Astronomy and Quantum Physics - Essay Example

The two areas of science that I am most interested in studying related to religious philosophy and mystical experience are astronomy and quantum physics. Astronomy, as it is developing through the Hubble telescope and the collective advances of science and mathematics in the Standard Model, paints a portrait of the universe that stretches out towards infinity and then collapses back upon itself in a cycle of creation and destruction. The macrocosmic view of astrophysics posits billions of galaxies besides our own, innumerable stars, and planets, and this further points to the fact that we really know little about the universe in our limited, arrogant, ego states of consciousness.

The religious view informs this understanding through “shamanic ecstasy” as Kessler calls it in “Studying Religion: An Introduction Through Cases,” where he describes the shaman travelling to the heavens and attaining a mystical unitive experience. (Kessler, 2007, p.143) In another way, Kessler suggests that the Buddhist conception of enlightenment may relate to a cosmic experience of being that is related directly to the universe of astrophysics. (Kessler, 2007, p.143-4) Knowing what we do of the nature of the cosmos, with many different possibilities of life, and also understanding Buddhist conceptions of re-incarnation, these two views can combine in a manner that merges the spiritual and physical to see life continuing and developing in different forms across a variety of planets and star systems.

The microcosmic view of quantum physics tends to infinite smallness where the astrophysics tends towards infinite expansion. That the two may merge in large cycles of time where the universe expands and then contracts to a single point over periods of billions of millennia or more is a massive concept of time cycles that accords with the Buddhist philosophical standpoint and modern physics. In this manner, I believe that science and religion are not distinct and can assist us in understanding the universe and our personal role in it practically.

Walter Stace discusses two types of mystical experience in his book “Mysticism and Philosophy” (1961), the extroverted and the introverted. (Kessler, 2007, p.144) In my opinion these two experiences can be related to the macrocosmic of the universe as understood by modern astrophysics and the microcosmic, as represented by the quantum world of sub-atomic particles and their unique behavior patterns. The extroverted mystical experience would then lead to macrocosmic realization of the Self, as in the shaman’s ecstasy, travelling to become one with the heavens, or a unitive experience as related to the dissolving of boundaries, as seen in the quantum particles themselves as they relate to the nuclear model.

This is important, for in philosophical religions such as Buddhism there is a relation of ideas themselves to the nuclear model of the atom, in that they have a conceptual coherence but are not in fact real. Concepts such as these are useful tools for understanding but only point to ultimate reality, without completely accurately describing it. For example, quantum mechanics shows the electron to be actually present in a cloud of indeterminacy and not exactly like an orbiting moon as in the Bohr model.

Yet, we find it easier to understand the atom through conceptual structures that do not exist, or are not provable, in the face of quantum reality. When approaching the universe or even the possibility of multiverses through the study of quantum physics and astronomy, I experience the same type of awe that I experience when reading the stories of shamanic ecstasy or Buddhist accounts of a million Buddhas living in a single atom. Using quantum indeterminacy to dissolve concepts into a unitive experience of mind in meditation is another way that science and religion can merge in practice.

I believe that in the Zen practice of oneness or presence in the current moment, these unitive experiences can become intuitive and lasting. The concept of reincarnation factored by the length of time that astrophysics posits in the cycle of the universe has opened up states of awe in my mind. I believe that the true shaman would be able to merge with the heavens and attain a mystical understanding of this that would result in higher truth. I believe that the mystical experience is ultimately a way that mind processes its own awareness and knowledge into intuition and wisdom.

The result of this has been a great degree of humility with regard to my own understanding of the universe and religious experience practically. Nevertheless, these questions continually open up new questions of awe and wonder in me, such as the discovery of sub-atomic molecules that go backwards in time, anti-matter particles, higher dimensions in the universe that are beyond our own mental comprehension, or the workings of the brain itself with its myriad of neurons, nerve networks, and miracles of consciousness.

Sources Cited: Kessler, Gary. Studying Religion: An Introduction Through Cases. McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages, 2007. Web. 19 April. 2011. ‹http://www.coursesmart.com/0077253027/firstsection›.