Quantum Physics of Belief - Inter-connectedness

For the past few months, I was writing about quantum physics and business research to explore the correlation between the science of consciousness and patterns in the business world, to suggest innovative ways of using this wisdom to lead and succeed in a business environment that is constantly evolving at a rapid pace. I am discovering that in some way we all share a fundamental connection. There is evidence that our brains share a connection and we are even drawing from the same memory/source.

What is it that makes our lives worth living? What brings us joy and fulfillment? What gets us up in the morning? No, it’s not the amount of “stuff” we have. I believe it is the connections we make in our lives that give us a zest for living. Connections with family (love), connections with friends (community), connections with ideas (lifelong learning), connections with meaning (spirituality), connections with work (ideas and new skills), connections through service (volunteerism), connections with nature (interdependence) — these are some of the ways connections serve us.

Connections represent the interfaces between us and the rest of the world. Connections take us outside of ourselves, help us to learn and to grow, and ultimately help us to see the meaning and purpose of our lives. The alternative to nurturing the connections in our lives is to be isolated and self-absorbed, conditions that may lead to loneliness, depression, suffering and premature death.

Can you imagine a world without human connections? Humans are some of the most social animals there are on earth. Very few of us could live happily without our human connections.  Think of the worst punishment that prison inmates typically suffer—solitary confinement. Only a few days of solitary confinement can be very disturbing. Consider a monk in an extended silent retreat. Most of us can’t imagine participating in such a retreat ourselves, and correctly attribute great mental discipline to the monk. And yet, some of us, especially as we grow older, allow ourselves to live in increasing isolation as our friends and families either move away or die. To prevent this isolation, we may need consciously to seek to maintain our connections with family members, even if they live at a distance. Further, it will enhance our lives if we continue to make new friends, including persons who are younger than we.

It’s not always easy to make new friends, especially for those of us who tend to be shy. Often, creating friendships around shared interests is a way to facilitate this. Community associations, dance groups, hiking groups, book clubs, bridge groups, tennis or golf associations, volunteer work and political action are only a few of the possibilities for meaningful interactions that can lead to friendship.

Some of the most important connections we make are with our four-legged friends. Dogs and cats (and many other furry, feathered and finned friends) can be invaluable sources of love, joy and companionship, especially if we do not or cannot access human friends. Specially-trained dogs create much joy for persons in nursing homes and hospitals, and research has shown that we who have pets live longer (and happier) than those without.

Connections may not only affect our outer lives, but may be important parts of our inner lives as well. For many of us, our sense of connection with a higher power brings feelings of hope, meaning, love and comfort. This feeling of connection with a higher power may be based on a knowing; on prayer; on study; or on some other practice or activity that brings us regularly into contact with that higher power. Some of us may make connections in a dream, a meditative state or other altered state of consciousness with a wisdom figure. This might be a shaman, a priestess, a crone, an energy field, a bear, an eagle, or some other entity. These wisdom figures can sometimes help us to gain insight into perplexing issues.

It is clear that our human race must live in the future if we are to survive—by sharing energy and leadership between man and woman, and by using a partnership of the best characteristics of each to lead us forward.

Not all connections are with people or other sentient beings. What about our connections with ideas? Not long ago, it was believed that we largely lost our ability to learn later in life, and that our mental capabilities inevitably went downhill as we aged. However, it is now understood that, in the absence of medical conditions such as stroke or Alzheimer’s, we can be life-long learners. We thrive on new ideas and new learning.

Learning becomes, if anything, even more exciting as we grow older and gain in wisdom. So the connections we make through reading, through viewing documentaries, through discussions, and through taking (or giving) classes and workshops can provide excitement and new understanding throughout our lives. I find this time of my life the most exciting yet. This is true to a considerable degree because I am enjoying so much the learning, the teaching and the creation of learning environments I am doing now.

Of course, for a good share of our lives, our careers provide important connections for us—connections with others we work with and connections with the ideas and skills that relate to our work. Here, I include homemaking and parenting in the category of career. Many of us spend more hours at our career than at any other activity in our lives. For this reason, leaving the work world or facing an empty nest can be traumatic, as we leave many of our connections behind. It is thus important not to leave our primary career without having established some other interests that are exciting to us. I left my career as a scientist nearly 15 years ago, because I was ready for a new challenge and for new learning opportunities. That was the right decision and the right time for me, but each person must weigh his/her own situation before making this decision.

Yet another form of connection is found through serving others. Volunteer opportunities of all kinds are available, and the volunteer work done by elders is indispensable to countless organizations. Being a volunteer can bring a great sense of fulfillment if you feel that your work has impact. You create connections with causes as well as with people, both those served and those with whom you work.

Another connection that impacts many people is that with nature. We humans are as much a part of nature as any other animal, and our connections with the earth and its myriad inhabitants are profound. We see the beauty and glory of the world and the natural order of things and we feel joy and give thanks. For many of us, this is an important spiritual connection. Then as we look at the major destructive impact that our human activities are having on this world, we may feel sadness and perhaps guilt. This may lead us to work to heal some of the wounds to our world, through social change and social activism, another form of connection with a cause.

Our beliefs can manipulate our response to the environment, and our response to the environment is one of the most important factors of our well-being. We are all interconnected to everything and everyone and can thus influence and be influenced, perhaps in ways we have not yet grasped scientifically. A living body is just a manifestation of energy in a particular form, but is not necessarily the seat of consciousness or soul itself. At the heart of quantum mechanics and cellular biology, some people see incontrovertible evidence of God and some form of life after death.

These connections give us an opportunity to reach out beyond ourselves, and to invite new experiences, new learning and new understanding. Connections will give us joy and a reason for living. They will help to keep us engaged, vital and alive.

When we realize the extent of the myriad interconnections which link us to all other life, we realize that our existence only becomes meaningful through interaction with, and in relation to, others. On a deeper level, we are connected and related not just to those physically close to us, but to every living being. If we can realize this, feelings of loneliness and isolation, which cause so much suffering, begin to vanish, as we realize that we are part of a dynamic, mutually interconnected whole.

I can’t articulate how this works, and believe me when I say I have scoured the scientific publications for a viable theory. I can only report that this unexplained connectivity does exist because I have seen the evidence from so many credible sources.

This research leads me to conclude that in some way, at some level, we are all one. Consider the following experiments, which were performed using strict scientific method and documented in credible publications.

This first experiment demonstrates unexplained connectivity between human brains. Two people meet and interact for about 30 to 40 minutes, until they feel a rapport. They then each enter separate Faraday cages, which are metallic enclosures that block all electromagnetic signals. Each person is connected to an electroencephalograph (EEG), which records the electrical activity in the brain. They are directed to concentrate on their bond with the other person. One of the people is then shown a flickering light signal that evokes an electrophysiological response measured by the EEG. The person not being shown the light is not aware that the other person is being shown the light.

As long as the two people are still maintaining their focus on their bond, the brain of the person not being shown the light also registers an electromagnetic signal via the EEG. The electromagnetic signal is similar in shape and intensity to the signal registered by the person shown the light. The person not being shown the light is not consciously aware of seeing a light or of any other sensation, which means that the connectivity is not occurring consciously. Control subjects do not register a signal.

In another experiment, a researcher connects a common house plant to a polygraph, or lie detector machine. In normal circumstances the plant registers no activity on the machine. But when the researcher has the thought… I repeat thought… that he is going to burn one of the leaves; the plant displays what would be considered an enormous, panicked reaction on the polygraph. The plant is aware of his threatening thoughts!

Several experiments provide compelling evidence that we are all drawing upon and contributing to the same memory bank. These experiments show that once a large group of people have learned something, it’s then easier for other people to learn that same thing. For example, experimenters found that when they showed a set of Hebrew-like words, some real and some made to look like Hebrew, to people who didn’t know any Hebrew, they were able to pick out the words that were real at a rate of two to one. This suggests that the people who didn’t know Hebrew had some connection to the memory of those that did and therefore were able to identify the real words.

In another experiment, a psychologist performed a similar test with Morse code. He constructed a new version of Morse code by assigning different dots and dashes to each letter of the alphabet. He assembled a group of participants that didn’t know any Morse code, and tested their ability to learn the made-up Morse code as compared to their ability to learn the real Morse code. The participants were able to learn the real Morse code significantly more accurately, showing that the participants were drawing upon the memory of those who know Morse code.

Further evidence is provided by trending the results of IQ tests. Average IQ test scores in over twenty countries have been rising over the decades during which time the tests have been given to millions of people. This trend has not been noticed because IQ test results are typically compared only to others who have taken the test at the same time and at the same age, as the average IQ test score is always set to 100% by definition. Researchers only noticed this trend when they compared base test scores over time.

Researchers have tried to determine the reason that IQ test scores would be getting better, but they cannot attribute it to any other reason such as better education or practice taking the tests. They have concluded that the tests are getting easier to do because the millions of people who have already done them are contributing that experience to a connected human memory.

These experiments corroborate what I have felt about my connection to others: what I do for other people ends up happening to me. For example, I have noticed that when I give money away, I end up making more money. These types of things have happened so often that the correlation has felt too strong to just write off as a coincidence, so I began to do some research. I am concluding that in some way, we are one, and in a very real sense, what we do for others we do for ourselves. I know many of us have heard this in Sunday school, but now scientific experimentation is telling us it’s true. I don’t know about you, but I am finding it more difficult to dismiss.

Quantum physics tells us that even without touching each other, everything is interconnected - every cell and every atom is all just waving energy of the same nothingness, and the waves all interact with each other to varying degrees. What happens in one part of your body can affect another part in unexpected ways, and what happens to you can affect someone else, and so on. We all are essentially part of the same energy, and our energy is not confined to our bodies. If a person can influence that energy, (s)he can influence his/her biology.

From a spiritual point of view (and even quantum physics confirms this); everything is part of the divine energy; connected to the unseen by simply identifying what is behind the result or action of the form. The drama or recurrent theme signifies to us what needs to shift in the energetic world. Living these human experiences we connect to what our ancestors had passed on generations and their legacy of lifetimes. Our DNA is our link to what our heritage is and bringing this into the present moment we create the transition of this human evolution of consciousness reconnecting ourselves to the divinity and integrating our energetic fields to all that is and aligning every space to anchor this into our mother earth. We connect to this inter-dimensional communication and intelligence of this vast universe every time that we are aware and awake to our source. Our expressive souls long to connect to our world within and become conscious soul with focused intention of peace and love.