DJB: Kind of a quest for the ultimate nature of reality?
NICK: Yes. My patron saint is Saint Christopher. You might know about him as the guy in automobiles, the patron saint of travelers. But actually he's the patron saint of people who are seeking to serve the ultimate power. He was the strongest man in the kingdom, and he went around offering his services to kings and princes. He wanted to give this power that he had to the highest service. He always found that the kings had feet of clay, and they weren't really worth serving. He'd quit one king and serve another, but it would be just the same. So then, after giving up on kings and princes, he decided, well one thing I could do is I could take people across this river. That was what he did with his life. He took people across this river that didn't have a bridge.
Finally this one little kid came along and he said, "Can you take me across?" "No problem," he says, and Christopher starts taking him across. The kid got heavier and heavier and heavier. Finally he could barely hold this guy. He stumbled across to the other side, and said, "Whew, what was that?" The kid says, "You were carrying Christ, who holds the whole world on his shoulders." So he finally found the person to serve. That's why he's called Christopher--the Christ bearer. I like that story, and I'm still trying to find some ultimate master to serve. Right now it's some kind of science. So that's the physics. I'm looking for the ultimate problems, and trying to do my best, whether it be religion, science, or little things on the fringes of science.
RMN: Could you explain to us the essence of Bell's Theorem, and the ideas about the nature of reality which those experiments have inspired in you?
NICK: Okay, that's a good way of putting it, the nature of reality. I make the distinction that philosophers often make, between Appearance, Reality and Theory. Appearance is what you see, and everything around is Appearance. Reality is the hypothetical essence behind things, the secret behind things. Theories are stories that we make up about these events, Appearance and Reality. What Bell's Theorem--a proof derived from physics--says is that the Appearances, certain Appearances in physics, certain experiments cannot be explained unless we assume something about Reality. What we have to assume about Reality is that when two systems come together, then separate, and aren't interacting any more, they're still connected in some way by a voodoo-like connection, that instantly links the two systems. This is faster than light, can't be shielded, and doesn't diminish with distance. It's a very mysterious connection.
However this connection is on the level of Reality, not on the level of Appearance. lt's an underground connection, but it's as certain as two plus two is four that this connection exists. The question is what do you do with it, since it only appears on the level of Reality, not on the level of Appearance? So that's the essence of Bell's theorem: there is an underground connection that we can prove, but not see. I wrote a little song called "Bell's Theorem Blues," and the jist of it is, if we're really connected baby, how come I feel so all alone?
DJB: Do you see Bell's Theorem, and our understanding from astrophysics that all particles in the universe were together at the moment of the Big Bang, as being a possible explanation for mysterious phenomenon such as telepathy and synchronicity?
NICK: Yeah, I do. But I think that it would be too easy to say that because we're all connected we have telepathy. Because, again, why do we feel so all alone?
DJB: Doesn't it have something to do with the recency of the connection?
NICK: Yeah. If you make a connection, separate, and then make any other connections, those later connections will dilute the first connection. It's just as strong, but now you have another connection that's speeding into you. So it's a. little bit like what's been called the coefficient of consanguinity, which measures how close people are linked genetically. Your mother is the closest to you, then your grandmother, and so forth on down. You're all linked by connections, but the more recent connections are the strongest. But even then, even when you've just met somebody, and separated, the telepathy between you is not really readily apparent. It would be be something, wouldn't it, if we lived in a society where the last person you met you had a telepathic contact with, until you met somebody else. That doesn't seem to happen, though, at least on the level we're aware of.
So the real question is why is telepathy so dilute? I would expect a proper science to explain that fact. Then, of course once we had that explanation, we could increase it, make it greater, or overcome the diluteness if you didn't want to have telepathic contact with certain people. So that tome is the biggest mystery. Bell's Theorem could explain telepathy, but what explains the lack of telepathy? That's something I don't think anyone has really addressed. There are a few people who have addressed this fact on the level of psychology, but not physics, as to why we don't have telepathy. The most convincing answer that I know about is that it would be just too terrible to look into the hearts of people, because there's so much pain around that it would be excruciating to tap into that.
RMN: Also, it seems that a lot of people don't want to be that open about themselves, maybe they don't want people seeing into them.
NICK: There's that too--I don't want people to look into me. But suppose you want to look into other people? A reason not to do that would be that it would be very painful.
RMN: There seems to be an idea among physicists that by persistent analysis, they will eventually discover the fundamental particle, the stuff from which all matter is formed, and yet they continue to discover smaller and smaller versions of this particle. What are your thoughts on this?
NICK: Oh, ultimate particles, huh? I'd be perfectly content if physics came to an end--that quarks and leptons were actually the world's fundamental particles. Some people think this, that physics is coming to an end, as far as the direction of finding fundamental particles goes. It's okay with me. I don't think that's the most interesting way to go, looking for fundamental particles. You know my real notion is that consciousness is the toughest problem, and that physics has basically taken off on the easy problems, and may even solve them. We may find all the forces and all the particles of nature-that's physic's quest--but then what? Then we have to really tackle some of these harder problems--the nature of mind, the nature of God, and bigger problems that we don't even know how to ask yet. So, actually I'm not too interested in the problem of finding fundamental particles, but my guess is, from what we know now, that we're very close to that situation.
DJB: So you really do think that there is a fundamental particle?
NICK: Yeah, I do; it might be a quark or a lepton.
DJB: You don't think that quarks are made up of even smaller, more fundamental things, and that it goes on and on and on?
NICK: Naw, I don't think so. That's just my guess.
RMN: Could you describe what is meant by a "measurement"?
NICK: By a measurement? No, I can't. There's something in quantum physics called the measurement problem, and I could describe that. The main problem in quantum physics is that it describes the world differently when you measure it, than when you don't. When you don't measure it, when you don't look at the world, it's described as waves of vibrating possibilities, buzzing opportunities, promises and potentia. In some ways it's not quite real, and it's all vibrating. It sounds a little bit like drugs doesn't it? All these oscillating possibilities. Then when you look, it's perfectly normal. The possibilities change into actualities, and these actualities are point-like. They're called quanta, quantum jumps, like little dots on the TV screen, or on a color photograph in a magazine. So, to make it brief, the world changes from possibility waves to actual particles, from possibility to actuality, from waves to particles. And the door through which this happens is called a measurement. When you make a measurement, that's what happens, but quantum physics doesn't tell us what a measurement is. What's a measurement? No one knows. It's not in the theory. There are lots of guesses about what a measurement might be. Some extreme guesses are that consciousness has to be involved--only when some entity
becomes aware, do the vibratory possibilities change into actualities. That's one guess.
Another guess is that whenever a record is made, whenever something becomes irreversible, not take-backable, as long as you procrastinate your measurement, and refrain from making a real decision, then the world remains in a state of possibility. But as soon as it becomes irrevocable, then it's happened, and it's actual. So you look into nature for irrevocable acts, and that's where measurements happen. But, there are problems with both of these guesses. Physicists don't really have a really good model of what a measurement is. As I say, it's called the measurement problem in quantum physics, and it's the main philosophical problem. But fortunately, or unfortunately, physicists never have to confront this problem directly, because we know how to make measurements. We do it all the time. Even ordinary people know how to make measurements. So no one ever sees this quantum world directly, the vibratory possibilities, because we have ways of making measurements.
DJB: We have ways of making the universe unambiguous.
NICK: Yes, we have ways of making the universe unambiguous: They're called the senses. Now, it's my feeling that when we look inside we actually experience some of this quantum ambiguity. Looking inside is not actually making a measurement all the time. We can actually dwell in this, on the other side, the other side meaning the vibratory possibilities. Some of our mind is there all the time, and part of mental life is taking this vibratory possibility and transforming it into actualities. Not all of mental life, but with some of our mental life, that's what we do. So we're aware of both sides in our mental life, but not in this external life.
DJB: How has your study of quantum physics influenced your understanding of what consciousness is?
NICK: Yeah, we're already getting into that. I feel that quantum physics is one side of consciousness, it's the material manifestation of consciousness. Quantum physicists are basically describing something that's conscious, and the inside of quantum physics is what we experience as awareness. I mean, this notion of potentia becoming actual, doesn't that sound like what goes on in your mind?
DJB: From out of the realm of all things that are possible, we pick out a few things and make them actualities.
NICK: Yes. Exactly. Yeah, doesn't that sound like something mental beings do, making decisions?
DJB: Yeah, it does. So then do you think it's possible for consciousness to exist without a physical container, so to speak?
NICK: Yes, in a sense. But I don't think it's possible for our type of consciousness to exist without matter around. But it needn't be this kind of matter in your brain. Different minds, different highs. The kind of practice we humans know about is taking possibilities and making them actual. You've got to have a universe to make them actual in. So we probably need matter then. It seems that our kind of consciousness and matter are inseparable. So that when I die, probably most of my consciousness dies with me, because it's an interaction between the big mind, the big possibilities, and the small range of possibilities allotted to human bodies. But I may change my mind. I've been reading Ian Stevenson's book Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, where little kids, when they begin to talk, say, "You're not my mother and dad. My parents live in this other town about four miles away." Then they begin giving details about who their brothers and sisters are. It's very spooky stuff.
DJB: But there are other explanations besides reincarnation. They could be tapping into some kind of field or genetic memory, for example.
NICK: Oh, yes, definitely. But it certainly stretches your idea of what the mind is capable of, no matter what explanation you have. So I may have to revise my ideas. I would not believe in that ordinarily. I was perfectly willing to say that my individuality dies with my body. There might be a large mind that goes on, but this small mind probably dies with the body--the memories and that sort of thing. That's what I would have said before reading this book. I had always dismissed reincarnation as wrong. But Stevenson's book is very persuasive. He describes just twenty cases, but he has six hundred cases of more or less validity. And, of course, if any one of those cases is true, it would invalidate the notion that consciousness dies with the body.
RMN: You have described quantum theory as a theory of possibilities, and have emphasized that it constrains not just Appearances, but Reality itself. With this in mind, in which ways do you feel that the understanding of the quantum world can affect the barriers and structures in human experience, which act to limit the enjoyment of these possibilities?
NICK: Oh! The Pleasure Dome Project. Yeah, I would sum up my feelings in that area this way. It's to take the metaphor of inner space seriously--that there is an Inner space, and that for some reason, some accident of biology and evolution, each of us is restricted to this tiny little cave in inner space. But there's this vast area that we could explore, including telepathic union with other caves, and even going into other non-human areas of mind. To me, quantum physics suggests this--that there is this potentia out there which we could basically surf. We do play with a little bit of it each day, but we could probably expand the area of possibility further. It's like we're living in a little tiny bay, and we could go out into the ocean. That's the possibility, I think, that quantum physics suggests to me. That someday we'll be able to go outside our own little bays, and go out into the great ocean of mind.
RMN: And voyage the quantum uncertainty, that sounds nice.
NICK: Yes, surfing in the quantum sea. There is something in quantum theory called the Fermi sea, which is the area of possibilities for electrons, all the possible spaces, the momentum and position spaces, that electrons can occupy. A metal's Fermi sea has a free surface. But an insulator has a lid on its surface so its Fermi sea of possibilities is completely full--all the way to the top. Since all possibilities are spoken for, the insulator has no new options. It just sits there, inert, and does not conduct electricity. But metals have lots of live possibilities open to them--all sorts of wave motion can occur on the surface of a metal's Fermi sea. So the reason that copper conducts electricity and polyethylene does not is related to this quantum picture of matter being made up of vibratory possibilities.
Metals conduct because their electrons possess lots of open possibilities. Insulators can be made to conduct by "doping" them--Yes that's what it's called--introducing certain impurities into the insulator which widen the realm of electron possibility. Now, if consciousness is somehow also a consequence of quantum possibility then that's one way I see of going--the literal expansion of consciousness, of getting out of our little caves. And somehow I think that quantum physics ought to help us do that. If we really did find a connection between mind and matter, and this was a quantum connection, then we'd find some way to get out of our caves, and hop into the ocean.
DJB: Nick, you do a column for Mondo 2000 on "Fringe Science." Can you explain why you think this subject is important.
NICK: I worked awhile in Silicon Valley doing research, and we had a lot of talks there about what real research was. How could we build an environment that would encourage research? What they really wanted there was an environment that would encourage short-term, profit-making research. They didn't want a real environment for research. What I think a research environment should do is protect people for a while from practical life, from the day-to-day worries of making a living. It should also allow people to be wrong, so, you see, you're protected from the consequences of your thoughts too, and you don't have to worry. You can play around. A real playground, that's it, a giant playground, for a while.
Universities and industrial research labs should ideally provide this. They should provide playgrounds where people can mess around, without suffering the consequences of their messing around. But they don't do this in general. In general they're very timid places. People will follow fashion and profits. The industrial labs don't follow fashion so much as universities, but you gotta publish all the time. You gotta keep something going. So you're looking around and seeing what's hot
, what the guys next door are doing. So fringe science is people who aren't bound by university and industrial constraints. They're just people who are out there, for their own reasons, and these people may really be a key to our next evolutionary jump. The people who are just out there possessed by, for whatever reason, some quirky notions of their own.
To my mind one of the quintessential fringe scientists is a guy named Jim Culbertson in San Luis Obispo. He was a professor at Cal Poly for many years, and he worked at Rand Corporation for a while, so he worked for both the government and the educational establishment. But his real goal has been to work out a theory of consciousness. He wrote a book in the sixties called The Minds of Robots, and he wonders how one could make robots that would have inner experience, just like us. He has this elaborate theory based on special relativity, and he's obviously been working on this for years and years and years, not listening to anybody, just off on his own little obsession. It's a beautiful kind of work--just totally out there, not connected with anything. And it may be partially right. We need more of these people, like Culbertson, off on their own trip. I would like to consider myself a fringe scientist, but I think even I'm too much affected by fashion, and by what my colleagues are doing. Although I try, I'm contaminated by the opinions of my peers, by the prevailing fashions of the avant garde.
Mavericks of the Mind: Conversations with Terence McKenna, Allen Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, John Lilly, Carolyn Mary Kleefeld, Laura Huxley, Robert Anton Wilson, and others… Page 12