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| I've been learning a lot about lasers, which have an unbelievable amount of uses in healthcare (not just zapping unwanted hair).
The Russians have been using lasers (and magnetic therapy) for decades. They've based their healthcare on physics whereas in the US we've based our healthcare on chemistry. Not that one is better than the other but look at where an emphasis on chemistry has gotten us.
Anyway, I've always been interested in quantum physics but what I know about QP could fit in a thimble. I've seen and enjoyed the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" In fact, that's a movie I could watch over and over again to pick up the pieces I missed since there's a ton of information in it. Other than signing up for physics classes, which might not be a bad idea, do any of you have user-friendly suggestions? Books, websites....whatever.
thanks
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| Well, I took a class on it in college. A lot of it is hand waving, since nobody really understands how everything works at that level. We're essentially at the point where science was at the beginning of the century when they thought there was some sort of "ether" that was required to transmit light. Interesting theories, not much that's really conclusive.
Couple of things that did come out of it that are interesting. First, that most things can be described at the quantum using the same equations used to describe vibrations in strings. Thus the idea of "string" theory. This of course ties in with the traditional idea that the world is vibration, or rather the manifestation of a single vibration, the Word. Second, that everything exists at discrete levels, and then jumps from one level to another w/o any sort of transition. Kinda like my practice. One day I can't do hand stand, the next I can. Discrete little jumps. Third, the universe is in fact digitial and discrete, and not analog, and fuzzy. It's not possible to have 1.234342 anything at the quantum level, something either is, or is not. (There is no try  )
I haven't seen the movie you're talking about, but I'm guessing it's pretty similar to The Tao of Physics, by Fritjof Capra. Fun and interesting reading, but at the end of the day, it's all theory. (I'd much rather conduct the experiment of yoga or meditation than talk about it ) There's also the potential to mix the levels, or to attempt to make two very different things look similar due to vagaraties of language.
To give one example, when we talk about "energy" in a yoga class, we're not really talking about the same sort of "energy" as used to power your electric light. We can make some interesting comparisons between the two systems, but that doesn't make your yoga practice into a electric power plant.
BTW, the classic physics definition of energy is "The ability to do work". From this definition it's obvious that yoga DOES increase your energy levels, if only by increasing the health of the body. (We can debate the ramifications to the body's natural electrical field another day) Electricity has the ability to do work by turning motors, lighting lights, etc. So both electricity, and prana are energy, but that doesn't mean prana = electricity.
'Course there is an interesting cross over in Einstien's famous equation E=MC^2. Essentially the energy in the system is proportional to the mass/matter. This also means that things can go back and forth, energy is mass/matter, mass/matter is energy. Whether that means that this particular "E" is prana, or prana is on an entirely different plane I don't know. I do know that Einstien was talking about the material plane.
There's also some pseudo-science in the movie IIRC. The bit about blessed water having a "higher level of organization" is pure BS, at least on the physical plane. The state of Florida has had trouble with the guys behind this one attempting to gain credibility by making various claims about the state's acceptance, but so far nobody has been able to find anything "better" about the water using conventional science. Thus the state has been forced to take them to court to get them to withdraw their claims. |
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| I'm impressed, Green Jello.
First, what's IIRC?
Second, you're saying Dr. Emoto, the message in the water guy, is full of BS? I hope not. I want to believe thanking water makes the water happy and pretty.
Thanks for your insight ~ fifi |
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| *Fifi* - 2006-01-26 8:10 PM
I'm impressed, Green Jello.
Namaste. I'm pretty sceptical, so when I got started I spent a lot of time looking at a way to view this sort of thing as emperically as possible.
First, what's IIRC?
(I)f (I) (R)ecall (C)orrectly.
Second, you're saying Dr. Emoto, the message in the water guy, is full of BS? I hope not. I want to believe thanking water makes the water happy and pretty.
I've never had blessed water, so I don't know if it makes any difference. I can tell you that I've heard him making claims that blessing the water alters it's physical structure, which has been shown to be not true. What other effects it might have I can't say, but I'm mistrusting when somebody says something like this which is proven to be false. If you like I can look up the articles on the problems the state of Florida had with the blessed water people. It also might be a different group, like I said, I haven't seen this particular movie.
I'd also like to state that I'm very much in favor of movies in this vein, I've got a big book at home called "The Encylopedia of Ignorance" which is a huge number of articles written by scientists about the things they had no clue about. (Quantum physics was high on the list) During the intro they mentioned the fact that the better, more highly regarded the scientist the more likely they were to use the magic words "I don't know". |
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| Oh, yes, yes, yes! I would enjoy reading the articles you're talking about.
thanks |
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| Dear Fifi:
With no offense. But, when you wrote: The Russians have been using lasers (and magnetic therapy) for decades. They've based their healthcare on physics whereas in the US we've based our healthcare on chemistry. Not that one is better than the other but look at where an emphasis on chemistry has gotten us.
I think you are meaning Medicare which is NOT really healthcare. It is Unhealth-care.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 2479
  
Location: A Blue State | Oh dear. I'd suggest reading a basic summary text on "modern physics". A few
really good ones have been written during the past 50 or so years, and they'll explain
the essential ideas of quantum physics pretty well. You can go a bit farther if you know
calculus and have studied basic mechanics and electromagnetic theory, of course.
There's nothing particularly mysterious about quantum mechanics or lasers when you
approach them from that background. The folks who write pop-science books always
seem to make things seem much more esoteric than they would seem if you
approach them from a scientific perspective. |
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| Fifi, here's a good example of the sort of thing I'm thinking off.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10054116/ |
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| I enjoyed reading "The Dancing Wu Li Masters," by Gary Zukoff (sp?). It seemed to explain the basics behind quantum theory on a level that I could mostly understand. It has been awhile since I read it, so I may not have the name exactly right. It could be "The Dance of the Wu Li Masters," or some thing like it.
Namaste |
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| Thanks, everyone, for the reading suggestions.
Green Jello, I read that article about the water in Fla. and, well, it's a shame some good ideas don't work out. Check this guy out: http://www.hado.net/hado.html. He looks at water crystals after people have prayed over them, said loving things to the water and even recorded what happens when you say nasty things to water. I think it's really cool!
Unfortunately, Medicare is not set up for wellness; it's designed to keep people out of financial devastation, should something awful happen. Medicare was really good when my dad was in the ER with a clot in his heart and congestive heart failure. His total bill was $30,000 but his portion he had to pay was only $800.00. Now he's back on the tennis court.
Not that I need to tell you guys but I think people need to take responsibility for their own healthcare and wellness. It takes time and discipline to practice yoga, prepare healthy meals and manage the day's stress. Really, most Americans want to take a pill (that insurance pays for) to "fix" them.
On the other hand, does anyone watch the money part of the national news? The big insurance companies ALWAYS make hundreds of millions of dollars in PROFIT every quarter. That's every 3 months! HMO doctors make more money when they save the HMO $$$ by NOT ordering expensive tests, like MRIs and CT scans. It's very corrupt I think. I could go on and on but I'm going on more of a rant.
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 5098
Location: Somewhere in the Mountains of Western NC | *Fifi* - 2006-01-27 3:28 PM
It's very corrupt I think. I could go on and on but I'm going on more of a rant.
Yea Fifi, like I think you're preaching to the choir here,  at least where I sit,
and one more thing...the taking responsibility for our health and wellness issues??? I truly believe if everyone did that, we would have less DIS-ease and illness's in our world. I also believe that Yoga and alternative methods can cure and eliminate most health issues today...they just have to be applied correctly and with an open mind. I hate to think about where I would be today had I not gotten off the "Western" Rat Race where it came to my health and medical issues, in fact, I cringe when I go there and see what the outcome of my fate could of been. Although, with that knowing, it keeps me motivated to not ever go back that's for sure!!
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Expert Yogi
Posts: 8442
| RE: water crystals. Does anyone watch Mythbusters? I catch it from time to time and love it. They did a segment on talking to plants where they spoke nicely to some, badly to others and played a variety of music to some. The talked-to plants did better than the controls but the ones that had constant music did by far the best. The kicker was that the ones that had death metal music did equally well compared to those with the classical music. Very interesting! |
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| I saw that episode, Tourist! I love those guys.
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| *Fifi* - 2006-01-27 3:28 PM
Green Jello, I read that article about the water in Fla. and, well, it's a shame some good ideas don't work out. Check this guy out: http://www.hado.net/hado.html. He looks at water crystals after people have prayed over them, said loving things to the water and even recorded what happens when you say nasty things to water. I think it's really cool!
Links not working.
Tourist- Yeah, I saw that episode, I thought it totally rocked! \m/ I don't remember the classical music doing that well, but that was the first thing I thought off too with the crystals and talking to things. It's a pretty odd result if you think about it, though lower vibrations tend to have more energy than higher ones. Or maybe the death metal helped to loosen the soil to allow the plants to grow more easily.... Who knows. Personally I just like to use it as a rational for listening to metallica until my ears bleed.
(Myth busters and Battlestar Galactica are the only reasons I haven't cancelled my cable.)
Fifi, I agree with you on the way that medicine is practiced in this country. A lot of it evolved from battlefield surgery, so what else do you expect but the idea of cutting people up. I think that both branches, western and eastern medicine have a lot to teach each other.
The other problem is that medical care is very very expensive in this country. I'm not sure what can be done to avoid it, but the leading cause of people declaring bankrupcy in this country is medical bills. With most people living pay check to pay check, one bad medical bill, and they're finacial toast.
I also think you're right about more people taking responsibility for their health, but I'd expand it out to include all parts of their lives. It's way to easy for people to fall into a rut and not do anything, and expect everything to be handed to them. It's also very unhealthy, and one day the karma will catch up with them.
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| Fifi...
There is a pretty good book out there on cosmology that presents a very basic explaination of QP, it's called The Hole in the Universe. The author, I believe, was K.C. Cole, who has a science background but actually makes her living as a science writer for the L.A. Times.
If you want to really pick up the nuts and bolts I highly recommend grabbing Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman. Feynman may well have possessed the single greatest intellect for physics that the world has ever seen. It's tough to say because, as great a physicist as he was, he eschewed such mundane tasks as research, calculations, etc. He literally worked on a conceptual level that was almost intuitive. Anyway, Six Easy Pieces is a compilation of some of his lectures given to Physics 101 students at Caltech when he taught there. He approaches everything from basic chemistry to light and allows you to understand the concepts without hammering out all of the math.
If you want to jump into the bigger picture stuff grab a copy of Brian Greene's The Elegant Universe. Greene is a former chair of the Oxford Physics dept, and one of the leading string theorists in the world. He spends the first half of the book just making sure that you understand the basics of modern physics, and does a respectable job of breaking it down to manageable chunks, except when his obvious enthusiasm gets the better of him. The second half of the book deals with string theory, and this is where he gains a lot of respect in my book. This is a person who's life's work is tied to strings, and yet he makes it perfectly clear that all string theory is just that.... theory. He explains how and why the progress is so slow, where the theory holds the most promise, and where it breaks down.
As for What The Bleep, I really enjoyed the movie. I was more impressed with the medical insights and the overall message that we create our own realities than with the treatment of QP. I can't even count the number of times I've heard people spit out absolutely baseless QP theories and then try to use What The Bleep as a referrence. If I recall correctly the movie never goes into hard facts on QP, but it seems a lot of people who have seen it want to extrapolate well beyond what was presented.
You just have to remember that Physics is, at it's heart, a language. It's a system we humans have devised to describe the world as we perceive it to be. Not surprisingly, every time we take a step forward we open another door that allows us to see a little more of the picture, and off we go trying to explain it with more Physics. QP, or any science, is really nothing more than our "best guess" of how things work based on what we can see of the universe right now. The Earth was the center of the universe until we could track the procession of stars and planets well enough to understand that we needed a new theory. The atom was the smallest thing in the universe until we developed the technology to look inside. The universe had always been here until we needed the big bang to explain red shift. Now we need string theory to explain why QP breaks down when applied to the first few seconds after the big bang and other extreme circumstances. QP has as many holes and shaky foundations as any other science... maybe more. But it also has an inherent honesty that you won't find elsewhere. |
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| Thanks, Tsaklis,
Looks like I will not be short of reading material for the next long while. That's good.
Yeah, I prefer the reading what the conceptualist have to say over the absolutists. |
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| Green Jello mentioned Fritjof Capra--try his old out-of-print book called The Turning Point. Also Deepak Chopra's old book (before he was famous and $$ motivated) Quantum Healing.
Is is quantum physics as a science that you are interested in, or the energy implications for healing (and yoga) in particular? I have been interested in this stuff (healing aspects) for a while now, may have some more resources... |
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Quantum Physics
