Jonathan Reams
Vol. 14 No. 1 Aug 2018
The Lenses of Perception Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics
Doug Marman
Abstract:A new interpretation of quantum mechanics (QM) shows that all of the baffling behavior of fundamental particles that make QM so hard to comprehend are consistent with the behavior of biological lifeforms involved in receptive-responsive relationships with one another and their environment. This raises a radical possibility that fundamental particles possess a form of sentience and this sentience enables them to form relationships that create all of the tangible matter and energy and the spatiotemporal dimensions of our universe. This paper proposes a set of underlying principles to explain how this works at the quantum level. These principles are shown to be consistent with quantum formalism. Further, this paper shows that these principles offer an intuitive explanation for why the formalism of QM takes the form that it does.
Quantum formalism tells us that quantum states cannot be measured directly in their natural “coherent” form, and that quantum states must evolve gradually and linearly until a measurement occurs. Why? And why is all matter and energy quantized into packets that behave like particles when they are measured, but act more like waves when they are not being measured? And why do entangled particles act as if they “know” and “respond” to each other’s state no matter how far apart they are?
This paper proposes that if sentience is the cause of this strange behavior, then the irrational nature of human relationships that we experience every day can offer insights that directly relate to the strange behavior of quanta. This opens the door to an intuitive understanding of QM.
This paper shows that there are three fundamental lenses of perception (sentient ways of sensing and responding) that appear to guide the behavior of all quanta and living organisms: first-person, second-person, and third-person perception. Quanta and life forms use these three lenses to form different types of relationships, and these relationships are what create the natural universe. These principles reveal an intangible aspect to sentient relationships, represented by quantum states that shape everything happening in the tangible, measurable world.
However, the main value of an interpretation of QM is its ability to offer potential solutions to existing problems in science. Two speculative proposals will be reviewed briefly. The first offers new insights into how the field of space may emerge at the quantum level. This has the potential to resolve the problems with developing a quantum theory of gravity. However, the most startling prediction of the Lenses of Perception (LoP) Interpretation is that quantum behavior must be involved whenever living creatures engage in relationships with each other and their environment. This prediction is unavoidable if the interpretation is right. It also offers a simple way to test the theory. If this interpretation is sound, it has far-reaching implications for biology, psychology, and other social sciences because it shows that quantum effects play roles in all of those fields.
Tags: decoherence, quantum formalism, quantum gravity, quantum states, superpositions, entanglement, wave collapse., panpsychism, Marman, Conscious access, dark energy, dark matter
Vertical Transformation of Leadership Culture
John B. McGuire & Charles J. Palus
Abstract: This article defines leadership culture and provides a framework for its vertical (aka constructive-developmental, or transclusive) transformation. The idea of leadership culture and its developmental potential has been a key focus of research and practice at the Center for Creative Leadership since the mid-1990s, as CCL began transcending and including its domain of developing individual leaders within an explicitly relational ontology. The Direction, Alignment, and Commitment (DAC) Framework models leadership as a relational process operating at both individual and collective levels, in which beliefs and practices for creating DAC are shown to develop vertically. Collaboration with Bill Torbert and associates has produced a model of leadership culture transformation in parallel with the action logics observed in individual leaders. The second part of this article describes an approach to change leadership via multi-year collaborative inquiries grounded in culture. The Change Learning Cycle integrates three intertwining domains of change: self, cultural beliefs, and systems. Finally, the article outlines the use of a leadership culture toolbox for change leadership initiatives designed for engaging, scaling, and democratizing leadership culture development for everybody, everywhere.
Tags: leadership culture, toolbox, Torbert, transclusive, McGuire, Palus, vertical development, Change leadership, interdependent
Creating Responsive Learning Environments to Develop Students’ Reflective Capacity
Patric Wallin, Jonathan Reams, Sven Veine, and Martha Kalvig Anderson
Abstract: In today’s society, rapidly changing conditions and expectations mean that students need to learn how to make reflective judgments, and there is a clear need to better understand how to create learning environments that scaffold student learning to make these judgments. Here, we explore the design of a learning environment that integrates an computerized scoring system into a large scale course to provide students with formative assessment of their cognitive complexity level. We discuss important aspects to consider when framing and integrating this technology and how the deployment allows for formative assessment practices in large scale courses found in today’s education.
Tags: learning environment, metacognition, Wallin, Veine, Andersen, Higher Education, scaffolding, Reams, Cognitive ability
Love in a Time Between Worlds: On the Metamodern “Return” to a Metaphysics of Eros
Zachary Stein
Abstract: Modernity is based on a critique and abandonment of premodern forms of metaphysics, while postmodernity has only deepened critiques of metaphysical truth claims further. This has created a novel historical situation in which a planetary society revolves around the absence of a shared metaphysics. The vacuum of meaning at the core of postmodern societies has resulted in a sense of exhaustion and alienation, a state uncomfortable enough to initiate a metamodern “return” to metaphysical speculation. I argue in favor of adopting metamodern metaphysical characterizations of the human based on an understanding of love as a transpersonal universal force akin to gravity. Philosophers have long called this force Eros and have placed it at the center of the human experience. Charles Sanders Peirce marks the beginning of a new method for practicing metaphysics, while at the same time offering profound insights into the cosmic dynamics of evolutionary love, or Eros. A century later, the ideas and practices of metamodern metaphysics remain in flux and on the margins. I explore how computer technologies and hyper-capitalist dynamics have inspired dark transhumanist speculations such as those of Nick Land. To counter the regressive and dystopian possibilities entailed by a “return” to metaphysics, I propose a form of cosmo-erotic humanism and discuss its implications through an exploration of the newly released book, A Return to Eros (Gafni & Kincaid, 2017).
Tags: Eros, Marc Gafni, metaphysics, metamodernism, Nick Land, political praxis, integral theory, post-modernity, tantra, post-truth culture, Stein, sexuality and relationships, Charles Sanders Peirce
Awakened Perception: Perception as Participation
Bonnitta Roy
Abstract: Perception has been called into questions by eastern traditions and western scholars for millennia. In a few “secret” places in Zen, Chan and r-Dzogchen Buddhism, the ultimate valid truth is said to be directly perceived. I propose a modern methodology called integral phenomenology that integrates deep phenomenal examination with contemporary research on perception (from both eastern contemplative science and western empirical science), to reclaim the notion of direct perception as adequate participation. In doing so, I develop an ecological model of perception, which includes “hybrid zones” where different perceptual states overlay each other, leading to non-ordinary experience, state transitions, and eventually, self-liberating insight and non-dual wisdom. This modern methodology must pass the critical examination of the highest Buddhist authority on direct perception—the Gelukba Sautrantika school. This is a critical challenge, and yet, if successful, shares the Sautrantika’s schools optimism that liberating wisdom can be gained by starting with everyday ordinary experience—which is a key principle of the integral phenomenological method.
Tags: Direct perception, kensho, integral phenomenology, participation, Roy
