IN WHOSE IMAGE?
Quantum Mechanics and Shroud Science
By John C. Klotz
Some have referred to
the Shroud as the “Fifth Gospel.”[i] It may be that, but it also something more,
a new Revelation brought to us not by a scribe writing on an isolated island,
but by science itself.
Shroud science was born
with Secondo Pia’s 1898 Shroud photographs but in1900 a scientific revolution
in science erupted with the formulation of Max Planck’s theory of light as
“quanta,” tiny entities that were both particle and wave. His theory gave birth
to “quantum mechanics,” a study of the nature of existence at the atomic and
sub-atomic levels.
Before the advent of
quantum mechanics, the world of science was dominated by the view of the
universe and all material existence promulgated by Isaac Newton. Newton ’s universe was
steady, never ending with no beginning and no end. His theories were the end
result of the scientific revolution begun by Copernicus and Galileo. Along the
way, he invented a new mathematical system of analysis called calculus. Across
the Channel in Germany ,
Gottfried Leibniz was also developing a calculus. Who is the real father
of calculus is a debate of interest and importance to mathematicians but not to
most of humanity. What was important to humanity is that calculus systems were
developed and they worked.
Philosophically, Newton
That changed with the advent of quantum mechanics
because at the quantum level, matter did not behave in a determined manner but
obeyed only the rules of probability. Indeed, until measured or observed, the
most minute particles are ambiguous, behaving as both wave and particle.
To some, the extreme point is solipsism: all of
existence depends upon observation and the only universe was the universe that
one observed. There was no other reality.
Yet, for all its mystery and apparent illogic,
quantum mechanics worked. The atom bomb was built upon principals developed
from it and probability calculations unleashed the most horrendous devastation
in the history of warfare.
But the benefits of quantum mechanics were
manifold. Many of the analytic devices used by medicine functioned by
manipulating the quantum attributes of light. In 1978, technology
used by the STURP team in its examination of the Shroud was among the fruits of
quantum mechanics.
Central to quantum mechanics is the role, and debate about the role, consciousness
plays in observing and measuring quantum phenomena. Pierre Teilhard de
Chardin held that the human species emerged when it developed of the power of
reflective consciousness.[ii] Sir Roger Penrose and Dr. Stuart Hameroff
have written:
“Consciousness implies
awareness: subjective experience of internal and external phenomenal worlds.
Consciousness is central also to understanding, meaning and volitional choice
with the experience of free will. Our views of reality, of the universe, of
ourselves depend on consciousness. Consciousness
defines our existence.”[iii] (Emphasis added)
In quantum mechanics, consciousness
determines the form and nature of quantum phenomena. What is God, if not the
primordial consciousness which engendered our universe?
The crowded empty space.
When
we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else
in the universe.
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John Muir
1911[iv]
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Sierra Club founder John Muir is often quoted as writing “Every
thing is connected.” That’s actually a paraphrase of what he wrote in 1911. His
statement, on the quantum level at least, is true. Not only is it true, the
interconnectivity of all existence is a fundamental,
if not the most fundamental aspect of our existence.
There is no such thing as empty space – not anywhere. While more
than 99% of an atom appears to be empty space, a void, devoid of heat or energy,
there is field of energy that pervades all of existence including “empty
space.” It’s existence means that we can never obtain a true zero temperature.
The amount of energy is impossibly minute, but it’s there. Nonetheless, it’s called
Zero Point Energy: a field of energy that connects all of existence in this Universe.
To the extent that any phenomenon operates at the quantum level,
it is connected by the field to every point in the Universe. It’s as if there
was a gigantic telephone system with everything having a telephone number. Of
course, to communicate, you must pick-up the telephone and dial a number. There
are some who seem better able to make that call than others. Sometimes it’s
called extrasensory perception (ESP). Skeptics scoff, rejecting ESP and all
similar phenomena as “paranormal” but the lines of communication are always
there. In a television documentary “The Real Face of Jesus,” one participant
called the Resurrection of Jesus Christ as “the most important paranormal event
in history.”
There is no question that charlatans and fraudsters have made constant
abuse of gullible individuals throughout the course of history. To skeptics, “paranormal”
is a derogatory term. Scientists who study the phenomena avoid the term and some
refer to the paranormal as “psi.”
There results of many tests of individuals and groups of individuals
are explicable only in terms in the reality of paranormal or psi attributes.
The validity of the tests depend on applying the rules of probability. Crucial
to the validity of the results are the protocols governing the tests.
Ironically, pseudo-skeptics who swallow the results of the protocol-challenged
carbon dating of the Shroud whole, base their criticisms of the psi tests by
attacking “protocols” of the psi tests.
The issue is whether human beings have the capabilities to tune
in to the ZPE. Some scientists dealing with that part of quantum mechanics
labeled quantum information believe they can and that all of humanity makes
regular, use of the ZPE. That use is how our consciousness operates.
Penrose, Hameroff and others maintain that human consciousness is
a quantum phenomenon. It is more than the sum total of discrete processes of
the isolated brain. Quantum information is aggregated in the form of quantum qubits.
Those qubits exist in the ZPE field.
Other scientists dispute that. They appear wedded to a Newtonian deterministic
cause and effect paradigm that defined all existence. Newtonians appear in many
different guises and scientific disciplines. One thing that neo-Newtonians dispute
is the concept of “free will.”[v]
All is determined whether by DNA or the environment. The brain is simply a
biological construction of a mechanical computer. Consciousness is the sum
total of its calculations.
What quantum mechanics has done, while recognizing the relevance
of Newtonian physics at the “macro” or large level of existence, is to largely
discard it at the “micro” or atomic and sub-atomic level. There is space for
the action of free will. That space is as broad as the Zero Point field is
wide.
Who is right about human consciousness: the neo-Newtonians or
those who find consciousness to be a quantum phenomenon? Perhaps we should
begin with the “incredible,” and ultimately tragic, saga of Hans Berger.
Hans Berger and his magic machine
Hans Berger was born May 21, 1873 in Neuses, a small Bavarian
town that was eventually absorbed by the City of Coburg . He was the son of a well to do physician.[vi]
His father’s wealth freed Berger from the day to day struggle of the less
fortunate to just survive. He had interests, but no extraordinary ambition. Hans
was not interested in pursuing a career in medicine and settled, initially, on
a career in Astronomy.
He enrolled as a mathematics student at the Fredrich Schiller University
of Jena to prepare him for that career, but the pace of life in the city held
no allure. He left college and began a year of military training in the cavalry
to sort things out. It was while in the cavalry, that an incident occurred, that
not only changed the course of his life, but the course of what we call
neuroscience, the study of the nervous system, including the brain.
One morning, he was thrown from his horse during a training
exercise. He landed on road in the path of a fast approaching team of horses
pulling a heavy gun carriage. His thought was quite explicit: “I’m going to
die.” Fortunately, the drivers of the gun carriage were able to rein-in their
team of horses and it stopped short of Berger. Shaken, but not injured, he returned
his exercise and his duties.
That evening, when he returned to his quarters, he found a
telegram from his father inquiring about his welfare. That morning, his sister
had become quite hysterical because she felt that Hans had been in an accident and
died. His father inquired anxiously if he was all right. Berger promptly
responded but he was amazed that his sister had an attack of hysteria at the
moment of his grave peril when he consciously thought he was about to die.
It was a life changing moment for Hans Berger. His attention turned
to neuroscience. He concluded that the brain must in some way think and process
electromagnetic waves and that in some way his thought of his impending death
had been transmitted to his sister with whom he had a close relationship.
Needless to say, as he advanced in his study of neuroscience, contemporary
colleagues were quite dubious and treated his ideas with derision.
Undeterred, he developed a machine to measure “brain waves.” More
derision, but in 1924, his machine began to achieve acceptance. It was dubbed the Electroencephalograph,
the EEG, which was a breakthrough in the analysis and treatment of brain
disorders.
Berger’s life continued on a troubled plane. He never received
what he regarded as his proper recognition. The next two decades would see the
rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party. There is some controversy about
whether Berger was a Nazi collaborator. In any event, he retired from the University of Jena
The EEG, which was a scientific breakthrough of the first order, has
been in some respects replaced by the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) which
allows analysis not only of the brain but the entire body or selected parts of
it. Bruce Rosenbaum and Fred Kutler writing The
Quantum Enigma claim that “One third of our economy” involves products
based upon quantum mechanics and go on to describe four of them: the laser;
CCDs (charge coupled devices that, among other things record images in digital
cameras); the transistor; and the MRI.[vii]
Merely mentioning the four devices that use quantum mechanical
methods to manipulate reality indicates to a certain extent the distinction
between the reflective consciousness of humanity and the consciousness of all
other life on earth. Mastering quantum mechanics is one of the greatest
accomplishments of humanity’s reflective consciousness. Most importantly, that reflective
consciousness is the reason we, as distinguished from all other forms of life
on earth, are constricted in our actions by ethics and morality. All other living
creatures answer to unfettered instinct. The natural world is a violent, nasty place.[viii]
Is humanity different? If so, why?
Evolution and Consciousness
Let
us create humanity in our own image and likeness.
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Genesis 1:26[ix]
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And, let us take seriously the observation of the compilers of
Genesis: we are made in God’s image and likeness. That image and likeness is
not our material bodies evolved over ages and for which primordial
consciousness, existing in a state before the existence of our universe and beyond
space and time, does not possess. The image and likeness of God in which we are
created can only be our consciousness, but insofar as we possess it, that too
evolved.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The great prophet of reflective consciousness and its evolution is
Jesuit priest and paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. This book is not a
treatise on Teilhard. The scope of his body of work was quite broad but there
is little question but that he defined a path for the convergence of science
and religion that we are in fact traveling. Teilhard was born May 1, 1881 and died April 10, 1955. Eventually,
during his lifetime, he was forbidden by the Church to publish or teach. Most
of his important writings were not published until after his death including
his epochal works The Phenomenon of Man
and The Divine Milieu.
As important as The Divine Milieu and some of his other works are, for our purposes,
we will concentrate primarily on his description of the evolution of humanity
in The Phenomenon of Man. France
" If this book is to be properly understood, it must be read not as a work on metaphysics, still less as a sort of theological essay, but purely and simply as a scientific treatise. The title itself indicates that. The book deals with man solely as a phenomenon; but it also deals with the whole phenomenon of man."
Teilhard wrote before the theory of quantum
information was developed. Thus his theories about consciousness and humanity
were uninformed by it. However, he divided the human phenomenon into the physical
appearance as matter and consciousness as substance. Arguably he presaged the
whole question of quantum information which would explain the “substance” of
humanity as distinguished from its Newtonian physical existence. What results is
a bridge between quantum mechanics and the appearance-substance dichotomy
espoused by Thomas Aquinas which in turn was a medieval, Christian
transliteration of concepts advanced by Plato.
Teilhard posits everything as having a substance
distinguishable from its appearance. For living organisms that substance is consciousness
for which even the simplest organism exhibited precursor attributes.
Consciousness evolution and physical evolution journeyed upward in parallel evolutionary paths. Even the simplest one celled organism showed chemical reactions to various stimuli or irritants that were in Teilhard’s eyes the beginning consciousness. There were precursors to human intelligence that gradually emerged. Empathy was one. However, as others have written, the biological world was a brutal, unforgiving place. Key to the advance of evolution was selfishness.[xi]
Consciousness evolution and physical evolution journeyed upward in parallel evolutionary paths. Even the simplest one celled organism showed chemical reactions to various stimuli or irritants that were in Teilhard’s eyes the beginning consciousness. There were precursors to human intelligence that gradually emerged. Empathy was one. However, as others have written, the biological world was a brutal, unforgiving place. Key to the advance of evolution was selfishness.[xi]
Teilhard regarded the emergence of a species with
the power of reflective consciousness as the birth of the human race. However,
there was an inherent conflict between that reflective consciousness and selfishness.
That conflict was the underlying theme of the Book of Genesis. It has yet to be
resolved.
[i] Giovanni Tamburelli, “Reading the Holy Shroud, called the Fifth Gospel,
with the Aid of the Computer” Shroud
Spectrum, Issue #2,(March 1982)
[ii]
Teilhard
[iii] Roger
Penrose, PhD, OM , FRS1, and Stuart Hameroff,
MD2, “Consciousness in the Universe: Neuroscience, Quantum Space-Time Geometry
and Orch OR Theory,” Cosmology of
Consciousness: Quantum Physics & Neuroscience of Mind (Kindle Locations
681-683). Cosmology Science Publishers. Kindle Edition.
[iv] John
Muir, My First Summer in the
Sierra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1911)
(p. 110), Sierra Club Books Ed., 1988)
[vii]
Rosenbaum and Kuttner, p. 116.
[ix] The
usual translation of this passage is “let us create man…” However, in Hebrew the word used for man is generic and means
mankind. In this 21st century, the use the word “humanity” which
means mankind.
[x] de
Chardin, Pierre Teilhard (2011-06-21). The
Phenomenon Of Man (Kindle Locations 423-425). Evergreen Books. Kindle
Edition.
[xi]
Dawkins, Selfish gene,
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