The Romance of the Shadows

The Romance of the Shadows: Mirabilia, Quantum Magic and Creativity

Introduction

A general conception that inhibits creativity in the present is the idea that matter is inanimate and detached from human consciousness. Since design and the arts in general no longer attract the most intelligent people in each generation, two distinct cultures have arisen in which creatives eschew the findings of science. This is unfortunate, in that certain scientific findings can open up an interesting conceptual space for creatives to explore. This is particularly true of quantum physics, since certain ideas inhering to this area of scientific study seem to invigorate matter, imbuing designed objects with the status they enjoyed in traditional societies: as Mirabilia, sacred objects bonding man with the cosmos. Additionally, considering how other great creatives have used the platonic variant of quantum concepts can show how they can be used to enrich creative endeavour.

It would be impossible for a layperson such as myself to give an overview of quantum theory. In this discussion I derive my exposition from the celebrated populariser of esoteric physics, Paul Davies. Such a simplified understanding of the essential concepts is sufficient however to understand the arguments I will make.

Background

In what is usually called the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum experimental phenomena, advanced by Nils Bohr, the following picture emerges:

We have now arrived at some idea of the nature of reality according to the usual interpretation of quantum theory, but it is a pale shadow of the commonsense image. The indeterminacy of the microworld is not just a consequence of our ignorance (as with the weather) but is absolute. We are not merely presented with a choice of alternatives, such as the heads/tails unpredictability of daily life, but a genuine hybrid of the two. Until we make a definite observation of the world it is meaningless to ascribe to it a definite (or even various alternatives), for it is a superposition of different worlds…

According to these ideas, reality only makes sense within the context of a prescribed measurement or observation… The only reality is the total system of subatomic particles plus apparatus and experimenter, for if the experimenter chooses to rotate his polariser, then he changes the choices for the alternative worlds (Davies, 1999: 122).

A paradox is involved in the act of measurement, however, which leads to more profound interpretations. A measuring system is in itself a quantum system: The microscopic realm of phenomena and macroscopic realm of observation are indivisible in this sense. The measuring system is also made of atoms, and thus comprises a wave containing a superposition of all its possible states.

Therefore, if a man were put in a box, with a radioactively-controlled hammer that could break a cyanide capsule with a given probability, the man must be both alive and dead until the experimenter checks on his condition. But how can he be in both states simultaneously? This paradox of Wigner’s friend leads on to further speculation.

Eugene Wigner claimed that under such paradoxical circumstances the quantum laws break down:

In Wigner’s interpretation of quantum theory, the minds of sentient beings occupy a central role in… the organization of the universe, for it is precisely when the information about an observation enters the consciousness of an observer that the superposition of waves actually collapses into reality. Thus, in a sense, the whole cosmic panorama is generated by its own inhabitants! (Davies, 1999: 133).

Thus Wigner’s friend brings about the collapse into reality of the box’s contents himself. In this conception, without sentient beings, everything would collapse into the limbo of superposition; only when sentience evolved did the universe truly begin to exist! This view is almost identical to the absolute idealism of the eighteenth century philosopher, George Berkely, to whom God is the ultimate observer in a hierarchy of sentience. However, in itself it leads to further paradoxes. Suppose two photos, A and B, were consecutively taken of the Geiger counter at the end of the Wigner experiment. If B were viewed first many years later, and only observation by sentient consciousness could collapse the superposition into reality, as Wigner proposed, then A would be ‘changed’ by B in a mysterious act of backward causation, despite being the older photograph.

The Everett-DeWitt Many Worlds Thesis

This theory, that alternatively explains the paradox of Wigner’s Friend, is purportedly supported by the majority of physicists. By abandoning the metaphysical implications of quantum theory, Hugh Everett (1957) and Bryce DeWitt propose that every subatomic process create a new universe, or plurality of universes:

Instead of assuming that all the other worlds in superspace are merely potential realities – failed worlds – that jostle our world of experience but do not themselves acquire concreteness, Everett proposes that these other universes exist and are every bit as real as the one we inhabit. (Davies, 1999: 136).

According to DeWitt, our brains, bodies and minds are being continually split into thousands of copies as each new universe branches off. We cannot observe this occurring, nor verify its occurrence, because each universe is completely autonomous. Nor can its inhabitants communicate with their alter-egos elsewhere.

The Anthropic Principle

It is, according to many scientists, a miracle that we live in a universe that can support life at all (Davies, 1999: 150). If conditions were slightly adjusted, the universe would be seared with radiation, the wrong shape, too hot, too cold. In fact, the chances of a single universe being right to produce life are millions to one against. This is one of the strongest pieces of evidence for the many worlds thesis. Only an ontological plurality containing a wide variety of possible universes could contain the necessary conditions for our existence. A ‘one-shot’ universe would almost certainly be insufficient. Other ‘shadow’ universes probably abound, but the vast majority cannot support life. Other thinkers, for example Lovelock, have marvelled at our good fortune in living on a planet where conditions for creating/sustaining life are near perfect. The Many Worlds theory explains this felicity via ontological variety. We would not – could not – be here if not for this plurality of options. The Universe where Jupiter ignited to form a binary star system; where the Yucatan Meteorite shattered the earth completely; where the Earth was too close/far to/from the Sun; these realities vanished into Chaos long ago. We are here because our ontology does not rely on a single option. For most scenarios, life had no chance to exist at all, much less sentience, culture or civilization.

Esoteric Neo-Platonism, Quantum Physics and Catallaxical Knowledge

One major feature of the Western esoteric tradition is a Platonic strain of thought which stresses the importance of consciousness in determining reality; the shadow-like insubstantiality of phenomenal appearances; the transcendant nature of ideal Forms accessible only to a trained intellect. In one form or another, these concepts have influenced occultists as diverse as Dr John Dee, William Blake or Eliphas Levi. The origin of this intellectual tradition is usually traced back to the post-Socratic Greeks, although it almost certainly pre-existed. The Neo-Platonist influence survived, often in opposition to Christianity, until the Renaissance, when it became a primary source of creative inspiration. Consider Shakespeare’s Sonnet LVI:

What is your substance, whereof art thou made
That millions of strange shadows on you tend?
Since every one hath every one, one’s shade
And you but one can every shadow lend ((Sonnet LIII 1-4) Shakespeare, 1998: 217).

Here, Neo-Platonic concepts popular among the Elizabethan intelligentsia are playfully exploited to evoke the Friend’s heightened substantiality amidst the fleeting, dependant ‘shadows’ of phenomenal reality. It is also hinted that the Friend creates reality, or multiple realities (‘millions of strange shadows’) by merely being:

But Shakespeare often caught in his Sonnets the Platonic note with equal subtlety.

Plato’s disciples greatly elaborated their master’s conception of earthly Beauty as a reflection or ‘shadow’ of a heavenly essence or ‘pattern’ which, though immaterial, was the only true and perfect ‘substance’. Platonic or Neo-Platonic ‘ideas’ are the source of Shakespeare’s metaphysical questionings (Lee, 1976: 56-57).

In Hamlet, the insubstantiality of consensus reality is evoked by Neo-Platonic imagery:

Guildenstern: Which Dreams, indeed, are ambition; for the very substance of the ambitions, is merely the shadow of a dream.
Hamlet: A dream itself is but a shadow.
Guildenstern: Truly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow's shadow (Shakespeare, 1994: 81).

It is difficult not to view these excerpts as a literary counterpart to the quantum theories already described. Consciousness is central; the world is a fleeting shadow, insubstantial and indeterminate; ideal Forms can create new realities. Yet quantum physics emerged from empirical procedure, using methods and equipment inhering to the technological age. Platonism and Renaissance Neo-Platonism flourished in a pre-technological culture, which makes the conceptual congruity all the more puzzling. Everett and DeWitt’s Many Worlds Theory has inspired much contemporary science fiction:

I was drawing near to my Avalon when I came upon the wounded and the six dead men. Had I chosen to walk on by, I could have reached a placed where the six men lay dead and the Knight stood unwounded – or a place where he lay dead and they stood laughing. Some would say it did not really matter, since all these things are possibilities, and therefore all of them exist somewhere in Shadow (Zelazny, 1999: 123).

However, Shakespeare’s or Spenser’s Neo-Platonism occurs without any obvious source. The esoteric tradition also posits the existence of ‘emanations’ or discrete planes of reality. This can be found in John Dee or Robert Fludd, as well as the Jewish Cabala. This is almost identical to quantum parallel worlds, which are aligned further or closer to our own in terms of chance-variance.

Other mysterious examples of esoteric culture’s alignments with modern scientific principles are emanations and astrology. The Western esoteric tradition (Gnosticism, cabalism and Neo-Platonism) utilized the concept of ‘emanations’ of reality: planes of operation sustained by, yet independent of, the level before. This resembles the biotonic concept in biology, wherein secondary characteristics can emerge from or control a more primary level of operation (usually molecular or biochemical).

Astrology is one of the oldest belief systems known to mankind. The idea that the stars and planets can have any effect on human affairs had been completely discredited by modern astronomy until Jean Gauquelin showed a planetary influence on career choice and success. Although this work does not in any sense corroborate the detailed claims of traditional western astrology, it presents unequivocal evidence that astrological influences exist (Gauquelin, 1980).

As in various other areas, there is a remarkable alignment between ancient, pre-technological ideas and the prevailing scientific paradigms. One of these is the concept of four elements or forces in reality, animated by a mysterious fifth principle. In the West, the esoteric tradition speaks of earth, air, fire and water, plus the quintessence or binding, animating principle (Seligmann, 1997). An enormous variety of variants on this theme exist in China (Wilhelm, 1967), the Indian Sub-continent, and, more importantly, in Meso-America and South America (Campbell, 1960; 1962; Watts, 2000; Burland, 1967). The many examples from the Americas tend to disprove the idea that the Fourfold permeated the world by simple diffusion, since the prolonged two way contact necessary for such transmission is not supported by conventional scholarship (Pringle, 2001). The Fourfold concept is one of the few universally held. This conception coordinates remarkably well with the four forces governing the modern scientific world view; electro-magnetism, gravity, strong force and weak force (Burt, 1962):

Figure 1: Science and the Esoteric World-view:

Additionally, this world view has its own quintessence, the Grand Unifying Theory which is intended to conceptually reconcile the four principles. Viewed dispassionately, this is an astounding coincidence. A number of explanations have been advanced to explain the longevity and universality of this model:

• A highly sophisticated culture existed in prehistoric times. This was perhaps localised and short-lived, but its conceptual influence on later civilisations was immense (Hapgood, 1966). It provided the four elements cosmology and cartographic expertise to many subsequent cultures. Though this original conceptual template may have been scientific, later cultures reinterpreted its heritage from a theological or esoteric perspective, resulting in the concept of four mystical elements. Conventional scholarship avers that Hapgood’s cartographic examples are of no great antiquity and hence do not demonstrate high levels of prehistoric cartographic expertise.
• Extra-terrestrials/trans-dimensionals/time travellers provided the developing city states of the Near East with the core conceptual features of anthropic civilisation. Quantum Neo-Platonism, the astrological concept and the notion of four controlling forces were re-adapted over the centuries to match a theological world view and ultimately absorbed into the esoteric tradition. Virtually all these claims have been discredited as bogus or flawed (Story, 1976; White, 1974)
• The human mind can tap into a collective unconscious – a lumber room of mythical archetypes including the concept of four elements. Some exponents of this view believe that the collective unconscious is a morphic field or Platonic realm of forms which the human mind can access by a mystic or extra-sensory process (Jung, 1960: Sheldrake, 1988). Others harbor a more socio-biological, prosaic view of the collective unconscious, stressing its adaptive role in giving meaning to life (Anthony Storr). This explanation cannot explain why certain archetypes approximate modern scientific thought, however. Further, no evidence has ever been adduced to demonstrate the existence of a complex collective unconscious as advanced by Jung and his followers. Finally, this explanation is, in many treatments, too mired in metaphysical baggage to be discussed rationally (e.g. Jung, 1952).
• The present author’s view is that the cultural catallaxy, comprising language, art, texts, education and the built environment has, like all complex systems, a self-organizing capacity. As knowledge and experience accrete over millennia, the catallaxy of any civilization spontaneously refines itself as a model or reality (Hayek, 1976). Such refinement inevitable produces a fairly accurate model of the universe, which is why all cultures produce archetypal systems of thought which match scientific concepts remarkably well. This explains how pre-scientific cultures often preempt scientific principles. This concept can also coordinate with any of the above theories (although it must be stressed there is no tangible evidence to support of any of these).

By extension, viewing the esoteric tradition as the result of catallaxical self-refinement processes allows further inferences about that tradition.

Firstly, the tradition should be scoured for further clues about the nature of reality. It already seems to contain models that approximate later scientific findings. Perhaps other perspectives lurk in its accreted, purified wisdom that science as well as artists can use as inspiration.

Secondly, the accreted esoteric tradition avers that magic works – that it is possible to manipulate reality with rituals, and so on. Since the esoteric tradition seems to coordinate with scientific models in other areas, its central claim to act as a conversion formula between will and phenomena cannot be lightly dismissed. Hayek argued that catallaxical institutions can never be deconstructed, being the work of many minds rather than one. In this sense, we can never understand how the conversion formula of magic works, though in some circumstances it might be effective.

Catallaxy and Meaningful Coincidence

The catallaxy is a system of immense complexity. Like all highly complex systems, it has the capacity to generate emergent properties that acquire a level of independence from the strata of complexity that generates them. This can be seen in the example of higher animals, which exhibit biotonic qualities (instincts, consciousness, imagination) which cannot be reduced to the crude molecular composition which is still necessary to maintain those qualities (Coveney and Highfield, 1995). In fact, the secondary, emergent characteristics can come to control the primary level in many respects, as minds wills body (Kauffman, 1996).

The catallaxy’s emergent consciousness is manifested most evidently as meaningful coincidence. Emergence of secondary catallaxical qualities is an autocatalytic process where, one a threshold of connectivity between elements is breached, a new level of order crystallizes. The key concept in meaningful coincidence is connectivity between elements. We see a book and think, that book has a very 1958 mentality; then we check it and see it was published in 1958. These are subtle examples. But meaningful coincidence seems to play a role in the world’s great historical events. For example, the eeerie similarities between the assassinations of Lincoln and Kennedy have been well-documented. John Wilkes Boothe shot Lincoln in a theatre. He then took refuge in a schoolhouse. Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy from a schoolbook depository, then took refuge in a theatre. Kennedy was riding in a Lincoln when he was shot. And so on. Oswald’s life itself is full of strange coincidences – his boyhood association with anti-Castro pilot David Ferrie, Ferrie’s links with Jack Ruby, Ruby’s links with the Mafia, the ease with which he entered the Soviet Union. More pertinent to the arguments of this monograph are the parallels between Hitler and Stalin, discussed at length by Alan Bullock. These coincidences suggest the catallaxy can manipulate world affairs in the interests of its own emergent self-consciousness. Those who are valuable to it will tend to be ‘protected’ by coincidence. A good example would be Hitler’s vaunted invulnerability to shellfire and bullets on the western Front. Connectivity is both the key to its autocatalytic consciousness and meaningful coincidence. An increase in one denotes an increase in the other. When Freud, Wittgenstein or Koestler use the term ‘oceanic’ or ‘mystical’ feeling, they are obliquely referring to the intimation of catallaxical totality occasioned by such manifestations of its presence. The notion of a New World Order or occult conspiracy probably also derives from these intimations.

Although the catallaxy is unknowable, intimations of catallaxical consciousness seem to be fragmentary and often purposeless or conflicted. This may be due to the partial emergence or de-emergence of catallaxical consciousness. Another explanation could inhere to the idea that cultural conflict and destruction is natural. Following Sprengler and Evola, if all cultures have a natural Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, then a self-conscious Autumn culture (i.e. catallaxy) will promote its own self destruction. The Italian Futurists sensed that the Nineteenth Century imperialist culture of Old Europe had reached the end of its cycle, and needed hastening to its destruction in the First World War. Alternatively, the emergent catallaxical consciousness may have a number of biotonic levels, or emanations, with interests divided within and between levels. The deitic conflicts in traditional myth intimate this condition.

Conclusions and Implications for Creative Process

The prior monograph is not intended to prescribe a philosophy of creativity. It is rather to open and explore a conceptual territory that might be useful for any persons engaged in creative process. The conceptual vistas displayed here are not those usually encountered by these individuals, and this distinction is intended.

A number of explanations have been advanced to divine why the modern era of ‘Mechanos’ produces so few creative geniuses compared to, for example, the Rennaissance. One of these is that the most brilliant members of modern society have alternative outlets for their ability, especially the physical sciences. However, a more malleable reason is that the modern worldview presents an alienating, schismatic picture of reality where matter is perceived as ‘dead’ and objects mutually isolated. By contrast, in the Renaissance and before a more opulent view of reality prevailed. This was a ‘magical’ worldview in which all things were linked in a chain of being and matter was infused with sacred qualities. Concepts like ‘sympathy’ and ‘degree’ governed creative discourse. However, during the Seventeenth Century this view began to crack. In King Lear, For example, we hear

Clown: Why are there seven stars?
Lear: Why, because there are not eight.

Lear’s ‘madness’ is in fact the modern worldview. Life is absurd because, as Sartre avers, there is no reason for it not to be otherwise. Where once, the seven stars were linked to seven days, seven wonders, seven planets, seven gods and seven gems in a complex web of associative sympathies, here they are reasonless. They just are. Though reactionary intellectuals have fought a rearguard action since this conceptual shift in an attempt to restore the magical worldview, it has risen steadily to dominance. Berkeley, Guenon, Evola, Juenger, Heidegger, Langbehn and Mishima form a formidable wedge of thinkers who voiced dissatisfaction with the tempo and assumptions of modern life. Their strident antipathy has wrought little change however, except perhaps in popularizing environmental issues.

Though the magical worldview that existed in the Renaissance will never be restored, the quantum universe is equally ‘rich and strange’. In the Copenhagen interpretation, man’s consciousness is reintegrated into being, selecting and manipulating real-world phenomena. Quantum events transform the apparent solidity of phenomena into a realm of shadows subject to human perception. In the Many-worlds interpretation, matter and objects continually generate multiple universes, shimmer in infinite permutations. In both these quantum perceptions objects regain their pre-modern status as Mirabilia, semi-divine links between minds, events and people.

For those engaged in creative activity, this redefinition of objects, matter and consciousness can revivify these activities, underpinning them with an opulent worldview similar to that which produced the creative glories of Tradition.


References


Burland, C.A. (1967), The Gods of Mexico, Eye and Spottiswoode, London, UK.

Burt, Cyril (1962), in The Scientist Speculates – An Anthology of Partly Baked Ideas, ed. I.J. Good, London, UK.

Campbell, Joseph, (1960), The Masks of God: Primitive Mythology, Secker and Warburg, London, UK.

Campbell, Joseph, (1962), The Masks of God: Oriental Mythology, Secker and Warburg, London, UK.

Coveney, P. and Highfield, R., (1995), Frontiers of Complexity, Fawcett Columbine, New York.

Davies, Paul (1999), Other Worlds: Space Superspace and the Quantum Universe, Penguin Books Ltd., UK.

Gauquelin, Michel (1980), The Cosmic Clocks, Granada Publishing Ltd., London, UK.

Hapgood, Charles (1966), Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings, Chilton Book Co., US.

Friedrich A. Hayek (1976), Law, Legislation and Liberty, Vol. 2: The Mirage of Social Justice,. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Jung, C.G. (1952), ‘Synchronicity: An Acausal Connecting Principle’, in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, The Collected Works of C.G. Jung volume VIII, edited Sir Herbert Read, Michael Fordham and Gerhard Adler, translated R.F.C. Hull, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London, UK.

Jung, C.G. (1960), in The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, Vol. VIII, translated R.F.C. Hull, London, UK.

Kauffman, S.A. (1996), At Home in the Universe: The Search for Laws of Complexity, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, UK.

Lee, Sir Sidney (1916), ‘The Conceits of the Sonnets’ in Shakespeare: The Sonnets (1977), edited Peter Jones, Macmillan Press Ltd., London, UK.

Pringle, Heather (2001), The Mummy Congress: Science, Obsession and the Everlasting Dead, Fourth Estate, London, UK.

Sagan, Carl (1973), The Cosmic Connection, Anchor Press/Doubleday.

Seligmann, Kurt (1997), The History of Magic: A Catalogue of Witchcraft, and the Occult, Quality Paperback Book Club, New York, US.

Shakespeare, William (1994), Hamlet, ed. Richard Andrews and Rex Gibson, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Shakespeare, William (1998), Shakespeare’s Sonnets, ed. By Katherine Duncan-Jones, Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., Italy.

Shakespeare, William King Lear

Sheldrake, Rupert (1988), The Presence of the Past, Collins, London, UK.

Story, Ronald (1976), The Space Gods Revealed, New English Library, UK.

Watts, L.J. (2000), Mandalas: Spiritual Circles for Harmony and Fulfillment, Aness Publishing :Ltd., London, UK.

White, Peter (1974), The Past is Human, Angus and Robertson, UK.

Wilhelm, Richard (1967), The I Ching or Book of Changes, translated Cary F. Baynes, (Bollingen Series XIX), Princeton and London, UK.

Zelazny, Roger (1999), The Great Book of Amber, Avon Books Inc., US.