Here is a mind-bending discussion of how some themes from the metaphysics of Buddhist (Mahayana), Jain, and Hindu (Advaita Vedanta) philosophies influenced the theoretical physics of Andre Linde and Abhay Ashtekar. It examines how these ancient spiritual traditions address a major problem in contemporary cosmology, involving our inability to reconcile Einstein’s (and Newton’s) model of time and space with current models of quantum cosmology with respect to the Wheeler-Dewitt equation. Specifically, while Newton-Einstein’s classical physics (Einstein’s modifications of Newton’s universe notwithstanding) provide a view of space and time (or spacetime) in which the universe and its contents march forward asymmetrically in stable temporal procession, quantum physics in contrast undermines (via entanglement) the existence of any individuated entities and the asymmetric direction of time in the universe at all— blurring differences in identity between what we perceive and/or conceive as self-existent entities in the physical world, and reversing causal directionality through time (permitting past events to actually cause future events). Worse yet, the Wheeler-Dewitt formula , designed to reconcile these apparently incommensurable classical and quantum states of reality, winds up complicating matters further by apparently making time itself impossible. The universe, in this view, exists in eternal, unchanging stasis and beyond space and time— whatever that might entail. Thus, we seem be dwelling in a metaphysically incoherent, multidimensional universe and living a correspondingly incongruous existence: simultaneously time-bound and delimited by the constraints of our isolated, finite lives, but also bound-up in a radically interconnected relational universe—and ultimately in a universe that transcends the bounds of space and time; existing in an imperceptibly eternal universal infinitude.
Both Ashtekar (raised in the Jain tradition and deeply influenced by Buddhist ideas) and Linde (drawing on Advaita Vedanta) see deep similarities between the metaphysical implications of this quandary in western cosmology and analogous speculation in these Asian philosophies. Ashtekar, noting how the kind of transcendent consciousness attained in deep meditation (Samadhi) appears to play the same role in the life of the mind as the Wheeler-Dewitt equation does in the physics of the universe, and Linde, observing how the nature of limited individual conscious perception (prathibhasika) in Advaita Vedanta appears to generate an ‘observer dependent’ universe in a manner similar to the ‘measurement problem’ in quantum mechanics, have suggested that there are striking parallels between them. Like lower levels of conscious perception in Vedanta, observer-dependent observations in physics seem to engender our concepts of space, time, and the spacetime-bound universe that we count ourselves to be part of. According to many interpretations of quantum measurement, the process of state-vector collapse of the Schrodinger wave-function at the subatomic level that is required for mathematically probable states of physical reality to transition into actual physically real states (the physical universe that we are part of), must caused by an observation made through a conscious perceiver. Linde suggests that in contemporary physics the universe of measurable spacetime and its contents therefore requires an observer to generate its existence just as, in Advaita Vedanta, the universe of space, time and physical existence (Maya) is brought into being by–and in in fact IS–the percepts and ideas of conscious minds .
However, similar to the depiction of a deeper eternal reality transcending and encompassing the physical universe of space and time via Wheeler-Dewitt in scientific cosmology, Vedanta also posits an ultimate eternal and incorporeal reality (Nirguna Brahman) transcending and encompassing its myriad forms in space and time. As in Vedanta, the physical universe of space and time is what happened when part of eternal, infinite reality became self-aware in a sense that –through observation– differentiated itself from its infinite source. By observing the rest of itself from this finite perspective, it created a subject-object division between the observer and the observed which, in turn, created the physical, measurable world that we know via observation and perception. In contemporary physics, this is what we understand as observer-induced state-vector collapse of the Schrödinger equation that generates our observer-dependent universe. In both Linde’s physics and Vedanta philosophy, when an aspect of infinite possibility becomes self-aware, it draws a distinction between itself and the rest of reality–which results in this aspect of reality observing and differentiating (and hence bringing into being) the other aspects of the universe in space and time. However, prior to, and more primordial than, this division and our physical universe, is the undifferentiated eternal universal reality beyond spacetime that encompasses and makes possible the very creation of our universe in this way–and perhaps many other universes–to begin with.
Interestingly, Page and Wooten at the University of Ontario have developed a formal theory, and Marco Genovese at the Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca Metrologica in Italy has done actual experimental work, to establish the empirical viability of all this. The article explains:
“Page and Wootters pondered what would happen if you took the whole unchanging Universe and chopped it into two entangled pieces. They calculated that an observer, a human consciousness, say, or maybe even an inanimate recording device, sitting in one entangled part would monitor the other part of the Universe evolving relative to its own. The crucial insight was that the presence of an observer on one side starts the clock running on the other side….Importantly, Page and Wootters calculated that when both divided parts of the Universe are monitored in conjunction by some imagined superobserver, the evolution within the individual parts should counterbalance, so that from an external god’s-eye view there would be no evolution in the cosmos as a whole. The wavefunction of the entire Universe would remain timeless, just as DeWitt had predicted, solving the problem of how an unchanging Universe can house time.”
“So as long as you do not have an observer, the arrow of time doesn’t exist, and the paradox doesn’t exist,’ Linde explains. ‘But as soon as you have an observer, the Universe becomes alive. This duality between you and the Universe is part of the whole package.’ Though not a religious man, this has inspired him to riff about the fate of people after death; perhaps, as some non-Western philosophies suggest, their individual consciousnesses become unified with the wholeness of the Universe, once more.” In this way then, contemporary physics and ancient metaphysics may be pointing toward a shared view of mind, life and cosmic meaning.
