Quantum Activism for Better Health and Healing

Health and healing the world over is in crisis primarily as the result of skyrocketing costs. I submit that the rising costs are fundamentally due to the exclusive use of costly allopathic medicine which has harmful side effects and, brings only temporary relief often not healing the disease which ultimately returns. Costs rise also because there is no real understanding of what healing consists of, or of what health actually is. As a result of this non-understanding there is very little investment in the idea of disease prevention. Health, as I will show, is when not only the physical organs function properly, but also when all our other “subtle bodies” function properly. Physical health is defined not only by the proper functioning of the physical organs, but also by the proper functioning of their correlated morphogenetic fields, and the correlated mental body that gives meaning.

The major shortcoming of the current philosophy of allopathic medicine – is that it is based on scientific materialism – the idea that all things including our body are made of matter and its interactions. In contrast, there are alternative medicine practices gradually coming into vogue (because they are cheap and effective). We see the rise of traditional Chinese medicine including acupuncture, traditional Indian medicine, homeopathy, mind-body medicine and last but not least, spiritual medicine as in Christian Science (Baker-Eddy, 1906). The first three of these alternative medicine practices hold that we have not only our material bodies but also vital bodies connected with “life force” whose energies are variously called chi (in Chinese), prana (in Sanskrit), and vital energy (in the West).

Materialists however claim that neither the vital nor the mental body is needed. However, recent research in the field of biological morphogenesis (form-making) and the mind-body-artificial intelligence problem is showing us otherwise.

All organs begin from a single cell embryo that then divides, making exact replicas of itself that contain identical DNA. But cells must become differentiated on their way to making organs because cells in different organs perform very different functions. The cells of different organs are activated differently to make special sets of proteins in order to accomplish their distinct functions. But how could this happen if all interactions are local? Cell differentiation works as if the cell knows where in the body it is, and to which organ it belongs. In other words, cell differentiation smacks of nonlocality.

Now consider the logical necessity for positing a nonphysical mind. Artificial intelligence researchers try to construct programmed computers that can think. But the philosopher John Searle (1994) first pointed out that apart from content, thoughts also involve meaning and this computers can never accomplish, as simple, symbol processing machines. We need a nonphysical mind to process meaning. Later Roger Penrose (1990) perfected Searle’s proof.

Still until recently, allopathic medicine practitioners have been able to deny the scientific validity of alternative medicine because of the paradox of dualism: how can these nonmaterial bodies interact with the material body without the mediation of energy-carrying signals? For if such signals were really there, how could the energy of the physical world remain constant? This is a logical contradiction; a paradox.

A breakthrough toward an integrative medicine which combines allopathic and alternative medicine under one paradigmatic umbrella has been made with the application of quantum physics. In quantum physics, objects are waves of possibilities for consciousness to choose from. Conscious choice converts or “collapses” the possibility waves into unique manifest actualities (Goswami, 1993). This is where choice takes place, not in the separateness of our individual ego (Bass, 1971; Goswami, 1989, 1993; Blood, 1993, 2001). Since choice is nonlocal, there is no signal involved and no paradox of dualism.

Now recognize that there are four compartments of quantum possibilities: material or physical, vital, mental, and supramental. The physical is called gross; the other three are called subtle. Consciousness nonlocally collapses the physical along with one or more of the subtle compartments of possibilities thus mediating between the material and the nonmaterial without any signals and without dualism (Goswami, 2000, 2001, 2004). The role of consciousness in biological programming can now be elucidated. Indeed, the organs are physical representations of the morphogenetic fields that consciousness uses as blueprints of biological functions to represent the latter in the physical. Similarly, consciousness makes representations of mental meaning in the brain.

With the paradox of dualism resolved the door is open for a theory of integrative medicine which integrates conventional and alternative medicine practices under one paradigm. We have resolved the paradox, elucidated the solution and set the course for consciously creating a future of ever greater happiness.