(Quantum)Physics in the past century has become more and more comparable to ancient religious or spiritual beliefs that typically revolve around a deep spiritual "knowledge" or experience. Studies in Particle physics seem to show that simply the act of thought and observation could be the only reason a particle of matter exists. This is like saying looking for something is the same as creating it. At the very least, it means it is impossible to observe reality without changing it. Issac Newton was a very religious man; but the church took a dim view of his motto: "Hypothosese non fingo" or "I make no hypotheses". He based his laws on sound experimental evidence that anyone would be able to reproduce. This is still the way scientific theories are accepted and validated(The idea that the atom was the building block of nature was proposed about four hundred years before Christ by Democritus, but until the late 1800s remained just an idea), but the findings of physicists keep getting stranger and leading to hypotheses that seem too psychedelic to be real. Newtonian physics are still applicable to the large scale world, but don't work on a sub-atomic level where common sense and intuition have no place. This disconnect is what led Einstein to denounce quantum theory and declare "God doesn't play dice", but Einstein also said "Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen". Although Newton disproved Aristotle's view of matter's natural state being that of rest, He was very Aristotelian in his rejection of the(very eastern)idea of Hylozoism , the belief that all life is inseparable from matter; in other words, all matter has life. I do believe in Hylozoism. I believe plants think and that rocks live, and that thought alone is living matter, that prayer and meditation have a very real and physical effect in the world. In Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth Campbell says: "God is a thought, god is a name, god is an idea, but it's reference is to something that transcends all thinking. The ultimate mystery of being is beyond all catagories of thought." How can a thought think about itself? Perhaps Consciousness itself is our concept of God. And with the findings of quantum physicists one could conjecture that consciousness, at the most fundamental levels, is a quantum process. It is information like this that leads me to say we must accept science as mythology and mythology as science.
In this day and age we need a personal mythology just to survive. Our old mythological constructs and rituals have broken down to such a degree that out of human nature grows personal or what I'll call prescriptive mythologies. Some of the largest and most obvious people practicing this are artists. Indologist Heinrick Simmer told Joseph Campbell: "The best things can't be told...the second best are the misunderstood. Because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about, and one gets stuck with the thoughts. The third best are what we talk about." Visual artists of course know this. It's one of the reasons we do what we do. When someone asks what ones work is about one might say "if I could put it into words I'd be a writer." I might say "If I could put it into words I'd be a physicist". I consider scientists artists. In fact, there are far more interesting things going on in the scientific community than in art. This is one of the motivations behind my proposal that if someone wants one of my works they must start an art magazine, of which I will serve as editor and chief, in which all of the articles are written by scientists.
I like the story about President Eisenhower going to see one of the first computers. Upon walking into the room one of the scientists explains to the President that the computer has been programmed to answer any question he may have. Eisenhower asks the computer "is there a God?" and the computer responds "now there is".
And the scientist is the new Yogi.
Yogi 2006, oil pastel on paper © R. Sullivan
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