‘What quantum mechanics has unleashed in the realm of technology is the palest reflection of what it can potentially unleash within the human psyche.’
― Paul Levy, The Quantum Revelation
The world is currently going through a period of major change. We have geopolitical conflicts, outright wars, escalating climate change, loss of biodiversity, deforestation, a health crisis, a social crisis, the rise of populist politics, pressure on democracy, a global economic power shift, and disruptive new technologies with a major impact. All these shifts and crises are brought to our attention 24 hours a day through (social) media.
There is one aspect of the metamorphosis currently unfolding almost entirely outside public awareness. Interestingly, it involves a fundamental shift in our understanding of consciousness itself. Science is revealing that the universe is far stranger than anyone had previously imagined. While not everyone is aware of this, the evidence is everywhere. At its core, this revelation challenges the notion of an external reality, suggesting that the building blocks of the universe – space, time, and matter – exist only in relation to the conscious observer. Reality appears to resemble a waking dream, where we, as conscious beings, are the architects, dreaming the world into existence. Free-Consciousness is closely monitoring this major revelation in science and regularly publishes updates on it.
The Thesis: The World As An Act Of Observation
The purpose of this website is to make a leap in my thinking – and any reader that happens to hop by along with it. But as one of my main inspirators, Thomas Campbell, has written; any such transformation is a personal one.
The leap of thinking goes like this: beyond the objective world we observe exists a realm of possibilities we call the quantum realm (on this website it is referred to as Domain 1). This cannot be considered a place since it is non-local, meaning it has no fixed location. It only exists as a mathematical description of things that can become fixed when they are observed. The observing is done by the mind, which is also non-local. Through the manifestation of our bodies, we ground ourselves in what we perceive as the spacetime domain (on this site referred to as Domain 2). Thus, everything we observe around us is manifested and not ‘there’ when we are not observing. The external world exists only as a process of observation.
Another difficult leap is understanding what the mind is, since we can never observe it. We can only observe the observations the mind lays out for us. These observations are about describing relationships we can understand, relationships between objects, distances, weight, pull, momentum, speed, change, before, after, et cetera.
The implications of this mental view on nature are huge. Because the bottom line is: nature equals observation. Things exist only when and where we observe them. This applies also for time and space. This means that we are immortal, since we are part of an entity that creates time and space itself. We can never be a victim of time passing, because time passing is just a rithmic thing done by our shared consciousness.
The Process: Building The Case For The Mental Universe Model
The information on this website is based on the work of scientists who suggest that the nature of the universe is mental, observer-dependent and that there is no such thing as objective reality.
As Chief Editor, my role involves gathering these insights and critically evaluating the claims made. My goal is to demonstrate that these scientists’ assertions can be substantiated through scientific evidence and reasoning. In my humble opinion, they are onto something truly significant. Based on the evidence and arguments presented in the many essays on this website, I find compelling reasons to challenge the prevailing notion of the universe as an independently existing entity.
I am very aware of the fact that most physicists and lay people alike have an issue with the alternative view offered here, and sometimes even take offense. It is a rather bold claim when you first hear it and therefore requires overwhelming evidence. Also, people often find it anthropomorphic; designed to make humanity seem more important than we really are. I guess that is what rubs many people the wrong way. Science has worked hard the past centuries to exclude the fallible observer from the study of the external world.
However, there is no denying the fact that science has not been able to solve the measurement problem of quantum mechanics despite a century of efforts, nor find an explanation for how consciousness can arise from matter in the first place. In the meantime, experiment after experiment has cast serious doubt on the existence of realist locality.
As for the anthropomorphic argument, I can counter this. Yes, we are active agents in manifesting reality, but we’re still extremely small players in the grand scheme of things. Also, observers don’t just include humans, but also snails, cockroaches and wombats. The only condition is that they are conscious. No consciousness = no reality. The bottomline is that we are all part of the same ONENESS that underlies the physical reality. It doesn’t make humans important especially, because all other life forms are equally active in the process of manifesting reality. If humans were to die out due to some deadly virus, the world would still be manifested by other living beings.
The scientists I write about are seeking elegant theories that can replace the current, outdated worldview of the independently existing, purely material universe in which the mind is regarded as an, essentially abundant, epiphenomenon.
My aim is clearly not to present two sides of the argument, but to build a case for the mental model of reality through the interpretation of scientific evidence. The hard evidence is provided by a number of leading scientists who are arguing along these lines, including Robert Lanza, Donald Hoffman and Thomas Campbell.
It is my hope that Free-Consciousness will contribute to a better understanding of the wonderful reality we (seem to) inhabit, and the acceptance of a worldview that suits our current challenges and transformations much better than the current materialistic perspective.
Jeppe Kleijngeld
Publisher & Essayist Free-Consciousness.com
July, 2024
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