Entanglement: The Next Big Thing?

Just a few months ago on his blog, parapsychologist Dean Radin boldly claimed that the idea of entanglement will soon become taken for granted in biology. Entanglement is the idea that all things are connected at a deep level, and that this connectivity transcends the currently understood limits of space and time, as held in mainstream science. In the post, titled “Quantum biology now. Quantum psychology next?”, Radin suggests that psychology will quickly follow suit, taking on entanglement as a founding principle of mind.

 Dean Radin

Radin has long held the belief that entanglement will eventually be embraced in science, but his confidence received a boost at the beginning of the year because of a paper published in the prestigious science journal, Nature by Elisabetta Collini and colleagues.
That paper, entitled “Coherently wired light-harvesting in photosynthetic marine algae at ambient temperature”, provides evidence that quantum level coherence exists at room temperature in living systems. That evidence contradicts the view that long-range quantum coherence between molecules cannot occur in living systems, even at low temperatures.

Here’s what Radin writes:

…the evidence for quantum coherence in living systems continues to mount. This latest advancement… demonstrates that coherence not only exists in living systems, but it persists at room temperature. This contradicts long-held dogma that it is not possible to have quantum effects in living bodies. That dogma was based on assumptions about entanglement as observed in simple physics experiments, ignoring what happens when elementary things combine into new emergent properties. 

My thesis in Entangled Minds was that if some form of quantum entanglement exists in living systems, then the subjective experience of that entanglement may well be what we call psi, mystical experience, or noetic experience in general. In the five years since I wrote that book (Entangled Minds), the evidence leading towards quantum psychology is marching along quite a bit faster than I had expected.      

The irony in all this is that by the time I get to say "I told you so," the concept of entangled minds will become so obvious that it won't be considered controversial any more. It might take a year or two for the hoopla to settle down, but in the grand scheme of things we will have advanced from a "para" discipline to the mainstream in a flash. And likewise, centuries of past objections and skepticism about the reality of psychic and mystical experiences will also vanish in a flash.      

Perhaps Raidin is a little over-optimistic, but it is undoubtedly true that once entanglement is  taken as given in biology, psychology will jump on board. As Freud lamented well over half a century ago, psychology has become a handmaiden to neuroscience. And neuroscience in turn has become a handmaiden to molecular and mechanistic biology. Thus, once biology is stripped of its mechanistic givens, neuroscience and psychology must inevitably follow, as their foundations will have morphed into something entirely new.

The ricochet effect will be inevitable. The precise timing is what will remain uncertain.

In Transcending the levels of Consciousness, mystic David R. Hawkins rightly points out that at one level of consciousness, the consciousness levels above it cannot be easily understood. Further, mind as it exists at one level – in this case the sceptical mindset – inevitably interprets all reality at that same level. Each level draws data to itself which reinforces its perception of reality.

This is why, way back in 1960, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn suggested that paradigms do not shift under the weight of evidence, but only after one generation has passed, and a new one arises. If he was right, the shift to an entanglement paradigm may take some time. Or perhaps it is that we are already between generations and paradigms, and that all that is required is a little more evidence to get a sufficient number of mainstream scientists to “come out.”

The deep connectedness of minds – of consciousness and consciousness - is a reality. Many who have moved beyond the purely rational level of mind, including myself, know that first hand. There are plenty of us about. The problem is that we have been silenced, and our ways of knowing rendered invalid by mainstream science and education. Yet our time will come.

We live in interesting times.        

Marcus

Reference:

Elisabetta Collini, Cathy Y. Wong, Krystyna E. Wilk, Paul M. G. Curmi, Paul Brumer & Gregory D. Scholes. “Coherently wired light-harvesting in photosynthetic marine algae at ambient temperature.” Nature 463, 644-647 (4 February 2010)