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Science and the Akashic Field: An Integral Theory of Everything
Introduces the embracing world-concept long sought by scientists, mystics, and sages: an Integral Theory of Everything
• Explains how modern science has rediscovered the Akashic Field of perennial philosophy
• Reveals how the universe stores a record of all that is happening and has ever happened on Earth and throughout the cosmos
• Explores the origins, role, and future of life and consciousness in the universe
Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in the new field of vacuum physics now show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in the zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic-field--or “A-field”-- is not only the original source of all things that arise in time and space; it is also the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that ever happened in life, on Earth, and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.
Scientist and philosopher Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this vision of the “informed universe” in language that is accessible and clear. The informed universe lends credence to our deepest intuitions of the oneness of life and the whole of creation. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “we are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
• Explains how modern science has rediscovered the Akashic Field of perennial philosophy
• Reveals how the universe stores a record of all that is happening and has ever happened on Earth and throughout the cosmos
• Explores the origins, role, and future of life and consciousness in the universe
Mystics and sages have long maintained that there exists an interconnecting cosmic field at the roots of reality that conserves and conveys information, a field known as the Akashic record. Recent discoveries in the new field of vacuum physics now show that this Akashic field is real and has its equivalent in the zero-point field that underlies space itself. This field consists of a subtle sea of fluctuating energies from which all things arise: atoms and galaxies, stars and planets, living beings, and even consciousness. This zero-point Akashic-field--or “A-field”-- is not only the original source of all things that arise in time and space; it is also the constant and enduring memory of the universe. It holds the record of all that ever happened in life, on Earth, and in the cosmos and relates it to all that is yet to happen.
Scientist and philosopher Ervin Laszlo conveys the essential element of this vision of the “informed universe” in language that is accessible and clear. The informed universe lends credence to our deepest intuitions of the oneness of life and the whole of creation. We discover that, as philosopher William James stated, “we are like islands in the sea, separate on the surface but connected in the deep.”
194 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2004
About the author
Ervin Laszlo
212 books205 followersErvin Laszlo is a systems philosopher, integral theorist, and classical pianist. Twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has authored more than 70 books, which have been translated into nineteen languages, and has published in excess of four hundred articles and research papers, including six volumes of piano recordings.
Dr. Laszlo is generally recognized as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, and serves as the founder-director of the General Evolution Research Group and as past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He is also the recipient of the highest degree in philosophy and human sciences from the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, as well as of the coveted Artist Diploma of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest. Additional prizes and awards include four honorary doctorates.
His appointments have included research grants at Yale and Princeton Universities, professorships for philosophy, systems sciences, and future sciences at the Universities of Houston, Portland State, and Indiana, as well as Northwestern University and the State University of New York. His career also included guest professorships at various universities in Europe and the Far East. In addition, he worked as program director for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). In 1999 he was was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Canadian International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.
For many years he has served as president of the Club of Budapest, which he founded. He is an advisor to the UNESCO Director General, ambassador of the International Delphic Council, member of both the International Academy of Science, World Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Philosophy.
Dr. Laszlo is generally recognized as the founder of systems philosophy and general evolution theory, and serves as the founder-director of the General Evolution Research Group and as past president of the International Society for the Systems Sciences. He is also the recipient of the highest degree in philosophy and human sciences from the Sorbonne, the University of Paris, as well as of the coveted Artist Diploma of the Franz Liszt Academy of Budapest. Additional prizes and awards include four honorary doctorates.
His appointments have included research grants at Yale and Princeton Universities, professorships for philosophy, systems sciences, and future sciences at the Universities of Houston, Portland State, and Indiana, as well as Northwestern University and the State University of New York. His career also included guest professorships at various universities in Europe and the Far East. In addition, he worked as program director for the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). In 1999 he was was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Canadian International Institute of Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics.
For many years he has served as president of the Club of Budapest, which he founded. He is an advisor to the UNESCO Director General, ambassador of the International Delphic Council, member of both the International Academy of Science, World Academy of Arts and Science, and the International Academy of Philosophy.
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May 22, 2012
In his groundbreaking book in the philosophy of science, Thomas Kuhn argued that true paradigm change in science usually comes from someone who is either very new to a field or from entirely outside of it. As stated in his autobiographical statement at the end of this book we learn that Laszlo was a concert pianist before he became interested in searching for meaning through science. This occurred after the birth of his first son and gradually, this quest took over his life. He seems to be largely self-educated in physics and science and through his work has received four Honorary PhDs as well as major awards and distinctions. He is a former professor of philosophy, systems theory and futures studies in the U.S., Europe and the Far East.
Physicists strive to find a unifying set of equations that bring together all of the laws of physical nature and that could explain all the features of the universe. They refer to this as a Theory of Everything (TOE), or a unified field theory. In the emerging new cosmology, quanta are taken as basic. These are not discrete particles of matter/energy, but rather, vibrating one-dimensional filaments or strings or super strings. Physicists see such quanta as a string with its own ‘music’. On a cosmic level entire stars and galaxies vibrate together. Laszlo argues (as Ken Wilber has as well) that a genuine TOE must take into account, not only the physical universe, but also life, mind, culture and consciousness.
Citing the new physics, Laszlo states that the fundamental foundation of everything, that from which all is generated without itself being generated by other things, is a virtual-energy field known as the quantum vacuum. However, the emergence of ever greater complexity in the universe requires the presence of a factor that is neither matter nor energy. This is call ‘information’ and is not used in the sense of data or what a person knows, but to a process that actually ‘forms ‘ the recipient. After the physicist David Bohm, he adopts the spelling ‘in-formation’ to denote this particular meaning. “…in-formation is present in the world independent of human volition and action and is a decisive factor in the evolution of the things that furnish the real world.”
Building on Kuhn’s idea that new paradigms arise when enough anomalies arise within the existent dominant paradigm that people begin to look for new explanations, Laszlo then turns to some of the puzzles that exist in physics. Coherence of the non-local kind is one such puzzle. The smallest identifiable units of matter, force and light are not separate entities, but specific forms of underlying energy fields. It is through the underlying energy fields that everything is connected to everything else. Quanta are not just in one place at one time, but everywhere. Until they are actually observed or measured quanta exist simultaneously in several states at the same time. ‘it is as if the observer fishes the quanta out of a sea of possibilities.” Some of the puzzles of coherence occur in biology as well. “cutting edge research in quantum biology finds that atoms and molecules within organisms, and entire organisms and their environments, are nearly as ‘entangled’ with each other as microparticles that originate in the same quantum state.” In the living organism, all parts are coherent with all other parts. What happens to one cell in some way happens to all of them. Further, the organism is coherent with the world around it-it’s external milieu ( similar to Dubos’ concept equating health with being in balance with one’s environment). It is important to distinguish between being in equilibrium (a state achieved only in death) and near equilibrium which requires an organism to be in coherence with the milieu. The latter is referred to as a state of dynamic equilibrium. “The difference between thermal/chemical and dynamic equilibrium can be illustrated in reference to the movement of a ball over a hilly landscape. When the ball is at the bottom of a valley, it is at rest; if any force moves it out of its position, it will roll back to it. This is similar to thermal and chemical, so-called thermodynamical, equilibrium. But when the ball is at the top of a hill, it will roll down unless it can dynamically balance itself in its unstable position. This balancing act is an instance of dynamic equilibrium.”
Quantum level coherence occurs also at the level of consciousness. He cites both anthropological and laboratory evidence to show that humans have non-local contact with others.
All of these non-local or effects at a distance depend on the quantum vacuum or plenum . “The idea that information is present throughout nature is a recurrent theme in cultural history, but it is new to Western science. It calls for the recognition that information is not an abstract concept: as ‘in-formation’ it has a reality of its own. It is a part of the physical universe. And because it is present throughout nature, it is best conceptualized as an extended field.” Laszlo calls this the Akashic Field or A-field. Akasha in Sanskrit and Indian cultures is what underlies all things and becomes all things. Our physical bodies do not register this field, but it can be reached through spiritual practice.
Using these concepts the author goes on to examine the source of the universe, and the nature of consciousness (both human and cosmic). The latter chapter I found the most interesting. It also contained a, perhaps, minor error. In talking about cosmic consciousness, he refers to Richard Bucke as an American mystic. Actually, Richard Maurice Bucke was a psychiatrist working here in London Ontario in the late 19th century. He brought an enlightened approach to the treatment of mental illness in his role as Director of the London Insane Asylum. Bucke did indeed write a book titled Cosmic Consciousness (copies of which sometimes still show up in local antiquarian bookstores). He was stimulated in his thinking by the American poet Walt Whitman. Whitman was so impressed by Bucke’s book and letters that he visited him here. An example of how the arts (in this case, poetry) precedes science (see Jonah Lehrer’s book, Proust was a Neuroscientist for more examples).
I enjoyed this book, though it could use a glossary of terms. Will re-read sections of it again, I’m sure.
Physicists strive to find a unifying set of equations that bring together all of the laws of physical nature and that could explain all the features of the universe. They refer to this as a Theory of Everything (TOE), or a unified field theory. In the emerging new cosmology, quanta are taken as basic. These are not discrete particles of matter/energy, but rather, vibrating one-dimensional filaments or strings or super strings. Physicists see such quanta as a string with its own ‘music’. On a cosmic level entire stars and galaxies vibrate together. Laszlo argues (as Ken Wilber has as well) that a genuine TOE must take into account, not only the physical universe, but also life, mind, culture and consciousness.
Citing the new physics, Laszlo states that the fundamental foundation of everything, that from which all is generated without itself being generated by other things, is a virtual-energy field known as the quantum vacuum. However, the emergence of ever greater complexity in the universe requires the presence of a factor that is neither matter nor energy. This is call ‘information’ and is not used in the sense of data or what a person knows, but to a process that actually ‘forms ‘ the recipient. After the physicist David Bohm, he adopts the spelling ‘in-formation’ to denote this particular meaning. “…in-formation is present in the world independent of human volition and action and is a decisive factor in the evolution of the things that furnish the real world.”
Building on Kuhn’s idea that new paradigms arise when enough anomalies arise within the existent dominant paradigm that people begin to look for new explanations, Laszlo then turns to some of the puzzles that exist in physics. Coherence of the non-local kind is one such puzzle. The smallest identifiable units of matter, force and light are not separate entities, but specific forms of underlying energy fields. It is through the underlying energy fields that everything is connected to everything else. Quanta are not just in one place at one time, but everywhere. Until they are actually observed or measured quanta exist simultaneously in several states at the same time. ‘it is as if the observer fishes the quanta out of a sea of possibilities.” Some of the puzzles of coherence occur in biology as well. “cutting edge research in quantum biology finds that atoms and molecules within organisms, and entire organisms and their environments, are nearly as ‘entangled’ with each other as microparticles that originate in the same quantum state.” In the living organism, all parts are coherent with all other parts. What happens to one cell in some way happens to all of them. Further, the organism is coherent with the world around it-it’s external milieu ( similar to Dubos’ concept equating health with being in balance with one’s environment). It is important to distinguish between being in equilibrium (a state achieved only in death) and near equilibrium which requires an organism to be in coherence with the milieu. The latter is referred to as a state of dynamic equilibrium. “The difference between thermal/chemical and dynamic equilibrium can be illustrated in reference to the movement of a ball over a hilly landscape. When the ball is at the bottom of a valley, it is at rest; if any force moves it out of its position, it will roll back to it. This is similar to thermal and chemical, so-called thermodynamical, equilibrium. But when the ball is at the top of a hill, it will roll down unless it can dynamically balance itself in its unstable position. This balancing act is an instance of dynamic equilibrium.”
Quantum level coherence occurs also at the level of consciousness. He cites both anthropological and laboratory evidence to show that humans have non-local contact with others.
All of these non-local or effects at a distance depend on the quantum vacuum or plenum . “The idea that information is present throughout nature is a recurrent theme in cultural history, but it is new to Western science. It calls for the recognition that information is not an abstract concept: as ‘in-formation’ it has a reality of its own. It is a part of the physical universe. And because it is present throughout nature, it is best conceptualized as an extended field.” Laszlo calls this the Akashic Field or A-field. Akasha in Sanskrit and Indian cultures is what underlies all things and becomes all things. Our physical bodies do not register this field, but it can be reached through spiritual practice.
Using these concepts the author goes on to examine the source of the universe, and the nature of consciousness (both human and cosmic). The latter chapter I found the most interesting. It also contained a, perhaps, minor error. In talking about cosmic consciousness, he refers to Richard Bucke as an American mystic. Actually, Richard Maurice Bucke was a psychiatrist working here in London Ontario in the late 19th century. He brought an enlightened approach to the treatment of mental illness in his role as Director of the London Insane Asylum. Bucke did indeed write a book titled Cosmic Consciousness (copies of which sometimes still show up in local antiquarian bookstores). He was stimulated in his thinking by the American poet Walt Whitman. Whitman was so impressed by Bucke’s book and letters that he visited him here. An example of how the arts (in this case, poetry) precedes science (see Jonah Lehrer’s book, Proust was a Neuroscientist for more examples).
I enjoyed this book, though it could use a glossary of terms. Will re-read sections of it again, I’m sure.
Read
January 8, 2013This is terrible. It's a conflation of science, pseudo-science, and nonsense. There are a few stretches where his efforts to popularize 20th century physics are pretty good, but I doubt that any reader who would benefit from them would be able to tell when he goes off the deep end. He moves seamlessly between what is known, what might be known, and what he hopes might one day be known as though they all share the same status.
May 14, 2008
Loved it. Might not be for everyone but these kinds of books that push use contemporary scientific research to push the limits of science are my cup o' tea. I spend a lot of time just sitting and contemplating the universe. Evolving my own ideas about science, philosophy and spirituality and interestingly enough had come to pretty much the same conclusions arrived at in this book just before I happened to discover it by very random circumstances, which of course enhanced the over all experience. If you like books that expand your mind and challenge the prevailing materialist view of the universe this is for you.
April 16, 2018
Quick! What’s your least favorite thing about scientific materialism? Is it that the experience of consciousness can never be fully elucidated using hardened mathematical formulas? Okay, sweet, me too.
Science and the Akashic Field attempts to string together a unified theory of everything while taking consciousness into play as an essential component within that theory’s framework. Similar theories attempting to explain the universe tend to view consciousness as an emergent property of “dead” matter, and proponents typically have a difficult time explaining how consciousness can suddenly arise from increasingly complex interactions between atoms and molecules.
The main idea Laszlo puts forward is that the universe exists as / within / alongside a metaphysical substrate he terms the Akashic Field. Essentially, everything is made up of the same basic meta-stuff, and we can visualize all matter and energy as existing within this field of potentiality.
As action unfolds in the universe (whether it be molecules interacting or your neighbor driving her car to work), particles shift and interact as a result of that action, creating ripples in the cosmos like a stone thrown into a pool of water. Laszlo extrapolates that if you could identify and reverse engineer the interference patterns caused by these cosmic ripples, they would act as a historical footprint of every action that has ever taken place in the universe. This makes a lot of sense conceptually - if you have perfect physical data on the trajectory of a lot of different moving things, it should be possible to deduce the events that led up to the present moment.
But instead of leaving this as a mathematical problem, Laszlo pushes on towards panpsychism. Now I get SUPER DOWN with the idea of a conscious universe, but Laszlo’s answer here is to essentially say that these wave interference patterns can be decoded via consciousness alone, and by “tuning in” to the cosmos, we’re able to sync up with the Akashic field and plug into a universal awareness underlying all of existence.
There’s such a huge gap in the reasoning here that it was really hard for me to stay on board with any following arguments. I think it’s possible to explore panpsychism from different angles while keeping it a bit more grounded in scientific reality. It really is a beautiful idea, but the presentation here leaves something to be desired.
I recommend checking out Alan Watts or some Vedic literature instead if you’re exploring these ideas for the first time. Watts is infinitely more readable than Laszlo and does a fantastic job of bridging the gap between Western and Eastern thought while remaining inspiring and accessible.
Science and the Akashic Field attempts to string together a unified theory of everything while taking consciousness into play as an essential component within that theory’s framework. Similar theories attempting to explain the universe tend to view consciousness as an emergent property of “dead” matter, and proponents typically have a difficult time explaining how consciousness can suddenly arise from increasingly complex interactions between atoms and molecules.
The main idea Laszlo puts forward is that the universe exists as / within / alongside a metaphysical substrate he terms the Akashic Field. Essentially, everything is made up of the same basic meta-stuff, and we can visualize all matter and energy as existing within this field of potentiality.
As action unfolds in the universe (whether it be molecules interacting or your neighbor driving her car to work), particles shift and interact as a result of that action, creating ripples in the cosmos like a stone thrown into a pool of water. Laszlo extrapolates that if you could identify and reverse engineer the interference patterns caused by these cosmic ripples, they would act as a historical footprint of every action that has ever taken place in the universe. This makes a lot of sense conceptually - if you have perfect physical data on the trajectory of a lot of different moving things, it should be possible to deduce the events that led up to the present moment.
But instead of leaving this as a mathematical problem, Laszlo pushes on towards panpsychism. Now I get SUPER DOWN with the idea of a conscious universe, but Laszlo’s answer here is to essentially say that these wave interference patterns can be decoded via consciousness alone, and by “tuning in” to the cosmos, we’re able to sync up with the Akashic field and plug into a universal awareness underlying all of existence.
There’s such a huge gap in the reasoning here that it was really hard for me to stay on board with any following arguments. I think it’s possible to explore panpsychism from different angles while keeping it a bit more grounded in scientific reality. It really is a beautiful idea, but the presentation here leaves something to be desired.
I recommend checking out Alan Watts or some Vedic literature instead if you’re exploring these ideas for the first time. Watts is infinitely more readable than Laszlo and does a fantastic job of bridging the gap between Western and Eastern thought while remaining inspiring and accessible.
November 17, 2010
God, TOE, GUT, science, the quantum world, the exquisite interconnectedness of everything. My kind of book.
April 12, 2013
Thousands of cases document the phenomenon of reincarnation through people, usually children, remembering vividly their past lives. Other experiences (past life regression, NDE...) testify to this eternal phenomenon.
The interesting thing about this book, besides the fact that it explains the Akashic field (everything that ever happened is recorded somewhere and some people have the ability to access this field where the information is stored) is that it explains how people think they remember their past lives through accessin the Akashic field.
The interesting thing about this book, besides the fact that it explains the Akashic field (everything that ever happened is recorded somewhere and some people have the ability to access this field where the information is stored) is that it explains how people think they remember their past lives through accessin the Akashic field.
April 10, 2018
Q:
Парус
Беспечный со мной по спокойному морю плывет.
Можно гадать,
кто же там, за туманом живет.
Тонкая нить
На воде отмечает наш призрачный путь.
Мы тут одни —
или есть на земле кто-нибудь?
Шепчет волна, образуя зеленый прибой: ты не один,
Все на свете едино с тобой.
След мой и твой, неразрывно переплетены.
там, за туманом плывут и плывут корабли.
Воды кишат отражением их бытия.
В каждом из них есть частица моя и твоя.
И разобщенность — иллюзия, словно туман,
скрывший весь мир от тебя, но на миг, капитан!
Всех нас роднит бесконечная власть бытия.
Ей мы послушны — и море, и парус, и я.
(c)
Q:
Сегодня большинство физиков-теоретиков придерживаются другого подхода: они считают элементарной единицей квант—дискретный аспект физической реальности. Но физическая природа квантов пересмотрена: они считаются не отдельными материально-энергетическими частицами, а вибрирующими одномерными нитями — струнами и суперструнами. Физики пытаются представить все законы физики как вибрацию суперструн в многомерном пространстве. Они рассматривают каждую частицу как струну, которая создает собственную «музыку» вместе со всеми другими частицами. На космическом уровне целые звезды и галактики вибрируют вместе, а также и целые вселенные. Задача физиков состоит в том, чтобы создать уравнение, которое покажет, как одна вибрация соот��осится с другой, чтобы все они могли быть выражены в одном суперуравнении. Это уравнение расшифровало бы музыку, в которой воплощена самая бескрайняя и фундаментальная гармония космоса. (c)
Q:
В 1955 году физик Хью Эверетт предложил поразительное объяснение квантового мира (ставшее впоследствии основой для одного из самых популярных романов Майкла Крайтона «Стрела времени»). Гипотеза параллельных вселенных Эверетта связана с загадочным открытием в квантовой физике: пока частицу не наблюдают, не измеряют и никак на нее не воздействуют, она находится в любопытном состоянии, которое является суперпозицией всех возможных состояний. Однако когда частицу наблюдают, измеряют или воздействуют на нее, это состояние суперпозиции исчезает: частица находится в единственном состоянии, как и любой «обычный» предмет. Так как состояние суперпозиции описывается как сложная волновая функция, связанная с именем Эрвина Шре- дингера, то, когда состояние суперпозиции исчезает, говорят, что происходит коллапс волновой функции Шредингера.
Проблема в том, что невозможно сказать, какое из множества возможных виртуальных состояний примет частица. Выбор частицы кажется непредопределимым — совершенно не зависимым от условий, которые запускают коллапс волновой функции. Согласно гипотезе Эверетта, неопределимость коллапса волновой функции не отражает существующих в мире условий. Здесь нет неопределенности: каждое виртуальное состояние, избранное частицей, определенно — оно просто присутствует в мире само собой!
Вот как происходит коллапс: когда квант измеряют, существует некоторое количество возможностей, каждая из которых связана с наблюдателем или измерительным прибором. Мы воспринимаем только одну из возможностей в кажущемся случайным процессе выбора. Но, по мнению Эверетта, выбор не случаен, так как этого выбора не происходит: все возможные состояния кванта реализуются каждый раз, когда его измеряют или наблюдают; они просто
не реализуются в одном мире. Многие возможные состояния кванта реализуются в таком же количестве вселенных.
Предположим, что, когда такой квант, как электрон, измеряют, существует пятидесятипроцентная вероятность того, что он направится вверх, и такая же вероятность того, что он направится вниз. Тогда у нас есть не одна Вселенная, в которой квант может с вероятностью 50 на 50 направиться вверх или вниз, а две параллельных. В одной из вселенных электрон действительно движется вверх, а в другой направляется вниз. В каждой из этих вселенных есть также наблюдатель или измерительный прибор. Два исхода существуют одновременно в двух вселенных, так же как и наблюдатели или измерительные инструменты.
Конечно, когда многочисленные состояния суперпозиции частицы сходятся в одно, существуют не только два, а большее количество возможных виртуальных состояний, которые эта частица может принять. Таким образом, должно существовать множество вселенных, возможно, около 10100, в каждой из которых существуют наблюдатели и измерительные инструменты. (c)
Q:
Странный мир кванта
Важная веха: связанные частицы
В первоначальном состоянии кванты отнюдь не находятся в единственном месте во времени. Каждый квант есть одновременно и «здесь», и «там» — и в некотором смысле в пространстве-времени он присутствует везде.
■ Пока за квантами не наблюдают и их не измеряют, у них нет определенных характеристик, они существуют в нескольких состояниях одновременно. Эти состояния не реальны, а виртуальны — кванты способны их принимать, когда их наблюдают или измеряют. Наблюдатель или измерительный прибор как будто вылавливают квант из моря возможностей. Когда квант покинул море, он становится реальным, а не просто виртуальным, но мы никогда не можем знать заранее, каким зверем из всех возможных он станет. Возможно, квант может самостоятельно выбирать свое реальное состояние среди виртуальных.
■ Даже когда квант находится в реальном состоянии, он не позволяет нам наблюдать и замерять все параметры своего состояния одновременно: когда мы измеряем один параметр (например, позицию или энергию), другие становятся неясными (такие как скорость движения или время наблюдения).
■ Кванты очень социальны: если они находились в одинаковом состоянии, они остаются связанными друг с другом вне зависимости от того, на каком расстоянии друг от друга оказались. Когда один квант из пары взаимосвязанных наблюдается или измеряется, он выбирает собственное реальное состояние — и его близнец тоже выбирает собственное состояние, но не свободно: он выбирает его в соответствии с выбором первого. Второй всегда выбирает дополнительное состояние и никогда — состояние, выбранное первым.
■ В сложной системе (такой как ситуация физического эксперимента) кванты демонстрируют такое же социальное поведение. Если мы проведем измерение одного кванта в системе, другие также перейдут из виртуального состояния в реальное. Более того, если мы создаем экспериментальную ситуацию, в которой определенный квант может быть измерен индивидуально, все другие кванты становятся реальными, даже если эксперимент не проведен... (c)
Парус
Беспечный со мной по спокойному морю плывет.
Можно гадать,
кто же там, за туманом живет.
Тонкая нить
На воде отмечает наш призрачный путь.
Мы тут одни —
или есть на земле кто-нибудь?
Шепчет волна, образуя зеленый прибой: ты не один,
Все на свете едино с тобой.
След мой и твой, неразрывно переплетены.
там, за туманом плывут и плывут корабли.
Воды кишат отражением их бытия.
В каждом из них есть частица моя и твоя.
И разобщенность — иллюзия, словно туман,
скрывший весь мир от тебя, но на миг, капитан!
Всех нас роднит бесконечная власть бытия.
Ей мы послушны — и море, и парус, и я.
(c)
Q:
Сегодня большинство физиков-теоретиков придерживаются другого подхода: они считают элементарной единицей квант—дискретный аспект физической реальности. Но физическая природа квантов пересмотрена: они считаются не отдельными материально-энергетическими частицами, а вибрирующими одномерными нитями — струнами и суперструнами. Физики пытаются представить все законы физики как вибрацию суперструн в многомерном пространстве. Они рассматривают каждую частицу как струну, которая создает собственную «музыку» вместе со всеми другими частицами. На космическом уровне целые звезды и галактики вибрируют вместе, а также и целые вселенные. Задача физиков состоит в том, чтобы создать уравнение, которое покажет, как одна вибрация соот��осится с другой, чтобы все они могли быть выражены в одном суперуравнении. Это уравнение расшифровало бы музыку, в которой воплощена самая бескрайняя и фундаментальная гармония космоса. (c)
Q:
В 1955 году физик Хью Эверетт предложил поразительное объяснение квантового мира (ставшее впоследствии основой для одного из самых популярных романов Майкла Крайтона «Стрела времени»). Гипотеза параллельных вселенных Эверетта связана с загадочным открытием в квантовой физике: пока частицу не наблюдают, не измеряют и никак на нее не воздействуют, она находится в любопытном состоянии, которое является суперпозицией всех возможных состояний. Однако когда частицу наблюдают, измеряют или воздействуют на нее, это состояние суперпозиции исчезает: частица находится в единственном состоянии, как и любой «обычный» предмет. Так как состояние суперпозиции описывается как сложная волновая функция, связанная с именем Эрвина Шре- дингера, то, когда состояние суперпозиции исчезает, говорят, что происходит коллапс волновой функции Шредингера.
Проблема в том, что невозможно сказать, какое из множества возможных виртуальных состояний примет частица. Выбор частицы кажется непредопределимым — совершенно не зависимым от условий, которые запускают коллапс волновой функции. Согласно гипотезе Эверетта, неопределимость коллапса волновой функции не отражает существующих в мире условий. Здесь нет неопределенности: каждое виртуальное состояние, избранное частицей, определенно — оно просто присутствует в мире само собой!
Вот как происходит коллапс: когда квант измеряют, существует некоторое количество возможностей, каждая из которых связана с наблюдателем или измерительным прибором. Мы воспринимаем только одну из возможностей в кажущемся случайным процессе выбора. Но, по мнению Эверетта, выбор не случаен, так как этого выбора не происходит: все возможные состояния кванта реализуются каждый раз, когда его измеряют или наблюдают; они просто
не реализуются в одном мире. Многие возможные состояния кванта реализуются в таком же количестве вселенных.
Предположим, что, когда такой квант, как электрон, измеряют, существует пятидесятипроцентная вероятность того, что он направится вверх, и такая же вероятность того, что он направится вниз. Тогда у нас есть не одна Вселенная, в которой квант может с вероятностью 50 на 50 направиться вверх или вниз, а две параллельных. В одной из вселенных электрон действительно движется вверх, а в другой направляется вниз. В каждой из этих вселенных есть также наблюдатель или измерительный прибор. Два исхода существуют одновременно в двух вселенных, так же как и наблюдатели или измерительные инструменты.
Конечно, когда многочисленные состояния суперпозиции частицы сходятся в одно, существуют не только два, а большее количество возможных виртуальных состояний, которые эта частица может принять. Таким образом, должно существовать множество вселенных, возможно, около 10100, в каждой из которых существуют наблюдатели и измерительные инструменты. (c)
Q:
Странный мир кванта
Важная веха: связанные частицы
В первоначальном состоянии кванты отнюдь не находятся в единственном месте во времени. Каждый квант есть одновременно и «здесь», и «там» — и в некотором смысле в пространстве-времени он присутствует везде.
■ Пока за квантами не наблюдают и их не измеряют, у них нет определенных характеристик, они существуют в нескольких состояниях одновременно. Эти состояния не реальны, а виртуальны — кванты способны их принимать, когда их наблюдают или измеряют. Наблюдатель или измерительный прибор как будто вылавливают квант из моря возможностей. Когда квант покинул море, он становится реальным, а не просто виртуальным, но мы никогда не можем знать заранее, каким зверем из всех возможных он станет. Возможно, квант может самостоятельно выбирать свое реальное состояние среди виртуальных.
■ Даже когда квант находится в реальном состоянии, он не позволяет нам наблюдать и замерять все параметры своего состояния одновременно: когда мы измеряем один параметр (например, позицию или энергию), другие становятся неясными (такие как скорость движения или время наблюдения).
■ Кванты очень социальны: если они находились в одинаковом состоянии, они остаются связанными друг с другом вне зависимости от того, на каком расстоянии друг от друга оказались. Когда один квант из пары взаимосвязанных наблюдается или измеряется, он выбирает собственное реальное состояние — и его близнец тоже выбирает собственное состояние, но не свободно: он выбирает его в соответствии с выбором первого. Второй всегда выбирает дополнительное состояние и никогда — состояние, выбранное первым.
■ В сложной системе (такой как ситуация физического эксперимента) кванты демонстрируют такое же социальное поведение. Если мы проведем измерение одного кванта в системе, другие также перейдут из виртуального состояния в реальное. Более того, если мы создаем экспериментальную ситуацию, в которой определенный квант может быть измерен индивидуально, все другие кванты становятся реальными, даже если эксперимент не проведен... (c)
January 29, 2008
I've been reading books on the search for a Theory of Everything. They can be lumped into the following categories:
1) TOE's that seek to unify the 4 physical forces but don't want to venture into philosophy.
2) TOE's that try to unify physics with other theories such as information theory, evolution, etc. but still stay within the realm of scientific speculation.
3) TOE's that go beyond that into the New-Agey.
This tends much more toward #3. I loved his first book on Systems Theory and also like his writing here. He is obviously knowledgeable about the latest scientific findings in physics. I can accept the (liberal) premise that everything is connected. However, when he starts linking quantum non-locality to telepathy and immortality, that's where he loses me. Dude can't abide. Edit out that and the ideas are very interesting.
1) TOE's that seek to unify the 4 physical forces but don't want to venture into philosophy.
2) TOE's that try to unify physics with other theories such as information theory, evolution, etc. but still stay within the realm of scientific speculation.
3) TOE's that go beyond that into the New-Agey.
This tends much more toward #3. I loved his first book on Systems Theory and also like his writing here. He is obviously knowledgeable about the latest scientific findings in physics. I can accept the (liberal) premise that everything is connected. However, when he starts linking quantum non-locality to telepathy and immortality, that's where he loses me. Dude can't abide. Edit out that and the ideas are very interesting.
January 8, 2010
If I was stranded on an island and had a choice of 10 books this would be first on my list.
April 25, 2009
I loved this book. It is a beautiful explanation of universal connection.
October 28, 2022
[...]Ακάσα. Σανσκριτική λέξη που σημαίνει «αιθέρας»: χώρος που διαποτίζει τα πάντα. Αρχικά σήμαινε «ακτινοβολία» ή «λαμπρότητα», αλλά στην ινδική φιλοσοφία η ακάσα θεωρούνταν το πρώτο και πιο θεμελιώδες από τα πέντε στοιχεία -τα άλλα είναι τα βάτα (αέρας), άγκνι (φωτιά), απ (νερό) και πριθίβι (γη). Η ακάσα αγκαλιάζει τις ιδιότητες και των πέντε στοιχείων: είναι η μήτρα από την οποία αναδύθηκαν όλα όσα αντιλαμβανόμαστε με όλες τις αισθήσεις μας και στην οποία τελικά κατέρχονται και πάλι τα πάντα. «Το Ακασικό Αρχείο» (που ονομάζεται επίσης «Ακασικό Χρονικό») είναι το διαρκές αρχείο όλων όσα συμβαίνουν και έχουν συμβεί ποτέ σε όλο το σύμπαν.[...]
January 5, 2022
I think this book just went over my head. There were interesting bits but I believe I need a beginners version before I dive into this one again.
September 30, 2021
There is a lot good about the way this book is organised and presented. And the quality of the information provided is up to date with recent developments in science at the time of writing. Accurate analogies are formed between current science and a more field based approach to reality, and some of the arguments particularly in the area of biology are very nuanced and hard to criticise.
In the area of quantum physics an interesting perspective is presented but too often it feels to me like he is sharing others ideas without a proper acknowledgement of this fact. This whole idea of an informational perspective in quantum theory is actually to a large extent in line with the accepted model, the problem, now as always, has been how this can be made consistent with general relativity. I don't feel the depth of some of these more technical problems is truly appreciated, certainly not to the same level as physicists and thinkers such as Roger Penrose, Julian Barbour and Lee Smolin.
To talk of consciousness and panpsychism as features inherent in reality is a kind of way to sidestep the measurement problem in quantum theory rather than solving it to my mind. Or certainly, if this view is going to be taken up, one is going to have to reject many other features of the mainstream physics model of curved space, black holes and general relativity. Unless one wants this informational field to be a purely ghostly mental entity akin to Descartes dualist cogito with no influence on physical reality.
The issue is that if there is a pervading field, of any kind with any physical effect, this will be a form of ether, and to defend this requires many modifications of the Einsteinian paradigm which is premised on the absence of ether and the reality instead of curved empty space and time. These questions are not addressed, and the philosophical perspective on consciousness I dont really feel gets very deep into the problems involved in that area.
However, as I said, the ideas in relation to biology I found to be the most up to date, relevant and fascinating for this kind of perspective, compared to the standard and outdated Darwinian dogma. Lets hope more and more can bring these ideas into common acceptance so we can move past some of the delusions that evolution by purely random genetic mutations can account for any of the evolutionary developments we actually see in species in the historical record. Quantum theory applied to biology and epigenetics take us way beyond this perspective already, and it would be good to see this frontier science more reflected in everyday peoples attitudes towards and understanding of science, rather than the usual ideological cold view of scientific reality that is expounded thoughtlessly by many.
Extra Note: The cosmological view presented has some significant crossover with Smolins view of cosmological natural selection in The Life of The Cosmos, so I was disappointed to not see any reference to this also, as it would provide a more solid scientific support to this cosmological view, rather than what Laszlo does of appealing to a meta informational universe outside of our own to explain the fine tuning of the physical constants to allow the universe to expand at a steady rate.
In the area of quantum physics an interesting perspective is presented but too often it feels to me like he is sharing others ideas without a proper acknowledgement of this fact. This whole idea of an informational perspective in quantum theory is actually to a large extent in line with the accepted model, the problem, now as always, has been how this can be made consistent with general relativity. I don't feel the depth of some of these more technical problems is truly appreciated, certainly not to the same level as physicists and thinkers such as Roger Penrose, Julian Barbour and Lee Smolin.
To talk of consciousness and panpsychism as features inherent in reality is a kind of way to sidestep the measurement problem in quantum theory rather than solving it to my mind. Or certainly, if this view is going to be taken up, one is going to have to reject many other features of the mainstream physics model of curved space, black holes and general relativity. Unless one wants this informational field to be a purely ghostly mental entity akin to Descartes dualist cogito with no influence on physical reality.
The issue is that if there is a pervading field, of any kind with any physical effect, this will be a form of ether, and to defend this requires many modifications of the Einsteinian paradigm which is premised on the absence of ether and the reality instead of curved empty space and time. These questions are not addressed, and the philosophical perspective on consciousness I dont really feel gets very deep into the problems involved in that area.
However, as I said, the ideas in relation to biology I found to be the most up to date, relevant and fascinating for this kind of perspective, compared to the standard and outdated Darwinian dogma. Lets hope more and more can bring these ideas into common acceptance so we can move past some of the delusions that evolution by purely random genetic mutations can account for any of the evolutionary developments we actually see in species in the historical record. Quantum theory applied to biology and epigenetics take us way beyond this perspective already, and it would be good to see this frontier science more reflected in everyday peoples attitudes towards and understanding of science, rather than the usual ideological cold view of scientific reality that is expounded thoughtlessly by many.
Extra Note: The cosmological view presented has some significant crossover with Smolins view of cosmological natural selection in The Life of The Cosmos, so I was disappointed to not see any reference to this also, as it would provide a more solid scientific support to this cosmological view, rather than what Laszlo does of appealing to a meta informational universe outside of our own to explain the fine tuning of the physical constants to allow the universe to expand at a steady rate.
October 4, 2012
Science and the Akashic Field, a relatively small book, is definitely not a light read. Written by philosopher of science Ervin László PhD, this is a thorough tour of virtually every contemporary science on the way to an understanding of László’s Integral Theory of Everything. Where the likes of Einstein, Newton and many others have created various theoretical works, none have been able to encompass every aspect of the reality we all experience. It appears that László has succeeded in revealing such a TOE, an I-TOE. He has spent decades examining the works of other theoreticians in search of evidence for what he calls the Akashic field, or the A-field, which is the foundation of his theory.
While I’m not knowledgeable enough to provide you with a complete explanation of his I-TOE or the A-field, I do come away from this book with a deeper understanding of coherence as it pertains to the quantum world and to the cosmos. I did find László to be utterly convinced of the efficacy of his own theory, even though, to my understanding, he has non-conventional views of evolution and quantum mechanics.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who has limited knowledge of physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology and even psychology, but to those well versed in contemporary science, it would be a worthy effort. All in all, I found Science and the Akashic Field to be a fulfilling read.
While I’m not knowledgeable enough to provide you with a complete explanation of his I-TOE or the A-field, I do come away from this book with a deeper understanding of coherence as it pertains to the quantum world and to the cosmos. I did find László to be utterly convinced of the efficacy of his own theory, even though, to my understanding, he has non-conventional views of evolution and quantum mechanics.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who has limited knowledge of physics, cosmology, evolutionary biology and even psychology, but to those well versed in contemporary science, it would be a worthy effort. All in all, I found Science and the Akashic Field to be a fulfilling read.
January 15, 2016
Scientists have long been searching for a Theory of Everything, an equation that combines all forces in Nature. What quantum physicists have now discovered is that there is a field that underlies all of existence, everything comes from it and returns to it. It is a field of information. In the book Science and the Akashic Field, Author Ervin Laszlo has put into words a magnificent description of this field in a language that nearly anyone interested can understand. One of my favorite books along with another of Laszlo's books "Quantum Shift in the Global Brain." Both books are highly recommended!
November 28, 2022
I discovered this book in the library at Arizona State University. As someone very much so attracted to "New Age" books and learning, I was interested in this book and its claims to contain a so-called "theory of everything"
Although at first, I found the book to be a lot like many of the other New Age books I have read, after reading books that tied in thematically to the information within this book, as well as researching the author's background and class position, I have become convinced that this is an incredibly dangerous and deceitful book.
The overall problem with the New Age movement is although it is very close to the truth, and drops some serious truth bombs on its readers here and there, New Age authors often take advantage of their reader's imagination and willingness to believe in "radical"/ far-out ideas by deceitfully directing them false and satanic teachings dressed in radical and enchanting dresses. (Don't forget that the Bible stated that Satan disguises himself as an angel of Light)
Readers, of New Age books, myself included, often are attracted to these books because we can see the absolute depravity and destruction of life and meaning, and spirituality within our societies today. Searching for meaning within such a spiritually dead society, the "New Age" calls for a sort of "Great Awakening" and a revitalization of Spirituality and meaning in life. This "New Age" promise of a Great Awakening is particularly attractive to those of us who are sensitive to the religious and political angst of our times. To those of us who long to make our countries, and our world 'Great Again'
With that in mind, I do think overall this propensity toward Revolution in our spirituality is an overall positive tendency and reflects a growing awareness and desire in the collective body and spirit of humanity to grow and develop and move past today's inequities.
However, remembering that The Devil Often Comes as a Man of Peace, one must remain keen to deception within the context of this "Great Awakening". The New Age movement and its literature have been largely subverted and abused by both charlatans as well as by powerful ruling class figures who hope to steer the angst of New Age believers into a dark direction. This is especially relevant in the case of Ervin Laszlo's literature.
What Laszlo has constructed in "Science and the Akashic Field" is nothing more than a pseudoreligious framework for justifying and enshrining entropic information theory and cybernetics as the ruling ideology of Politics and Social Organization. "Science and the Akashic Field" reads like a preliminary handbook theorizing a New Religion. A religion rooted in the Mathematical Entropic inceptions of Chaos Theory.
The Akashic field, he posits, posits a field of information as the substance of the cosmos. This field of information contains all that is, all that ever has been, and all there will ever be. In his "theory of everything" there is no God, just information. What is humanity's role in this "theory of everything"? Is man made in the image of God? No, mankind, and the human mind, are all just bits of "information".
The truth of this "akashic field" idea is that is an idea of universal entropy. It is an entropic view of information and of reality. The idea posited within this book is that a "quantum vacuum state" has is imagined before the so-called "big bang" is actually the director of this information. This is an entropic rather than negentropic view of reality and "information" This is explicitly Satanic and anti-human and anti-life. This entropic view of existence is precisely what has gotten us into this mess we are in today.
And it doesn't take long looking into Laszlo's biography to find out why he is pushing this Satanic Cybernetic Entropic view of reality and grifting it as some sort of New Age "Theory of Everything". Laszlo is one of the most prominent members of the Super Elite "Club of Budapest" which is an extension branch of the "Club of Rome" which wrote the books "Limits to Growth" and published the first climate models, as well as played a central and pivotal role in proliferating the myths of "overpopulation". The Club of Rome and the Club of Budapest both openly support Depopulation and the gradual extinction of the human species. This "Akashic field" theory actually demonstrates their devious and master plan. Boiling the universe down to nothing in entropy. Returning back to nothingness. This is the ultimate final step in their philosophy and plan. The negation of existence and reality. And this is made clear in this entropic book and by the development of these "Ion Colliders" in Upton New York and in the Swiss mountains with CERN.
I think the book is overall worth reading, but some parts are particularly superfluous and grifty to add to the New Age appeal of the book. But the book as read with this knowledge and from this perspective critically displays the underlying pseudoreligious assumptions of the world's true ruling class decentralized across social clubs, banks, NGO and more outlets. (Laszlo also wrote the book "You can Change the World" with a introduction by Gorbachev in which he advocates that Global NGO's should use the internet as a weapon to fight for the so-called "sustainable development goals"
Reading this book should make you understand what the serious underlying fight between the powers of Good and Evil look like in the world today.
Although at first, I found the book to be a lot like many of the other New Age books I have read, after reading books that tied in thematically to the information within this book, as well as researching the author's background and class position, I have become convinced that this is an incredibly dangerous and deceitful book.
The overall problem with the New Age movement is although it is very close to the truth, and drops some serious truth bombs on its readers here and there, New Age authors often take advantage of their reader's imagination and willingness to believe in "radical"/ far-out ideas by deceitfully directing them false and satanic teachings dressed in radical and enchanting dresses. (Don't forget that the Bible stated that Satan disguises himself as an angel of Light)
Readers, of New Age books, myself included, often are attracted to these books because we can see the absolute depravity and destruction of life and meaning, and spirituality within our societies today. Searching for meaning within such a spiritually dead society, the "New Age" calls for a sort of "Great Awakening" and a revitalization of Spirituality and meaning in life. This "New Age" promise of a Great Awakening is particularly attractive to those of us who are sensitive to the religious and political angst of our times. To those of us who long to make our countries, and our world 'Great Again'
With that in mind, I do think overall this propensity toward Revolution in our spirituality is an overall positive tendency and reflects a growing awareness and desire in the collective body and spirit of humanity to grow and develop and move past today's inequities.
However, remembering that The Devil Often Comes as a Man of Peace, one must remain keen to deception within the context of this "Great Awakening". The New Age movement and its literature have been largely subverted and abused by both charlatans as well as by powerful ruling class figures who hope to steer the angst of New Age believers into a dark direction. This is especially relevant in the case of Ervin Laszlo's literature.
What Laszlo has constructed in "Science and the Akashic Field" is nothing more than a pseudoreligious framework for justifying and enshrining entropic information theory and cybernetics as the ruling ideology of Politics and Social Organization. "Science and the Akashic Field" reads like a preliminary handbook theorizing a New Religion. A religion rooted in the Mathematical Entropic inceptions of Chaos Theory.
The Akashic field, he posits, posits a field of information as the substance of the cosmos. This field of information contains all that is, all that ever has been, and all there will ever be. In his "theory of everything" there is no God, just information. What is humanity's role in this "theory of everything"? Is man made in the image of God? No, mankind, and the human mind, are all just bits of "information".
The truth of this "akashic field" idea is that is an idea of universal entropy. It is an entropic view of information and of reality. The idea posited within this book is that a "quantum vacuum state" has is imagined before the so-called "big bang" is actually the director of this information. This is an entropic rather than negentropic view of reality and "information" This is explicitly Satanic and anti-human and anti-life. This entropic view of existence is precisely what has gotten us into this mess we are in today.
And it doesn't take long looking into Laszlo's biography to find out why he is pushing this Satanic Cybernetic Entropic view of reality and grifting it as some sort of New Age "Theory of Everything". Laszlo is one of the most prominent members of the Super Elite "Club of Budapest" which is an extension branch of the "Club of Rome" which wrote the books "Limits to Growth" and published the first climate models, as well as played a central and pivotal role in proliferating the myths of "overpopulation". The Club of Rome and the Club of Budapest both openly support Depopulation and the gradual extinction of the human species. This "Akashic field" theory actually demonstrates their devious and master plan. Boiling the universe down to nothing in entropy. Returning back to nothingness. This is the ultimate final step in their philosophy and plan. The negation of existence and reality. And this is made clear in this entropic book and by the development of these "Ion Colliders" in Upton New York and in the Swiss mountains with CERN.
I think the book is overall worth reading, but some parts are particularly superfluous and grifty to add to the New Age appeal of the book. But the book as read with this knowledge and from this perspective critically displays the underlying pseudoreligious assumptions of the world's true ruling class decentralized across social clubs, banks, NGO and more outlets. (Laszlo also wrote the book "You can Change the World" with a introduction by Gorbachev in which he advocates that Global NGO's should use the internet as a weapon to fight for the so-called "sustainable development goals"
Reading this book should make you understand what the serious underlying fight between the powers of Good and Evil look like in the world today.
August 3, 2021
This is the EXACT kind book I was looking for. A scientist making a connection between quantum reality and the Vedic ideas of shiva, Akashic tattva and making an attempt to understand the true nature of reality.
The book surpassed my expectations. The only reason for giving 4 not 5 stars is that it can get pretty serious. Needs deep concentration after a point.
Totally exhilarating!
The book surpassed my expectations. The only reason for giving 4 not 5 stars is that it can get pretty serious. Needs deep concentration after a point.
Totally exhilarating!
September 21, 2007
The answer isn't the most important thing. The question is.
July 16, 2017
This book is an illustrative example of how complex, philosophic and unachievable to experience a theory-of-everything (TOE) can become once you wander too far down the wrong rabbit hole. A real theory-of-everything should be so simple and run so close to your being and everyday experience that a three year child could easily understand and relate to it, it should not be something requiring multiple Phds’ to decode and still find yourself having many difficulties trying to visualize and connect the dots to. There are much simpler TOEs around. One simply states - “God-IS” while another says “I Am That” and you can even join these together, if you want But the ego needs its fix of complexity, inventiveness, and ingenuity and avoids naked simplicity which do not meets its needs for specialness and in which it finds itself dying.
Ervin’s TOE links the Vedic notion of the Akashic Field to physical space through the notion of the quantum vacuum. He sees this vacuum, as a subtle energy sea and as a very active plenum rather than an inert space and background to the world of matter. And he uses his linkage in his attempt to marry science with mystical insights and religion, mind with matter, consciousness with perception.
He indicates that information is encoded through the modulation of quantum state fluctuations in the energy sea of the quantum vacuum. The encoding mechanism itself , he sees as holographic in nature and arise out of the coherent interference patterns setup and created by the interpenetration (entanglement) of the waves represented by the wave functions of individual quanta. While, the reading mechanism of the stored information back into consciousness, he sees as relying on resonance and phase conjugation which can occur between the quantum-ly superimposed wavefunctions (quantum entanglement) setup by the chemicals in our brain and that of the quantum vacuum of the world around us.
His theory therefore borrows heavily on Bohm’s idea of an implicate order and on the notion of a higher dimensional existence where the holographic fields representing all possible quantum states and therefore encodings can be stored. Bohm relied on the concept of “hidden variables” to connect this higher dimensional theoretical existence to the manifest existence that we experience. The big difference of course, is that Bohm’s higher dimensional existence was not a higher order physical dimensional existence but only higher order dimensionaly in terms of our understanding. It suggests a higher order evolution in our mental and psychic development than a higher order objective dimensional existence and is closer therefore to the understandings of Ouspensky and Kant. He saw the limited context imposed by the belief in 3-D space and time and the apparent separation between things as insufficient in itself to adequately explain the many phenomena in the world appearing around us and saw that our hope was only in transcending this limited context.
This newer context, he called the implicate order and would help connect and explain all phenomena in a higher and ‘truer’ modality. He realized that most of the phenomena are not real in themselves but are artifacts imposed by our mind’s limited context. Just as a sphere cutting two dimensional space would be experienced as growing circles and therefore “alive” when viewed in 2-D space would appear as being fundamentally static in a 3-D one. Bohm elucidated this idea in his example of the simultaneous video recordings of two views of a fish piped to two different TV screens. And he used this as an alternative explanation of Alain Aspect’s findings on the non-local connection and faster than light signaling between quantumly entangled particles.
In Bohm’s view this apparent instantaneous communication between the two fish on screens can be entirely understood if we drop the notions of two fish, the ‘faster than light’ signaling and the belief in the space appearing to exist between them as real. He indicated that all of this is easily explainable instead if we are prepared to transcend the many contextual limitations imposed by our current belief system. His explanation of these non-local phenomena is that all we are seeing is just two views of the same fish and we use our minds to project these different views through space, which has no true existence in itself. This then makes them appear to be separate entities.
And so, two fish are not instantaneously communicating with each other through space, because there is only one fish and no space. Therefore Bohm theory is that all we are ever seeing (with quantum entanglement and non-local connections) is different views of the undifferentiated oneness of ultimate reality that we then projected to different locations in space and time and then take to be separate entities. So we are really projecting our beliefs in time, space and the separation and this creates the false context that then embeds and limits our experiencing of phenomena. With this limiting context, there would just be the direct experience of Noumena. And so like the teachings of “A Course in Miracles”, only Oneness IS, the belief in separation is a faulty construct developed through limitations in our mental evolution and our many attempts to partition reality on our own terms.
And so Bohm’s understandings correlate closely to Plato’s analogy in “the cave”. In this analogy the prisoners, tied together in the confines of the cave since birth see the meaningless shadows arising on the cave wall as representing all that there is to experience and fail to recognize, that these shadows but represent weak reflections of the real world as experienced through the distorted lens imposed by the limited scope and context through which they are experienced. In the same way Ervin hints that what we experience into our manifest world of experience instant-by-instant is but one holographic encoding of all possible holographic imprints and it is this encoding that gets stored to the eternal record of the Akashic Field. He briefly describes some of the common elements to the various string theories that also support this belief and to explain that the quantumly collapsed state of our individual experience operating within a fundamental multi-dimensional existence beyond our own scope and experience.
The key mistakes that I believe Ervin makes are that he takes the world of matter and space, to be real in and of itself. In fact, he sees matter as arising out of and interchangeable with space. He therefore believes in an external world and espouses the belief in Evolutionary Panpsychism that “there is no categorical divide between mind and matter... conscious matter at a lower level of organization (the neurons in the brain) generates conscious matter at a higher level of organization (the brain as a whole). He therefore ties the Akashic field (A-Field) to physical existence and the existing notions of the gravitational field, the electromagnetic field and the Higgs field.
But, I am confident that his belief that there is not categorical divide beween mind and matter is where he makes the compromise that will never work. They arise out of his attempt to reconcile his direct experience of his own consciousness with his concurrent belief in an external world of matter. And so if I hold a cup of tea in my hand. The epiphenomenalists attempt to convince me that this cup can create me along with all the refinements of my consciousness, while the mystics and enlightened, say otherwise that we create the cup out of our consciousness. Ervin adds to this the third view that my consciousness and the cup co-create each other. But reason would say that one must be cause and the other the effect, and this effect is entirely dependent on its cause. The epiphenomenalists belief that our consciousness is tied to matter and cannot exist apart from it contradicts however the findings of transpersonal psychology, OBEs, NDEs, ADCs etc. The panpsychism view it ultimately the view that both consciousness and matter can exist without a real cause since each is a cause and effect of each other. The mystical and religious view is that all is consciousness, it does not deny matter as part of the experience of our consciousness but insists that it has no existence in and of itself independent of this consciousness.
This is the understanding that there is no world (excepting the Absolute) apart from our conscious experience of it. Our consciousness and its subtle involutions creates the world of our experience and all its apparent evolutions. This understanding takes the world outside back inside us. This is the understanding that states that matter is not and cannot ever become conscious, rather that consciousness appears in the form of matter if we limit the context enough. And so consciousness like any good river flows downstream to lower and lower levels based on more and more restrictive and limiting contexts into which we put it. In one limiting context, it may appear as a dog, in a lower one as a cell and in a lower one still as a rock. It is the one-consciousness seen in the mind’s eye through the different transparencies established by each context. Remove our belief in any particular context and consciousness will no longer appear in that form.
This was the teaching of the original and real Akashic field as espoused by Vedic thought. That it is all recorded and available because it is recorded not only at the level of our conscious development, but at the cellular level, at the organic levels and at higher levels of consciousness more subtle than our own. One last point on this, just because we experience something, does not mean that it is true. We have truer and falser experiences all the time because all perceptions has some error in it, being born out of error and the fall from the undifferentiated reality. And so people experiences their dreams as real but find them to be false and lacking substance on awaking, those with schizophrenia and on drugs experience worlds that do not exist apart from their own mind and belief in them and we all share in some individual and collective hallucinations that we then take to be true amd self-evident because we experience them and they are validated from the apparent outside.
And so, just because one experiences the world of space, matter and an external world does not mean that it is true, just part of your experience. In time this experience will be seen to be an unreal or limiting modality of living as we undergo more refined quantum evolution in our consciousness After all consciousness at the organism or cellular level have no conscious experience of us because it downstream from us on the consciousness level. It can only deem its own limited experience as valid to itself. This is not surprising, because we do the exact same thing, believing in the reality of matter and in an external world when in reality all these are just part of our own experiential level, given our level of conscious evolution. Consciousness itself will eventually disappear, because it can only exist in duality. Once restored to awareness of Oneness, duality is seen to be faulty construct and so consciousness without purpose simply disappears.
Some of the other sections of this book attempt to join the findings of cosmology, quantum physics, transpersonal psychology, remote viewing, many lives, as well as some of the findings in modern biology such as morphogenetic fields within the context of the non-local intelligence of the A-Field. I have no problem with this just with his placement of the A-field itself and his attempts to mix-up true cause-and-effect relationships. If he had placed the Akashic field and record within the universal consciousness, and this is an imperfect albeit spaceless artifact of the One-mind, all would be fine.
In the book, he talks of Pierre S. Laplace’s comments to emperor Napolean, namely that God was a hypothesis for which there is no longer any need. Do not mistake this for a random innocuous quote from an otherwise unbiased and impartial observer, for we all scavenge the world of the perception in search for all that is like us and appears to strengthen out thought system and consolidate our own beliefs about ourselves. And this particular TOE is Erin’s own belief about himself and his attempts to offer to you for your belief.
A Course in Miracles discusses our attempts to dismiss God in this way and have creation under our terms of our own belief, under its section called “The Authority Problem” . In indicates that this world of duality, of many apparent separate things represent nothing more than our attempts to usurp the power of God and have reality on our own terms rather than how it is. We create this artifice of our experience as a cover to hide from God. But it is all mindless and without meaning and our attempts to add meaning to the meaningless are just attempts of escapism and the fundamental Truth that we cannot and did not create ourselves for our creation is beyond our own error. And so God remains present but yet out of our awareness because of the many mindless and meaningless artifices we have attempted to interpose between Truth and our experience of Truth.
Ervin’s background is as a system’s theorist. These are the folk that go madly hopping about like magpies looking for the shiny trinkets of apparent value from many diverse fields and then attempts to join them into a convergent systems theory that meets with the umbrella of their own beliefs and biases. Sometimes they make useful connections but most often they attempt to make a Cleopatra from many different body parts that they have collected over the years.
These are not the inner explorers or those real thinkers that build from below ground level often from first principles that need to be invented and to establish a new framework or context that does not yet exist. Einstein and Bohm fall into this latter category. If phenomena cannot be explained by the existing theory, then maybe an entire new theory and context is needed instead They do not try to have the theory meet with the biases of common sense and personal experience knowing both can be invalid.
Ervin’s TOE links the Vedic notion of the Akashic Field to physical space through the notion of the quantum vacuum. He sees this vacuum, as a subtle energy sea and as a very active plenum rather than an inert space and background to the world of matter. And he uses his linkage in his attempt to marry science with mystical insights and religion, mind with matter, consciousness with perception.
He indicates that information is encoded through the modulation of quantum state fluctuations in the energy sea of the quantum vacuum. The encoding mechanism itself , he sees as holographic in nature and arise out of the coherent interference patterns setup and created by the interpenetration (entanglement) of the waves represented by the wave functions of individual quanta. While, the reading mechanism of the stored information back into consciousness, he sees as relying on resonance and phase conjugation which can occur between the quantum-ly superimposed wavefunctions (quantum entanglement) setup by the chemicals in our brain and that of the quantum vacuum of the world around us.
His theory therefore borrows heavily on Bohm’s idea of an implicate order and on the notion of a higher dimensional existence where the holographic fields representing all possible quantum states and therefore encodings can be stored. Bohm relied on the concept of “hidden variables” to connect this higher dimensional theoretical existence to the manifest existence that we experience. The big difference of course, is that Bohm’s higher dimensional existence was not a higher order physical dimensional existence but only higher order dimensionaly in terms of our understanding. It suggests a higher order evolution in our mental and psychic development than a higher order objective dimensional existence and is closer therefore to the understandings of Ouspensky and Kant. He saw the limited context imposed by the belief in 3-D space and time and the apparent separation between things as insufficient in itself to adequately explain the many phenomena in the world appearing around us and saw that our hope was only in transcending this limited context.
This newer context, he called the implicate order and would help connect and explain all phenomena in a higher and ‘truer’ modality. He realized that most of the phenomena are not real in themselves but are artifacts imposed by our mind’s limited context. Just as a sphere cutting two dimensional space would be experienced as growing circles and therefore “alive” when viewed in 2-D space would appear as being fundamentally static in a 3-D one. Bohm elucidated this idea in his example of the simultaneous video recordings of two views of a fish piped to two different TV screens. And he used this as an alternative explanation of Alain Aspect’s findings on the non-local connection and faster than light signaling between quantumly entangled particles.
In Bohm’s view this apparent instantaneous communication between the two fish on screens can be entirely understood if we drop the notions of two fish, the ‘faster than light’ signaling and the belief in the space appearing to exist between them as real. He indicated that all of this is easily explainable instead if we are prepared to transcend the many contextual limitations imposed by our current belief system. His explanation of these non-local phenomena is that all we are seeing is just two views of the same fish and we use our minds to project these different views through space, which has no true existence in itself. This then makes them appear to be separate entities.
And so, two fish are not instantaneously communicating with each other through space, because there is only one fish and no space. Therefore Bohm theory is that all we are ever seeing (with quantum entanglement and non-local connections) is different views of the undifferentiated oneness of ultimate reality that we then projected to different locations in space and time and then take to be separate entities. So we are really projecting our beliefs in time, space and the separation and this creates the false context that then embeds and limits our experiencing of phenomena. With this limiting context, there would just be the direct experience of Noumena. And so like the teachings of “A Course in Miracles”, only Oneness IS, the belief in separation is a faulty construct developed through limitations in our mental evolution and our many attempts to partition reality on our own terms.
And so Bohm’s understandings correlate closely to Plato’s analogy in “the cave”. In this analogy the prisoners, tied together in the confines of the cave since birth see the meaningless shadows arising on the cave wall as representing all that there is to experience and fail to recognize, that these shadows but represent weak reflections of the real world as experienced through the distorted lens imposed by the limited scope and context through which they are experienced. In the same way Ervin hints that what we experience into our manifest world of experience instant-by-instant is but one holographic encoding of all possible holographic imprints and it is this encoding that gets stored to the eternal record of the Akashic Field. He briefly describes some of the common elements to the various string theories that also support this belief and to explain that the quantumly collapsed state of our individual experience operating within a fundamental multi-dimensional existence beyond our own scope and experience.
The key mistakes that I believe Ervin makes are that he takes the world of matter and space, to be real in and of itself. In fact, he sees matter as arising out of and interchangeable with space. He therefore believes in an external world and espouses the belief in Evolutionary Panpsychism that “there is no categorical divide between mind and matter... conscious matter at a lower level of organization (the neurons in the brain) generates conscious matter at a higher level of organization (the brain as a whole). He therefore ties the Akashic field (A-Field) to physical existence and the existing notions of the gravitational field, the electromagnetic field and the Higgs field.
But, I am confident that his belief that there is not categorical divide beween mind and matter is where he makes the compromise that will never work. They arise out of his attempt to reconcile his direct experience of his own consciousness with his concurrent belief in an external world of matter. And so if I hold a cup of tea in my hand. The epiphenomenalists attempt to convince me that this cup can create me along with all the refinements of my consciousness, while the mystics and enlightened, say otherwise that we create the cup out of our consciousness. Ervin adds to this the third view that my consciousness and the cup co-create each other. But reason would say that one must be cause and the other the effect, and this effect is entirely dependent on its cause. The epiphenomenalists belief that our consciousness is tied to matter and cannot exist apart from it contradicts however the findings of transpersonal psychology, OBEs, NDEs, ADCs etc. The panpsychism view it ultimately the view that both consciousness and matter can exist without a real cause since each is a cause and effect of each other. The mystical and religious view is that all is consciousness, it does not deny matter as part of the experience of our consciousness but insists that it has no existence in and of itself independent of this consciousness.
This is the understanding that there is no world (excepting the Absolute) apart from our conscious experience of it. Our consciousness and its subtle involutions creates the world of our experience and all its apparent evolutions. This understanding takes the world outside back inside us. This is the understanding that states that matter is not and cannot ever become conscious, rather that consciousness appears in the form of matter if we limit the context enough. And so consciousness like any good river flows downstream to lower and lower levels based on more and more restrictive and limiting contexts into which we put it. In one limiting context, it may appear as a dog, in a lower one as a cell and in a lower one still as a rock. It is the one-consciousness seen in the mind’s eye through the different transparencies established by each context. Remove our belief in any particular context and consciousness will no longer appear in that form.
This was the teaching of the original and real Akashic field as espoused by Vedic thought. That it is all recorded and available because it is recorded not only at the level of our conscious development, but at the cellular level, at the organic levels and at higher levels of consciousness more subtle than our own. One last point on this, just because we experience something, does not mean that it is true. We have truer and falser experiences all the time because all perceptions has some error in it, being born out of error and the fall from the undifferentiated reality. And so people experiences their dreams as real but find them to be false and lacking substance on awaking, those with schizophrenia and on drugs experience worlds that do not exist apart from their own mind and belief in them and we all share in some individual and collective hallucinations that we then take to be true amd self-evident because we experience them and they are validated from the apparent outside.
And so, just because one experiences the world of space, matter and an external world does not mean that it is true, just part of your experience. In time this experience will be seen to be an unreal or limiting modality of living as we undergo more refined quantum evolution in our consciousness After all consciousness at the organism or cellular level have no conscious experience of us because it downstream from us on the consciousness level. It can only deem its own limited experience as valid to itself. This is not surprising, because we do the exact same thing, believing in the reality of matter and in an external world when in reality all these are just part of our own experiential level, given our level of conscious evolution. Consciousness itself will eventually disappear, because it can only exist in duality. Once restored to awareness of Oneness, duality is seen to be faulty construct and so consciousness without purpose simply disappears.
Some of the other sections of this book attempt to join the findings of cosmology, quantum physics, transpersonal psychology, remote viewing, many lives, as well as some of the findings in modern biology such as morphogenetic fields within the context of the non-local intelligence of the A-Field. I have no problem with this just with his placement of the A-field itself and his attempts to mix-up true cause-and-effect relationships. If he had placed the Akashic field and record within the universal consciousness, and this is an imperfect albeit spaceless artifact of the One-mind, all would be fine.
In the book, he talks of Pierre S. Laplace’s comments to emperor Napolean, namely that God was a hypothesis for which there is no longer any need. Do not mistake this for a random innocuous quote from an otherwise unbiased and impartial observer, for we all scavenge the world of the perception in search for all that is like us and appears to strengthen out thought system and consolidate our own beliefs about ourselves. And this particular TOE is Erin’s own belief about himself and his attempts to offer to you for your belief.
A Course in Miracles discusses our attempts to dismiss God in this way and have creation under our terms of our own belief, under its section called “The Authority Problem” . In indicates that this world of duality, of many apparent separate things represent nothing more than our attempts to usurp the power of God and have reality on our own terms rather than how it is. We create this artifice of our experience as a cover to hide from God. But it is all mindless and without meaning and our attempts to add meaning to the meaningless are just attempts of escapism and the fundamental Truth that we cannot and did not create ourselves for our creation is beyond our own error. And so God remains present but yet out of our awareness because of the many mindless and meaningless artifices we have attempted to interpose between Truth and our experience of Truth.
Ervin’s background is as a system’s theorist. These are the folk that go madly hopping about like magpies looking for the shiny trinkets of apparent value from many diverse fields and then attempts to join them into a convergent systems theory that meets with the umbrella of their own beliefs and biases. Sometimes they make useful connections but most often they attempt to make a Cleopatra from many different body parts that they have collected over the years.
These are not the inner explorers or those real thinkers that build from below ground level often from first principles that need to be invented and to establish a new framework or context that does not yet exist. Einstein and Bohm fall into this latter category. If phenomena cannot be explained by the existing theory, then maybe an entire new theory and context is needed instead They do not try to have the theory meet with the biases of common sense and personal experience knowing both can be invalid.
September 17, 2022
Through Various Disciplines, Lazslo Connects Science to Spirit
Ervin Lazslo is one of the few scientists who has attempted to make a connection between Science and Spirituality through predominantly empirical scientific methods. According to one of several of these methods which Lazslo elucidates, he can show “...evidence that through this universal field [the Akashic or A-Field] all things are constantly and enduringly connected.” In other words, that the Akashic Field – while it may not be tangible in the sense that it can be touched and/or felt – is nonetheless very real and can be validated through accepted empirical processes.
In case you’re not familiar with the Akashic Field – also known as the Akashic Records – this is essentially the area that holds the thoughts, words and actions of everything that has ever been said and done by anyone and anything that has ever existed.
In my opinion, it seems to be an offshoot of (if not exactly the same as) consciousness. Although this seems to be the primary definition of the Akasha, I would also postulate that the Akashic Field holds emotional imprints.
In fact, I began wondering if what have been called ‘energetic imprints’ of emotionally charged events such as murders or battles/wars that also are often equated with a form of ghostly activity, are actually a geographical area that is intensely connected with the Akashic Field/Records and the events that took place in that area at a specific time. For example, the Battle of Gettysburg. (Check out various Battle of Gettysburg videos on YouTube which appear to show what seem to be ghosts or images of soldiers still fighting a battle that occurred in 1863.)
Lazslo is the author or editor of 106 different books which have been translated into 25 different languages, and was awarded a state Doctorate of Letters (the highest degree) in Human Sciences at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1970 and has several other degrees to his name.
Mesmerizing and validating read.
Ervin Lazslo is one of the few scientists who has attempted to make a connection between Science and Spirituality through predominantly empirical scientific methods. According to one of several of these methods which Lazslo elucidates, he can show “...evidence that through this universal field [the Akashic or A-Field] all things are constantly and enduringly connected.” In other words, that the Akashic Field – while it may not be tangible in the sense that it can be touched and/or felt – is nonetheless very real and can be validated through accepted empirical processes.
In case you’re not familiar with the Akashic Field – also known as the Akashic Records – this is essentially the area that holds the thoughts, words and actions of everything that has ever been said and done by anyone and anything that has ever existed.
In my opinion, it seems to be an offshoot of (if not exactly the same as) consciousness. Although this seems to be the primary definition of the Akasha, I would also postulate that the Akashic Field holds emotional imprints.
In fact, I began wondering if what have been called ‘energetic imprints’ of emotionally charged events such as murders or battles/wars that also are often equated with a form of ghostly activity, are actually a geographical area that is intensely connected with the Akashic Field/Records and the events that took place in that area at a specific time. For example, the Battle of Gettysburg. (Check out various Battle of Gettysburg videos on YouTube which appear to show what seem to be ghosts or images of soldiers still fighting a battle that occurred in 1863.)
Lazslo is the author or editor of 106 different books which have been translated into 25 different languages, and was awarded a state Doctorate of Letters (the highest degree) in Human Sciences at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1970 and has several other degrees to his name.
Mesmerizing and validating read.
July 16, 2020
This was a difficult, but interesting, read.
And Laszlo brings together much of the knowledge and theories of the edge of science and the new paradigm, a bold and courageous act, as there is much of the ‘old’ ways of thinking and scientific standards and models that are not yet open to, or ready for, the new paradigm; where interconnectedness is at the forefront.
Laszlo takes a scientific view and approach but it happens to correspond well with what has been known in spiritual circles for many years. Science could gain much more knowledge and coherence were it to embrace and respect spirituality, but often science (as a field) become science limited by its own results and methods, closed off to new discoveries or possibilities. Laszlo is not the typical type of scientist, as he does actually dare to imagine, to bridge fields, to not be stopped but actually be encouraged by the seeming limitations and inconsistencies. And besides a few points (like reincarnation) where I think he misses the mark and bigger picture, he has understood more and ventured further than many ‘mainstream scientists’, and I’m sure will one day be remembered as one of the scientists ahead of the curve.
And Laszlo brings together much of the knowledge and theories of the edge of science and the new paradigm, a bold and courageous act, as there is much of the ‘old’ ways of thinking and scientific standards and models that are not yet open to, or ready for, the new paradigm; where interconnectedness is at the forefront.
Laszlo takes a scientific view and approach but it happens to correspond well with what has been known in spiritual circles for many years. Science could gain much more knowledge and coherence were it to embrace and respect spirituality, but often science (as a field) become science limited by its own results and methods, closed off to new discoveries or possibilities. Laszlo is not the typical type of scientist, as he does actually dare to imagine, to bridge fields, to not be stopped but actually be encouraged by the seeming limitations and inconsistencies. And besides a few points (like reincarnation) where I think he misses the mark and bigger picture, he has understood more and ventured further than many ‘mainstream scientists’, and I’m sure will one day be remembered as one of the scientists ahead of the curve.
January 24, 2023
There's a lot in this worth thinking seriously about rather than just dismissing it as New Age fluff, especially in Chapter 5, The Origins and Destiny of Life and the Universe. The author has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize twice. He is way smarter than most who read it just to argue with it or even most who read this book at all. So try to read it with an open mind but watch for sinkholes.
I happen to think there's substance to consider in the ideas of cosmic consciousness (the Akashic field, he calls it), the metaverse and the multiverse. The latter two ideas are seem much more accepted in 2023 than they were when this was published in 2007. All very intriguing. But when he started citing the Noetic Sciences contingent, most of whom just promote each other as a way of making a living, that dropped this one star. I went down that rabbit hole for a while years ago. Not again.
(However, I still haven't written off Peter Russell, who is not really part of that crowd anyway. But Ken Wilber: No. He and Lazlo both have something else in common: thinking of themselves as geniuses. Maybe they are, but you'd think they'd be smart enough to at least pretend to have a little humility and modesty.)
I happen to think there's substance to consider in the ideas of cosmic consciousness (the Akashic field, he calls it), the metaverse and the multiverse. The latter two ideas are seem much more accepted in 2023 than they were when this was published in 2007. All very intriguing. But when he started citing the Noetic Sciences contingent, most of whom just promote each other as a way of making a living, that dropped this one star. I went down that rabbit hole for a while years ago. Not again.
(However, I still haven't written off Peter Russell, who is not really part of that crowd anyway. But Ken Wilber: No. He and Lazlo both have something else in common: thinking of themselves as geniuses. Maybe they are, but you'd think they'd be smart enough to at least pretend to have a little humility and modesty.)
January 29, 2021
I've put this book down once before, but I decided to read it now no matter what. This is not the scientific book that is claims to be. This is a fairy tale theory based mostly on some fringe science and oppinions that wrap the entire universe in a nice little bow. This is a cop out answer to all the questions about the human mind and the universe. Can't explain it? It's the A-field. Not completely understood yet? It's the A-field. Telepathy? A-field. Human consciousness? A-field. Reincarnation? A-field. He even goes into water memory at some point.
I do not pretend to understand the whole astrophysics part of this book, but I got the point, and I do understand the human and biology part of it. The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars is because there are some legitimately interesting parts in it that can make you raise some questions about the world. But the A-field theory? Nope. You can not explain the whole universe in such a cop out way.
I do not pretend to understand the whole astrophysics part of this book, but I got the point, and I do understand the human and biology part of it. The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars is because there are some legitimately interesting parts in it that can make you raise some questions about the world. But the A-field theory? Nope. You can not explain the whole universe in such a cop out way.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 10, 2020
This book gets both very high and very low ratings, which I can understand. From a philosophical perspective, in my opinion this book is very interesting as it tries to build a new worldview based on scientific and systems concepts (Laszlo being one of the earliest so called systems philosophers). Laszo is connecting scientific theories and philosophic theories into a single view, which in short is the view that in addition to the fields that describe energy and matter, there are fields that store all information and conscience (present and past). These fields connect and interact with each other and help to explain a lot of phenomena we current experience in our physical world.
The first part of the book is a particular strong overview of how each of these scientific and theosophic ideas are connected. In the second part of the book, the line of reasoning gets somewhat repetitive. I am giving this book 4 out of 5 because of the second part of the book and because of the title. It is the first book I have read that genuinely tries to connect science and philosophy, but I would not have used the term Akashic Field (which to a lot of people has a lot of mystical value) nor would I use the subtitle "an integral theory everything". The book is one of the best attempts in that direction, and the book answered a lot of the (philosophical) questions I myself had, but the book is more an exploration and trigger to search further in this direction than a completed integrated theory.
This book is not for everybody, but specially for those interested in how scientific worldview and philosophical worldview are not that far apart as one might think.
The first part of the book is a particular strong overview of how each of these scientific and theosophic ideas are connected. In the second part of the book, the line of reasoning gets somewhat repetitive. I am giving this book 4 out of 5 because of the second part of the book and because of the title. It is the first book I have read that genuinely tries to connect science and philosophy, but I would not have used the term Akashic Field (which to a lot of people has a lot of mystical value) nor would I use the subtitle "an integral theory everything". The book is one of the best attempts in that direction, and the book answered a lot of the (philosophical) questions I myself had, but the book is more an exploration and trigger to search further in this direction than a completed integrated theory.
This book is not for everybody, but specially for those interested in how scientific worldview and philosophical worldview are not that far apart as one might think.
April 17, 2023
What a ride!
Let me start by pointing out that maybe the name akashic field is not very fortunate as it immediately implies woo...but there is precious little woo here. It is an overview of all the weird and strange phenomena that are so well documented by now that it is basically paradigm-breaking.
To explain that, the author proposes the "Akashic field" underlying the existence. A kind of infinite ocean of correlated information. It also forms a nice and simple scientific explanation I have sort of discovered on my own...
And basically, materialism is over 😎👌
Let me start by pointing out that maybe the name akashic field is not very fortunate as it immediately implies woo...but there is precious little woo here. It is an overview of all the weird and strange phenomena that are so well documented by now that it is basically paradigm-breaking.
To explain that, the author proposes the "Akashic field" underlying the existence. A kind of infinite ocean of correlated information. It also forms a nice and simple scientific explanation I have sort of discovered on my own...
And basically, materialism is over 😎👌
February 14, 2023
I am thrilled about this, I really didn't think I'd find a scientific book regarding the Akashic field, nor one that backed itself up with such conviction and with thorough references to known and published experiments. Anyone who is spiritual but has a thick woo woo filter and/or strong sense of skepticism ought to give this book a read.
February 19, 2023
After I finished the first read-through I went back and read the testimonials at the book's beginning. I was amazed to hear most of they say just what i was thinking: This book has changed the way I look at the world and everything in it. When we ask the question: What is the meaning of it all? I can now answer: The meaning is us...so far, anyway.
November 4, 2017
I see little value in this book.
Ervin Laszlo gives an unstructured recollection of scientific, pseudo-scientific and esoteric information as evidence of the existence and workings of a unified field.
Ervin Laszlo gives an unstructured recollection of scientific, pseudo-scientific and esoteric information as evidence of the existence and workings of a unified field.
August 26, 2020
Finally A TIE that makes sense.
This is absolutely the best book I have found when it comes to a comprehensive and scientifically based Theory of Everything. It will change your perspective of not your life.
This is absolutely the best book I have found when it comes to a comprehensive and scientifically based Theory of Everything. It will change your perspective of not your life.
February 17, 2023
VERY interesting. Certainly expanded my quantum / physics horizon (as limited as that was.)
Numerous theories that Laszlo expands on, that I can relate to pertaining to what might occur in the NDE (near-death experience) or in a quantum environment like Death Consciousness.
Numerous theories that Laszlo expands on, that I can relate to pertaining to what might occur in the NDE (near-death experience) or in a quantum environment like Death Consciousness.
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