connection between quantum physics and the body would seem to be found in the observer effect of quantum physics wherein by performing acts of observations one actually affects or disrupts the state of the object being observed. Unfortunately to date no one knows how the observer effect actually works. We do know it takes place but it is hard to find a model that uses math to predict how it works and therefore to control it so that we achieve desired goals or outcomes. What is certain is that in quantum physics all actions in the universe are governed by quantum wave functions that I call qwiffs for short. Qwiffs govern the probabilities of events taking place. When actions occur that follow a pattern of intelligent behavior these qwiffs change abruptly from indicating probable or possible actions to a meaningful single actual action.
Whenever atoms are arranged in a highly repetitive pattern, such as those found in crystals or in the long strands of molecular DNA, the qwiffs also take on a similar pattern. This pattern constitutes a continual kind of observation in which the qwiff, in a sense, is observing itself over and over again. Quantum waves and qwiffs can be imagined as constrained by such a pattern, which, in fact, gives the structure its stability.
The qwiff, in my view, turns on and off through the observer effect. When an observations occurs, the qwiff “pops,” and a pointlike atom, or part of an atom, is manifested for an instant. When no observation takes place, the qwiff “hangs around,” like a ghost, in the same locale in which it first popped. This sequence is highly reinforced by the repeating structure.
To try to imagine this concept is difficult because there are many atoms involved. The qwiffs, as I imagine them, are “resonating” with the structure of the molecules, so that each qwiff turns on and off with many oscillations. From the solid molecule’s point of view, this corresponds to its own self-observation.
This viewpoint can be contrasted with a single atom’s self-observation: It, too, can be thought of as being in a self-observation pattern, wherein its qwiff turns on and off. But being an isolated atom means that the pattern will display a higher degree of randomness. At the atomic level, this pattern appears as the atom itself, vanishing and reappearing in a sequence of random points, blurring, more or less, into a solid object.
Thus, each qwiff pattern is highly specific to the element it represents. A qwiff for the hydrogen atom is quite different in detail from the qwiff of a carbon atom.
When a sugar-phosphate molecule repeats itself as an endless chain of snakelike strands, winding around each other much like a spiral staircase, an infinite hall-of-mirrors effect manifests itself, allowing the living, conscious molecule to appear. I am describing, of course, the molecule of genetic life, deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA.
The second idea is even stranger and more speculative. There are actually two qwiffs involved in a qwiff pop, the second of which I call the star qwiff or star wave (as I referred to it in my previous book entitled Star Wave), is similar in form to the ordinary qwiff, only orientated backward in space-time. Thus, an ordinary qwiff, W, moving from here-now to there-then, is met by a star qwiff, W*, from the there-then moving toward the here-now. These qwiffs multiply together, yielding the product W*W; that is, W* multiplying W. Now, it is not speculation that one must multiply the ordinary qwiff W by its star qwiff W* in order to calculate the relative probability that qwiff events will occur; that is exactly what quantum physicists do when they determine the likelihood that any event will occur. The speculation surrounds the idea that W* comes from the future, traveling backward through time, much like the wave that, bouncing off the shore, travels back toward the source of the wave. I can’t justify this idea by any physical experiment, at least not yet.
I believe this idea is important because it could explain how the evolution of anything can take place. My idea is similar to those that Sir Fred Hoyle discusses in his book, The Intelligent Universe. Merely left to the odds, it is extremely unlikely that anything as orderly as a human being would arise at all simply from random processes. As I explained in my book The Body Quantum, Chapter 11, there needs to be some form of intelligence involved. But the question is, how does that intelligence act? Of course, I could just postulate that there is a Supreme Intelligence and that that being can act in any way that it sees fit. As Niels Bohr once remarked to Albert Einstein, when he was trying to figure out how God did it, “Stop telling God what to do.”
I certainly don’t want to do that! But I do want to know how God does it. Yet, as a physicist, I am somewhat constrained: I can’t postulate just any idea, because a scientific idea, in order to be considered valid, must fit with what we already know (or, at least, “think” we know). The idea that W* comes from the future may just save the day, however. As Hoyle puts it:
If events could operate not only from past to future, but also from future to past, the seemingly intractable problem of quantum uncertainty could be solved. Instead of living matter becoming more and more disorganized, it could react to quantum signals from the future--the information necessary for the development of life. Instead of the Universe committed to increasing disorder and decay, the opposite could then be true. (Hoyle, The Intelligent Universe p. 213.)
In a highly organized material containing repeating patterns, the W*W content becomes highly repetitive, producing a probability pattern of reinforced strength. Thus, crystals of repeating materials, such as sodium chloride, carbon lattices (such as diamond), and other single crystals of metals and metals in combinations with other substances, possess great strength or other unusual properties.
In DNA we have a similar phenomenon of great repetition, with complex patterns of sugar-phosphate backbones interrupted by the much longer, seemingly random steps of base pairs linked :together in complementary codes. These bases, you’ll recall, occur with four types: A, C, G, T.
Here a third idea surfaces: Because of the repetition of the DNA structure, the likelihood of a repeating W*W pattern is highly enhanced, with the W* involved propagating from a near future to the present. The signal from the future is more or less the same as that from the past, and the pattern, consequently, tends toward stability. The more stable the pattern, the less likely that the distant future will disturb it. Again, the idea that there exists a resonance between the qwiff and its structure—involving both the past and the future—is at play here. Signals from the distant future do arrive, however; without them, DNA would never alter its patterns. But the more stable the reinforcement brought on by the repetition of the strand, the smaller the disturbance produced. It is the interplay of the endless crystalline repetition of the DNA strands, twisting in space and dancing in time as vibrations with the almost though not quite random patterns of A, C, G, and T bases, that produces stable animal and plant consciousness. Consciousness, as we commonly experience it, thereby emerges as a consequence of the qwiff vibration patterns associated with DNA vibration patterns repeating and resonating with both the future and the past.
Molecules of DNA within shouting distance of each other also vibrate, sending quantum semaphore messages back and forth, and in this manner a resonance arises between neighboring molecules. This resonance is much like any other resonance phenomenon, such as a building’s vibrations in the wind or the rolling of a ship on the high seas. With energy being fed from one molecule to the other at just the right frequency to induce the other molecule to respond, the two resonate together. It is this resonance of waves in different cells that could result in the healing of the cells.
Illness could result from an opposite effect. When molecules are off-resonance, they fail to communicate with each other; such off-resonance could arise from atomic changes in the molecules or from subtle changes in the probability patterns of the qwiffs, possibly brought on by “negative” thinking. I don’t really know in precise scientific terminology what constitutes such thinking. I speculate, influenced by such thinking, perhaps molecules tend to isolate themselves, forming self-contained units of limited capacity. Such molecular isolation can be understood in terms of our own behavior when we feel depressed or unduly anxious about something, and want to be alone in our misery.
Consequently, illness and negative thinking could create molecular islands of separation within our cells. Healing energy counters this separation tendency by fostering correlations between molecules: One molecule heals another.
And possibly in the relationship between a healer and a healee, the healer attempts, through touch and simple bodily presence, to resonate with the healee.
Healing energy is felt, then, as a simultaneous presence in the healer and the healee.