atma

[Guest guest]

 

omg!

atma is pure consciousness, it is not "situated" anywhere!!!

 

jeez!!!

 

atman is all pervasive, it is the Absolute!

 

it is not a mere "soul" - limited. it is infinite consciousness! awareness!

 

do u not know anything!??

 

Yes, Atman is pure consciousness and all pervasive. It is unlimited, and is Brahman Itself. Anyone who disputes this, rejects vedanta.

 

but there are many sparks within the ocean of Brahman, each individuals. And individuality is not lost in multiplicity, anymore than ultimate oneness is lost with the appearance of multiplicity.

[theist]

 

You are quoting my post. Just so you know, I am not an Advaitin.

 

Perhaps then you wouldn't mind identifying yourself as an individual so we would know who we are responding to.

[Avinash]

We should not impose our usual notions of space and time on spiritual things. I am saying this based on experimental results on Quantum Physics.

Consider Young's double slit experiment. There is a screen with two slits in it. On one side of the slits, there is a source of photons (particles of light) and on the other side there is a screen, which contains a photographic plate. The photographic plate can record interface pattern. When we do the experiment, then we see interface pattern. The interesting thing is that the interface pattern is seen even if only one photon is sent.

If the photon behaves like a particle, then it can go through only one slit. If it goes through only one slit, we should not see any interface pattern.

However, if the photon behaves like a wave, then it can go through both slits because waves can spread out and we can see interface pattern.

Since we see the interface pattern, we conclude that the photon is behaving like a wave.

So far, we do not see anything strange. But now do another experiment in which there is a telescope focussed on one of the slits. If photon hits the telescope, we will know that it came from that slit. Otherwise, we will know that it came out of the other slit. Here we are trying to find out which slit the photon goes through. In other words, we are trying to see the photon's particle behaviour. If we do this experiment, we do not see any interface pattern. Rather, we see a single dot because the photon hit a point. The photon behaved like a particle.

So, does the photon behave like a particle or a wave? We learn from the above two experiments that if the experimental setup is to see the photon's particle behaviour, it bheaves like a particle and goes through one of the slits. If the setup is to see the photon's wave behaviour, then the photon behaves like a wave and goes through both the slits at once.

This is itself very strange. Whether a photon is a particle or a wave depends not only on the photon, but on the entire experimental setup. But don't get too shocked by this, because the result of delayed choice experiment, suggested by John A. Wheeler, is far stranger.

Initially have a telecope focussed on one of the slits. This means that the photon will behave like a particle and go thorugh one of the slits. No problem. Let it do that. After the photon has come out of the slit, but before it hits anything, remove the telescope. Will we see interface pattern or not?

One way to argue is that the photon has already come out of only one of the slits. Whatever we do after that is not going to change what photon has already done. If we remove the telescope, it is not going to go back and pass through both slits now. After all, past is past and past cannot be changed. Therefore, we will not see any interface pattern.

The equations of Quantum Physics say that we WILL see interface pattern. Such an experiment has really been done. The result is that we do see interface pattern. Now, think of this on a much larger scale.

Suppose that some photon was emitted by some star billions of light years from Earth. The photon was heading towards Earth. On its journey, it got deflected because of strong gravity of a black hole. (Instead of black hole, you can choose any very massive star). There is not only one direction in which the photon can get deflected. There are many. For simplicity, concentrate on any two of these paths, because this will suffice for our purpose. These two paths are like two paths through two slits in the double slit experiment. Assume that the black hole is a few billion years away from Earth. We do experiment to see the particle behaviour of the photon and the obedient photon will behave like a particle; we will not see any interface pattern. If we do an experiment to see wave behaviour, then the photon behaves like a wave and we see interface pattern.

If we do not see interface pattern, this means that the photon chose only one of the paths. If we see interface pattern, this means that the photon chose both the paths. But the photon made the choice between following one path or both paths a few billion years ago. How is it possible that what we are doing now affects what happened a few billion years ago?

Did the photon have any kind of premonition telling it how it would be observed?

Does, on coming near the experimental setup, the photon go back in time and make a choice based on the experimental setup?

Does the photon exist in a superposition of states (particle state and wave state) and one of the two states is realised based on how it is observed? But particle state means following only one path and wave state means following both paths. These are contradictory. How can a superposition of contradictory states be possible?

No matter however you try to interprete the experimental result, one thing is clear:- our usual notions about space and time are very error prone when it comes to photons. This is true not only with photons but with other elementary particles (e.g. electrons) as well.

These elementary particles can be detected by material instruments. But we cannot apply our usual notions of space and time on these.

Don't you think that it is even a bigger error to apply our usual notions of space and time on such a subtle thing as soul?