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Is Physics the New Mysticism? (with Benny Hendel)

Uploaded 11/7/2022, approx. 20 minute read

I would pretend that I don't know what a multiverse is because I've seen the matrix after watching your video.

But I suspect that this is what you mean when you say multiverse, but maybe we should define what you mean by multiverse.

You know, in each and every profession we develop an arcane language which is inaccessible to laymen.

Why?

Because it feels good. A jargon. A lingo.

For instance, physicians will say, he made hepatitis. He made.

Yeah, but they would say hepatitis, not liver.

Yes, he made a cardiac arrest.

This is a bizarre form of language.

And by the way, in linguistic theory, I didn't come across too much. They didn't dedicate thought to this.

There are languages intended to communicate.

Wittgenstein said there's no such thing as a private language. The main aim of the language is to communicate.

But there are languages intended to obscure, not to communicate. Languages intended to obstruct communication.

And I think all the professional lingos, professional jargons, they're intended to obstruct communication.

Or to limit communication to the social group they want.

Which kind of falsifies Wittgenstein, because Wittgenstein said that the private language should be universally accessible, a language, I'm sorry, should be universally accessible and communicable. And therefore, there's no possibility of a private language.

And I think he was seriously wrong.

You have dialects and you have idiolets.

And if you've ever treated a psychotic patient, you know that psychotic patients definitely have their own language. That's an idiolet.

Just utterly inaccessible to anyone. But to them, it's totally comprehensible. They use it to communicate internally.

This is the language which they speak to themselves.

They speak to themselves.

So I think Wittgenstein wasn't wrong often, but on this he was dead wrong. Seriously wrong.


Why am I mentioning this?

Because multiverse in physics is not the same as multiverse in the matrix.

In physics, multiverse has to do with something called the wave function. Not to explain what is a wave function. When we ask ourselves where, in which position, in which location are we going to find a specific elementary particle? An electron, a neutron, whatever. A quark? A quark you cannot find.

That's the constituent of elementary.

Okay.

So you told me in an earlier talk that a quark cannot be seen.

It cannot be seen even, I think, in principle.

Because it's more of a language element.

Okay. So what you can see is electrons, protons, neutrons, and so on.

But there is the Heisenberg uncertainty principles.

So you ask yourself, where am I going to see it? And you don't know the answer.

What you do know is that there is a wave of probabilities. Yes.

So you know that there's 50% chance that you will see it here. 7% chance you will see it here. 1% chance you will see it here.

And then you connect the dots. And you get a wave. You get a wave. You get a wave. And this is called the wave function.

But then there's a question.

You make a measurement in a laboratory. You make a measurement. And here is the particle. Here's the dot.

What happened to all the rest? What happened to all these probabilities? Exactly.

And so the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, the group of people who convened in Solvay Copenhagen in the 20s, they said the other parts existed as a potential in principle.

But the minute you conducted a measurement, you forced all of them into that location. And this process is called collapse. You forced, you compressed the wave function into a dot.

So this gives you a lot of power. It means that you had decided where the dot is. And even to a very large extent, you had created the dot.

Because the dot is energy. So you kind of brought all this energy by the mere looking of your eyes. By merely measuring, by the mere act of your will and determination and decision, you had moved this energy to a specific location. And you made it into a particle. It's a lot of power.

So many physicists don't feel comfortable with this. They say, we don't believe that observing or measuring can create the world with something.

The hypothesis is that to have a universe, you need an observer. That without the observer, there's a universe.

According to Copenhagen interpretation.

Now Einstein, for example, was dead set against this. Einstein said this is nonsense. There's no way reality exists regardless of observers. It's there. It's objective. It's deterministic. No need for observers.

But then you have to explain what happens to all the other options. Why they vanish suddenly?

Also, how do you know?

Because even you, Einstein, are a human being. And you deal with observing. So how do you know that without you, the world still exists?

Exactly.

So in other words, what's the role of observation and measurement? And there isn't the issue of what happens to the rest of the wave function. Not the collapse part, but the rest of it.

So here comes the many worlds theory.

Many worlds theory says every part of the wave function collapses, but in different universes. So one part collapses in one universe, another. So we have like a multiverse, many universes. And the wave function is actualized and materialized, but only a tiny part of it in our universe. And the rest in other universes.

There is an artistic manifestation of this view, a beautiful movie by the name of sliding doors, where two options are being taken, sorry, from one incident. And the camera focuses on these two incidents. What happens if she does make it to the subway or if she doesn't make it to the subway?

According to this interpretation, known as the many worlds interpretation, according to this second interpretation, every decision on a macro level or micro level, every decision creates a universe.

So here's my eyeglasses. I say, should I pick them up or not? Okay. I'm picking them up. The minute I pick them up, the split second I pick them up, there's another universe where I did not pick them up.

Okay.

So now since you picked them up, I'll pick them up.

There are two universes now.

And the reason why I picked them up was because you picked yours up.

Okay. So this is the universe we created.

This is our universe.

Now, when I put them on the table, but there are other three universes where I hadn't picked up my glasses. You hadn't picked up your glasses.

Yes. Oh, you hadn't picked up your glasses. We're glassless.

Yes. So there's this explosion of universes all the time. This is the multiverse.

Okay.

And now the question is, is the multiverse a useful concept? Not as it is in my view.

Not as it is because it's not a scientific theory. It cannot be tested. We have no access to these other universes.

There are all kinds of recent kind of speculations that these universes will somehow resonate with ours or that will be like an entry point, a portal between our universe and these universes, for example, through a white hole, the opposite of a black hole.

White hole or wormhole.

Wormhole is a shortcut inside the universe. Inside the universe.

But the white hole is opposite of black hole. Nevermind. So there are many speculations that it's possible there's an interface between our universe and the other universes. And therefore that we'll be able to yield predictions and so on.

But at this stage, it's not a scientific theory in my view. And we will discuss it in our next talk.

This is where physics begins to slide into mysticism and metaphysics.

There's a minute you cannot test and falsify. It's not science.

Did Nietzsche hypothesize that everything that could have happened has happened and that the universe is recurring and recurring and recurring?

Long before Nietzsche, you have it in the Vedic writings and so on. So it's not a verifiable thing.

I'm trying in my work to reconcile the Copenhagen interpretation with the many worlds interpretation. I'm trying to put them together because each one of them offers benefits.

So there are two views?

There's the Copenhagen, the observer determines the universe, and there's the many worlds in which the observer doesn't determine the universe. The universe simply splits.


Okay. To many, many universes.

Many universes. And everything that could happen doesn't happen.

Many when you say many, you mean infinite?

Infinite.

So I'm trying to be a little, with a hint to the ground, a little more grounded. And perhaps because of my background as a businessman, you know, I don't tolerate such fuzzy thinking too much.

So I'm trying to put the two together and I'm saying actually the observer does matter and yes, there are many universes, but I'm combining them, combining it in a highly specific way.

Here's what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that we should think of our universe as a filter.

Now there's a special type of filter. It's called PLL filter or matched filter.

But for the sake of our conversation, let us not go into what is a PLL filter, which is a mathematical thing, nevermind all this.

Okay.

Let's think of...

Forget the term?

No. Search it at your leisure.

Okay.

But let's not introduce it into our conversation because that's way too much, way beyond most people. It's a mathematically construct basically, which had been translated into real life filters, which you have in your audio system and so on.

But I'm using this specific mathematical description of a filter called the PLL filter, but we might as well think of it as a filter, just a filter with holes, with holes.

And what I'm suggesting is our universe is a filter.

What passes through this filter?

The collapsed states.

In other words, think of our universe as a wall with holes, many holes, and the collapsed faces pass. And what is left in the sieve is outside our universe.

Is our own universe the only one?

What's left inside?

What had crossed the membrane, what had crossed the filter is the collapsed states.

And what is left is our own single universe.

What had not crossed the filter is this multiverse or whatever, but what had crossed the filter is what we observe, what we measure.

This is what crossed, I see.

That is what has crossed.

So it's like there's a wall here with holes. And we are two physicists and we are trying to measure the wave function.

This wall, this sieve will let through to us only the collapsed states that we will ultimately measure.

So how does this solve anything?

It gets rid of the issue of reality created by an observer.

It's not that we create anything.

It's just that the universe filters certain results for us.

Therefore, we keep encountering these results.

And what about the multiverse and so on and so forth?

Actually my theory says that it doesn't matter. What remains in the multiverse is what we call noise.

So what we get is the signal.

What remains outside the sieve is white noise, white noise in effect.

In PLL, the PLL does this.

What a PLL filter does, it lets in only highly specific outcomes and keeps out.

So it has a very good signal to noise ratio.

If you reconceive of our universe as a kind of filter, you reconcile perfectly the two views of quantum mechanics. You reconcile them perfectly.

Because you get rid of the observer as God-like, the observer as creating the... Listen. Intuitively, we revolt against this idea that we are creating reality. We have a revulsion against this. It's come to be reality.

I mean, Marion and his three cameras.

We want to be sure that this is reality.

Probably when we leave, he will still be here, I think. I hope we have to make him here.

So it's counterintuitive and it's also, I would say, intellectually revolting to say that I'm creating Marion because I'm observing him. There's something even childish about it, you know?

Yes, right.

On the one hand. On the other hand, this multiverse sounds extremely nonsensical. It's like a medieval speculation. It's all science. There's no science there.

So both interpretations of quantum mechanics are really lacking, really deficient.

But if you put them together and you say, it's not you. The locus and the onus is not on you. It's the universe. The universe dictates to you certain outcomes. The universe keeps out other outcomes.

And so you are exposed only to what the universe wants you to see.

May we say that the fact that we have a brain is what creates this filter?

And we also mentioned in one of our talks that the brain is the organ that gives us the possibility to remain sane by the fact that we don't see all this noise.

Benny, only some of us remain sane. Not everyone. Don't speak for yourself.

No, excellent question.

Again, my compliments. You're harking back. You're going back to our actually, I think, first conversation.

Yes, exactly. I'm saying the universe is a filter. So it presents to you only the collapsed states and keeps out the noise.

So there's no, whether there are many universes or there are not many universe in the material. And so we should stop talking about this. It's mystic mysticism is not physics.

What happens? What happens?

This side of the filter is of interest to us. It's not interest to us.

But the filter takes care of it. Not you as an observer, the filter takes on what is the filter.

And this is where I link to as you just did. I link it to yesterday.

Yes, I think because we are part of nature, we are the universe.

I think our brains collectively, and the brains of all intelligence and the brains of all life, life as a phenomenon, wherever it may be, generates this filter collectively, generates this filter, but it doesn't make it less real.

That we had generated the filter doesn't make it less real.

Now, why is this preferable to the Copenhagen interpretation?

Because Copenhagen interpretation says that you have to create everything. You have to create this particle and that particle and table that is composed of all these particles. And I have to create Beni Hendel also, and I have to create Mahmian. And that's a lot of work. I have to.

So when you take the Copenhagen interpretation and absorb them, it becomes absurd. Simply.

Not so in my work. In my work, the observer does create the filter. Yes, true.

But he doesn't create the universe.

But once he had created the filter, he rests exactly like God. What did God do? He created the world and then he rested it.

Same with the observers. They create the filter and they can rest now. The filter will take care of everything. The filter will create the collapsed states and so on.

What is the filter?

The universe. That's the filter.

So it's not mysticism. This is just the way the universe is. Indeed, the universe per force must be, ipso facto, must be the collapsed states.

Because the universe is there. Had it not been the collapsed states, it would not have been there.

Right. The very fact that it is there proves that it is a filter, proves that it is the assemblage of all collapsed states in history long before we existed.

So that's a core issue in all the interpretations of quantum mechanics. Who observed before we existed?

So here we tie a little with the chrono thing. We are very limited, of course. Our brains are limited and so on. So we have this perception of past, future, present.

And Einstein already said that it's a wrong perception. There's no such thing as past, present, future. But time is a given block. It's given as it is.

And even if you read religious texts, they also imply hint that in the eyes of God, there's no time. But God is timeless.

God is timeless.

Yes, there's no time. He sees synoptically everything and so on.

I think that we have created the filter also retroactively. In other words, the act of sentience and intelligence is not limited to what we call the present or what we call the future, but must have recreated the past.

Now, this follows Stephen Hawking's work. This follows in the footsteps of giants. This is exactly what Stephen Hawking said.

Stephen Hawking said that in our act of measurement and observation, we had created the past, not only the future. He said it in mathematics, but that's what he's saying.

I agree fully. I think we had created the past, but that has a major philosophical implication.

Before we started observing and measuring, the universe was not the same. It was not a filter.

The minute we started to observe and to measure, we had transformed the past of the universe and redesigned it as a filter. Before that, it was not a filter.

So before sentient and intelligent measurement and observation, the universe was not the same.

Was it chaotic?

It was not a filter, which is far more profound than chaotic. It allowed in non-collapsed states, not only collapsed states.

To me, that's chaos. Not chaos.

Bear with me, because I'm linking now to chrono-field.

Before we started to measure, there was no filter, so everything was allowed in. It's like you don't have a bouncer in a bar. Anyone can enter. And whether it's collapse, not collapse, you're welcome. You're part of the wave function.

No, please. What do we call a situation where anyone can enter? A field of potentials.

Everything can happen.

It's a field of potentials, which is why I designed my chrono-field theory as a field of potentials.

I believe that the universe started as a chrono-field. In other words, I believe that the universe started as a field of potentials where all outcomes were allowed. The least probable, the most probable, the collapsed, all outcomes were allowed here. So it was a field of potentials until sentience and one of the potentials was realized and became intelligent. The observer.

The observer could have been, as far as I'm concerned, a bacterium or an algae. I don't know. Life.

So there was life. Life was one of the potentials. It was life.

The minute there was life, there was observation and measurement, even if it was not strict in a laboratory. But a dinosaur probably observed and measured.

Yes, to be able to survive.

To be able to survive.

The minute there was life, measurement and observation started. The minute measurement and observation started, the universe became a filter. And from that moment, it allowed in only collapsed states.

The universe had two states, as a field of potentials and then as an observer-determined filter. The only place where I differ from the current interpretations of quantum mechanics is that I'm saying the minute you establish the filter, you can rest. Go and rest.

So I think this is the point where we can rest.

Yes.

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