Joseph Selfie | Nonfiction, 2018
207 pages
Reading The Physics of God, I learned that meditation moves our brains from alpha-waves to theta-waves, which activate imagination, creativity, planning, concentration, morals, manners, and the opportunity for transcendence; offering a much richer space than I realized possible in my meditation practice.
AND, The Physics of God raises a myriad of questions …. and confirmation of truths I find difficult to comprehend. At the core, there is considerable evidence that an object does not truly exist until it is perceived by consciousness.
In the 20th century, many physicists came to the conclusion that consciousness was the underlying foundation of reality, substantiated and coalesced as the "intelligent-observer paradox". Intelligent Consciousness creates matter. This, of course, is very challenging to truly grasp. This is an argument for a God of some sort …. a Divine Intelligent Consciousness. Read this short, clear book to gain a deeper level of understanding than I can begin to explore here.
And, still, I am left with a sense of “so what?” How does this knowledge impact my life, or those around me? It is interesting, yes. And to what end? What insight? What manifestation? Selbie argues that only science and religion together explain “Reality.” I would love to hear your thoughts and questions after you have read this decidedly mind-expanding and thought-provoking book.
August 2021
Hi Andrea. In your posting on this book you have what turns out to be an appropriate typo. His name is Joseph Selbie, not Joseph Selfie. It’s an appropriate typo because the author is a relentlessly self-promoter who pedals what most people would call New Age points of view. The notion that quantum physics depends on human consciousness was long ago dispensed with by anyone serious in the field. It’s a bit complicated, but here goes: when physicists first noted that “observation” of particles in the famous double slit experiment caused the generated particle to go down one path or the other, the New Age crowd took that and ran WAY to far with it, stating that consciousness was causing the particles to discohere into one path or the other, rather than retain its wave like function. Many, many subsequents experiments have shown that it is physical interaction with a measuring system that causes the appearance of decoherence, NOT human consciousness. The shortest way that I can say this is that from a scientific point of view, from the point of view of all leading particle physicists and quantum theory specialists, Selbie is in the realm of pure (and financially motivated) fantasy. He starts with a deeply flawed premise, and develops it into further nonsense about the interaction of religion and science, and a very twisted notion of the need for a god to make the universe work. Selbie is one of many, many pseudo-scientists that make a living pedaling attractive, and completely erroneous, misinterpretations of quantum mechanics.
Most interesting! I appreciate your thoughts, clarity, and knowledge. Makes me more cautious.
Readers: Dan also sent me this link privately, which I am taking the liberty to post here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer_%28quantum_physics%29
p.s. Spell check kept changing Selbie to Selfie. Guess I missed it in my final draft!!
One thought around your So What question is around how we pronounce someone dead.
Western medicine pronounces us dead when our brains no longer function – when we no longer show consciousness. This allows us to harvest and donate organs while the heart is still beating as those organs still receive nutrients. On the other hand, in Japan (and perhaps other Eastern medicine cultures), a person is considered dead when their heart stops. Their brain may still be functioning on some level, but the argument is that the brain will die quickly as the heart is not pumping nutrients to it. But this means harvesting organs is a lot more complicated in Japan and one end result of this is that less lives are saved because of a shortage of organs.
I have pondered this my entire Life as it seems to have profound implications on either side of the equation. Consciousness and death – pretty heady things to think about on hot, smoky days in Central Oregon!
Thanks for your interesting thoughts!
Thank you, Andrea Sigetich, for your above review of Joseph Selbie’s 2018 book entitled The Physics of God. For more on that titular topic, see my following article: James Redford, “The Physics of God and the Quantum Gravity Theory of Everything”, Social Science Research Network (SSRN), Sept. 10, 2012 (orig. pub. Dec. 19, 2011), 186 pp., doi:10.2139/ssrn.1974708.
My foregoing article details physicist and mathematician Prof. Frank J. Tipler’s Omega Point cosmology, which has been published and extensively peer-reviewed in leading physics journals. The Omega Point cosmology is a proof (i.e., mathematical theorem) demonstrating that sapient life (in the form of, e.g., immortal superintelligent human-mind computer-uploads and artificial intelligences) is required by standard physics (viz., the Second Law of Thermodynamics, General Relativity, and Quantum Mechanics) to take control over all matter in the universe, for said life to eventually force the collapse of the universe, and for the computational resources of the universe (in terms of both processor speed and memory storage) to diverge to infinity as the universe collapses into a final singularity, termed the Omega Point. Said Omega Point cosmology is also an intrinsic component of the Feynman-DeWitt-Weinberg quantum gravity/Standard Model Theory of Everything (TOE) correctly describing and unifying all the forces in physics, of which TOE is itself mathematically forced by the aforementioned known physical laws.
Rather than attempt to do a point by point refutation of James Redford’s comments, I’d suggest that any interested reader review the Wikipedia article on Frank Tipler. Omega Point cosmology is not a mathematical proof. It’s a theological hypothesis based on the now thoroughly refuted notion that the universe, specifically at the quantum level, depends on human consciousness. Lovely theory if you’re into human exceptionalism, complete nonsense if you are not.