What is Digg?188 Comments
- Lisztman, on 10/11/2007, -16/+61This is absolute rubbish, and akin to the pseudo-science of that movie "What the #$% do we know?"
Dugg down for insulting my intelligence. - pixeldust, on 10/11/2007, -3/+42Why travel into space when the great Hoffman has given us LSD? I also enjoy how the article really says nothing about how quantum physics ties into the garbage he was talking about, It's probably best they didn't try to explain it as I can't stand it when Quantum mechanics gets thrown into articles like this.
- nevenmrgan, on 10/11/2007, -1/+30That is a very confusing and meandering article. Note that quantum physics is only mentioned once, in the quoted paragraph.
How about some explanation of HOW quantum physics is allegedly responsible for the Overview Effect (what does that even mean? What effect does quantum physics not underlie?) - RealmDown, on 10/11/2007, -5/+33Forget the universe (it is laughing behind my back anyway), I want oneness with Jennifer Love-Hewitt.
- ekso, on 10/11/2007, -5/+25Now all we need is to send both Israelis and Palestinians to a space trip and the Middle East problem will be solved.
- catalysis, on 10/11/2007, -0/+16Probably, but mostly due to the influence of perceiving yourself as a smaller part of something greater. e.g. Looking at humanity as a living organism instead of a collection of individuals, etc. Most people have a terribly difficult time thinking about anything outside of their daily experience. Both LSD and traveling through space are just catalysts to get people thinking about something besides their normally mundane, egocentric life.
I don't understand why the author thinks it's "dangerous" and "religiously fervent." Open-mindedness is nothing to be afraid of. Just because some confuse religion with fact, there is no reason to completely throw imagination out the window as if it is something to be feared and reviled. That is kind of sad. - JAVandiver, on 10/11/2007, -5/+20Obligatory troll response: Yeah, a one way trip!
- KennMac, on 10/11/2007, -3/+16It's so easy for people to digg you down, and think, "stupid stoner." But if you sit down to actually enjoy it, you really are experiencing a different reality, viewing your existence and your surroundings from an entirely different perspective.
- kprooney, on 10/11/2007, -3/+15I'm a physics major and has some idea about why quantum mechanics is mentioned but it's rather long and too much for a comment.
However I've experienced this overview effect (saved 250,000 by not going into space) by studying general relativity. There came a point in Einstein's research when a very famous equation (read here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein_tensor) showed DIRECTLY that mass affects the curvature of space which was a stunning observation and mathematical proof at the time and still is today. I sat back in my chair with a blank face when my teacher explained the significance of it (on one side of the equation is matter and stuff in the universe, the other side is the curve of space). It's not that I couldn't believe it, I did believe it. I knew it was true, the math was there right in front of me and the data that's been compiled to extreme accuracy, rendered me calm, collected and saying "wow" over and over. Needless to say I took the rest of my classes off for the day in a state of "oneness" in the purest hippy fashion.
It was one of the greatest days of my life to see something so profound. For humans being so small compared to the largest stars in the universe, and all the galaxies that expand to infinity; for us to being able to understand be see where we are in the universe is truly phenomenal - koolaird, on 10/11/2007, -0/+11ego death. its a party.
- mickcn, on 10/11/2007, -4/+15I used to get that feeling all the time, for a while, when I used to smoke weed. It is THE most peaceful feeling I've ever had.
- meetthescott, on 10/11/2007, -1/+11While space travel, on the other hand, is as simple as walking to your fridge!
- thomash, on 10/11/2007, -1/+10maybe throw in some free tickets for the white house staff
- MalachiConstant, on 10/11/2007, -0/+9If Hawking was right, and the universe spawned from a single point and expanded outwards AND if all energy and matter has always been and always will be around (never escaping reality) AND if all life on Earth evolved from pools of acids...
Then we are in fact ONE. We're all actually the same thing. The fact that we have individuality at all is something that we as a universe have evolved in order to have these thoughts about origin. The EARTH alone evolved pools of acid into billions of different life forms to eventually land with what we know of now. But all of that matter, all of that energy... it's all from the same single-point source. Thus we're all the same thing... just being seen through different eyes and thoughts.
Giant pools of acid evolved over a large amount of time to produce beings that consciously are becoming aware of their origins. Right on! - thomash, on 10/11/2007, -2/+10Dimethyltryptamine
- jonnyeh, on 10/11/2007, -1/+9Here's a good overview of why "What the bleep" is all BS: http://intuitor.com/moviephysics/bleep.html
- wingo123, on 10/11/2007, -5/+13Thank you. I hate that damn movie, and all the cheesy armchair 'philosophers' that recommended it to me. Not that I'm smarter than everybody, but that movie was just corny.
- rizla420, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7I always likened the frame of mind of someone who has and hasn't done LSD to that of the conceptual box people are always referring to when they say think outside of the box. To me the uninitiated are living in a 3D box which constitutes their everyday reality. Consists of Eat, work, *****, politics, social interaction, sleep, love, *****. All the basics that we dub everyday life. To contrast that someone who's had an LSD experience had the sides of the cube completely flattened. Gazing at the universe with a new set of 'eyes'. It's quite a woah moment. You feel like a grain of sand in a desert. Its like the macroscopic view and the mico merge into one and you can flip between the two states.
I wish someone was smart enough to figure out the link between the two. Its so obvious that there is a direct correlation between quantum physics and cosmology. Its like we can see it, but we cant predict how it really works just yet. - Toshibi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+7Well no kidding we're a part of the universe! The universe is everything, and I mean EVERYTHING that we can observe or which can observe us. All matter, all energy, all of it including the atoms that make us up. We may be made of star stuff, but each of us have the ability to do what no star can do (that I'm aware of, perhaps there is a sentient star out there).
- HouseofEl, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Actually a lot of those scientists that were interviewed for that movie are pissed because their responses were taken out of context and edited to look like they were agreeing with the films message.
- 4lph4, on 10/11/2007, -2/+8Totally true... I'm not 'encouraging drug use' but yeah that happened to me when I smoked when I was younger. It's an awesome feeling, you get in touch with a different side of the world.
- coldskool, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Is there really such thing as "bad trips" on weed? Come on.. its weed
- bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5as koolaird cryptically pointed out, lsd destroys the concept and perception of the ego all together while tripping. it can be very useful for terminally ill people to face the consequence of death as it removes the insecurities of the ego. of course, this is why i think people have bad trips, they're unable to let go of the ego (and subsequently don't) and bring it to a place where the ego shouldn't be.
- krebcycle, on 10/11/2007, -5/+10This is so "TAO of Physics". People have been making meandering claims about this crap since the summer of love. Give it a rest already with the BS about consciousness and quantum physics. If you're interested in consciousness and how the mind may work, a very interesting if controversial read is "The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind" by Julian Jaynes.
- lorisa, on 10/11/2007, -1/+6Sorry, I can't take an article about quantum physics seriously when it uses "it's" for "its" over and over again...
- inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7pop-culture quantum theory is the new psychic friends network.
- Hemato, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5It was an interesting article, but should probably be resubmitted to Digg without the allusion to quantum hocus-pocus in the title. It wasn't even close to being the point of the article.
- jackminardi, on 10/11/2007, -0/+5Did you even look up the experiment I was referring to?
Let me spell it out better for you. It is your classic double slit experiment. and to get our which path info we set a down converter on each path that spits out half of the original photon and leaves the other half to travel on its original path. We get our which path info from noting which down converter emits a photon. And of course, when we have which path information, we form the double band pattern on the film.
Now here is the twist. Redirect each of the two down converters to only one particle detector. Now we dont know which path the photon went down, but only that it went down a path. With the which path info erased, we see the interference bands arise again.
You can see here that even though we are still measuring which path the photon goes down, thus disturbing it, we can still end up with interference.
I was not arguing that conscience observation affects the outcome, it doesn't. But what most people don't know is that neither does physical observing. The only thing that affects outcome is the PRESENCE of which path information. - CompIsMyRx, on 10/11/2007, -4/+9I got a similar feeling from watching this Discovery Channel show about string theory and quantum mechanics. It said that everything in this universe is really all contained in a bubble-like membrane floating through 11-dimensional space, and that all universes are created from the collisions with other universes that number in the infinity. It really puts petty squabbles into perspective.
- jkbowman, on 10/11/2007, -2/+7Science is the study of "thatness."
Science can not understand Oneness. - bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4the only reason this deserves a digg down is because it is trying to contribute quantum mechanics to the observed effect the person is detailing, yet it does so unsuccessfully. there's no reason to jump on this as pseudoscience until there is a more detailed explanation. that would be akin to crying "witch!" after dressing someone up with a hat and witches nose.
- BabaRamDass, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4I couldn't have said it better. You may be interested in my post further down the page (about non-dualism and egoloss). It's about *perception* and context, which I think is what you were talking about when you said "frame of reference".
- Frozo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Wow, apparently I'm a Buddhist and didn't even know it! :) I sort of had an epiphany once at a Phish show. Deduct what you may, but it changed my view on "life, the universe, and everything" forever. I strongly believe this is within ALL of us, and you just need to put your everyday distractions at bay enough to open your mind.
I'm sure what the astronauts felt was exactly the same thing I experienced. You just need a trigger. Mine was music, but you can find this inspiration anywhere if it invokes a passion within you. - mrlyons, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5I was reading the article and was curious about LSD as well. I'm curious if there are any similarities to the space travelers feelings and those of LSD users.
- BrapAllgood, on 10/11/2007, -3/+7A great book to quickly come current with science in these areas:
"The Field" by Lynne McTaggart
http://books.google.com/books?id=uivwpQIRMwUC&pg=PP1&ots=LdiVYFO4Of&dq=the+field+mctaggart&sig=sFzC-oMdrnZJAMCw7zUjzZxz8oc - MacEnvy, on 10/11/2007, -0/+4Depends on where you started.
There's a reason for the phrase "mindset and setting". Start out wrong, and bad trips can follow. - Gabberwok, on 10/11/2007, -1/+5"The Field" is complete garbage. Quantum mechanics has nothing to do with "the soul" or any other New Age mumbo-jumbo. Quantum decoherence (i.e. the effect of the observer on a quantum system) can happen with only a handful of extra molecules interacting with a system - it doesn't require interaction with a "consciousness". Beware of pseudoscience - just because you don't fully understand what someone is saying doesn't make them an expert and certainly doesn't make them right.
- Error601, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3That meandered all over the place and never made any scientific points.
- notbrain, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Especially in that new Hanes (?) commercial. Quality.
- redbone, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Buddhists have been aware of this interbeing for 2600 years. The Three Dharma Seals, in fact, are impermanence, nonself and nirvana. In a deeper context, it is taught from very early on that our personal identities in every sense are relative, and that the elements that make us human are all non-human elements. That is the start of understanding interbeing. Eventually, you can look at a flower and see the clouds, the earth, your perception and so on - everything that makes that flower a flower. Of course, this same concept is applied to everything.
- bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3unless that and that and that turn out to be one. some consider string theory / m theory to be about oneness. it's just too bad you're to shallow minded to leave yourself open to this idea.
- rizla420, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4I'll raise my hand and admit that i'm part of that group of armchair philosophers that liked the movie.
- kmpr326, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4Relativity only shows that it would not expand is because Einstein added the cosmologic constant because he didn't believe what he results showed. He also later called that his biggest blunder. So, wrong wrong and wrong. Very nice try but try to learn a bit more.
- dute, on 10/11/2007, -1/+4"If Hawking was right, and the universe spawned from a single point and expanded outwards"
You seem to be referring to inflationary cosmology:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_inflation
While Stephen Hawking has certainly made contributions to this theory, I don't see why you want to give him credit for the entire notion. - Modulo, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3mm.. no.
- KalvinCoolEdge, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5Actually, i'm pretty sure that the idea that the observer effects the outcome has been debunked. It's whatever the observer must do to observe the experiment(could be turning on a light switch) that effects the outcome because experiments on the quantum scale are so volatile. They've done studies on thoughts effecting the outcome of things such as a random number generator with no statistically significant positive effect.
- NerdyNinja, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3It's not a very difficult concept, in my mind at least, to consider the idea that all of mankind is in fact a collection of inter-dependent individuals, rather than completely separate individuals, in the same way that organs of a body rely on each other. Which leads to the questions as to what the "brain" of this collection is, as it were.
Reminds me of that philosopher who talked about monads and whether there are an infinite number of monads or whether there was one monad that was infinite.
And to echo what others have said - how exactly does quantum physics relate to this? From my skimming of the article, I almost thought the guys in space came back with a perfect knowledge of quantum physics, in which case I would like them to build me a new computer. - inactive, on 10/11/2007, -2/+5"Mitchell has publicly expressed his opinions that "he is 90 per cent sure that many of the thousands of unidentified flying objects, or UFOs, recorded since the 1940s, belong to visitors from other planets"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Mitchell
I like this. Not because he knows anything but because he clearly doesn't. - bIuebonics, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3this is the reason i have such a taking to physics. much of einstein's and various other physicist's work (feynman / sum over paths) speak to me as a person studying mathematics. mathematical physics is a very mind opening field.
- Neiby, on 10/11/2007, -0/+3And yet some of the people heading in that direction are extremely accomplished and respected quantum physicists. I wonder why that is?
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