Warning: my physics education ended when I was about 13: given the chance, I couldn’t drop the subject fast enough. So what follows is going to be wrong-headed in all kinds of ways. But at least I can copy what it says in a good book with the best of them…
There’s this experiment in quantum physics that shows the weird dual nature of atoms: sometimes particles, sometimes waves. If you fire enough bullets at a (bullet-proof!) screen with a couple of slits in it for them to go through, eventually you’ll get a pattern on the wall behind the screen that shows two bands of bullet-holes, one for each slit, with a bulletless band inbetween. So if atoms are particles, mini-bullets, then if you do the same kind of thing with atoms you get the same three-band pattern on the ‘wall’. But in fact when they fire atoms – just one at a time, so they don’t hit each other – at a two-slitted screen in this way, they get an interference pattern on the ‘wall’ behind, as if what they’d fired were waves, not particles, that had gone through both slits at once.
(Find a friendly physicist to explain waves and interference patterns if you need one – don’t ask me. You can see an image of one here. (An interference pattern, I mean.) )
Put a detector behind the screen to record the atoms doing this wave-like interference – and they stop doing it. Now they’re particles, and you’re back to the bullet-type pattern of bands of atoms/no atoms/atoms. Turn your detector-widget off (you can leave it in place), and you get an interference pattern again: they’re waves after all. I don’t know what this proves to the physicists, but to me it sounds like the cosmos has a profound sense of humour.
Anyway, in what sounds to the ignorant like a last-ditch attempt to get things to behave reasonably, they got a very cunning detector-widget on a timer, that would be off when you fired the atom, and stay off until the atom had got through the screen. Then it would switch on – and because the atom’s already gone through the screen as either a particle (through one slit or the other) or a wave (through both slits at once), you get to record what it does with no detector on. Except that you don’t: they still act like particles, and you still get that three band pattern.
For some reason it was when I read about this third experiment that the weirdness of it all really struck me full force. So I brought out the beads, and asked:
‘Yi, with this experiment, when atoms act as particles because they “know in advance” whether the detector’s going to be turned on, what’s going on?’
The answer:
Hexagram 62, changing to Hexagram 15.
First, see the pattern formed by the line structure of Hexagram 62:
… and see what I said above about the cosmos having a sense of humour.
OK, 62… Small Stepping-Over-Boundaries, Small transition, as if through a narrow mountain pass…
15… Integrity, uniting, identity… (remembering that ‘atom’ means ‘indivisible’)
“What goes on, Yi?”
A small transition in identity.
Again, see above re-cosmic sense of humour.
The small overstepping of hexagram 62 is a transition made with acute sensitivity and responsiveness, like the bird that doesn’t fly too high, always keeping in touch with the ground-level realities. Or staying in sight of people watching for omens.
And at line 4, the pass is negotiated successfully by someone with the qualities of 15: integrity, unity of self, unity with the world at large, unhindered by inflated, unrealistic ideas of oneself.
‘No mistake.
Not stepping over, meeting it.
Going on, danger, must be on the alert.
No use for ever-flowing constancy.’
The objective of the lines of 62 as a whole seems to be to ‘meet’, to make just enough connection. To ‘go on’ is to go on in a way determined by the past. ‘Danger’ is often hidden danger, and commentary often implies it’s largely disarmed when you know it’s there. The character for ‘ever-flowing’ or ‘perpetual’ shows a man swimming, stylised to a wave-like pattern.
It seems clumsy to run round clod-footed interpreting this – like explaining a joke. Hope you’re enjoying it as much as I am.
the design of the experiment leaves the pattern. The design comes out of our consciousness that is one step removed from our speciesness and so we get ‘paradox’ where there is none.
This perspective applies to the I Ching where the integrated whole is ‘wave like’ and our extraction of details elicits seemingly discrete parts – but they are not! 😉 See comments on waves in:
http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/icstruct.html
For QM stuff see:
http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/paradox.html
http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/species.html
http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/svector.html
http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/bits.html
Reality from the species perspective is an integrated whole that uses instincts to survive. Our consciousness is differentiating and so can lose the plot at times.
Hmm, I’m sorry to say that Yi’s explanation and Chris’s response are not quite right.
The double slit experiment demonstrates the wave/particle duality of the nature of light, i.e. sometimes light acts like waves and sometimes it acts like particles.
When we shine a light through the double slits we get the “bullet shapes” which are a classic interference pattern, i.e. the waves coming out of one slit are interfering with the waves coming out of the other. Where the crest meets the trough of the wave you get nothing (dark) and where crests meet troughs you get fuzzy light and where crest meets crest you get full light.
Voila! you say. Light is definitely a wave! Well that holds up until you try this. What happens if you fire off only 1 (one) photon of light? (By the way, a photon is the only sub atomic particle that human beings can sense directly without instrumentation. a dark sensitive eye can see the impact of one photon).
What happens? The photon will only appear in the light bands, never in the dark, even when by its apparent trajectory it should arrive there. It acts as though it was interfered with, EVEN THOUGH THERE ARE NO OTHER PHOTONS THAT COULD HAVE INTERFERED WITH IT. It is equally correct to say that it “decided” to only land in the light area.
So the experiment should only produce the pattern if there is sufficient light to have waves. It shouldn’t (logically at least) produce a pattern when there is nothing to create interference.
One gentle comment on using the I Ching to answer a quantum physics question. In my experience the I Ching’s primary purpose is for self development and when I get answers they apply to me and what I need to learn from the situation and not the situation itself. So the two hexagrams are more likely to apply to Yi than to the double slit experiment :).
Utilizing it to answer questions on quantum physics isn’t wrong, but its not what its best for. My analogy would be that it’s like using a physician’s scapel to drive a nail. You may succeed and even get a useful answer, but that’s not what its best at. It’s better at cutting away the illusions of ego. Using it properly will reward you a thousand fold, using it improperly, you get answers on the level at which you approach it.
Thanks for the comments!
I couldn’t comment on Chris’s ideas, but I would say that I don’t see anything in what you wrote that contradicts anything Yi said. By the way, the reading was specifically about the times when the photon acts as a particle, because it’s ‘predicted’ that a measuring device will be turned on and ‘decided’ to act accordingly. I think if you look carefully at the reading, on the assumption that Yi’s answering the question, you will find it talks about this with considerable precision.
Yes, this reading was a bit of light relief. But as for ‘proper’ or ‘improper’ us,… who’s to say?
what Rapier fails to understand is that the primary adaptation of our brains is to vision and as such communication through spectrum exchange. IOW we are attuned to the dynamics of light, constructive/destructive inteference
‘rules’ in side our brains.
The design of our experiments is sourced in the manner in which we think – recursion of dichotomies that allow for the creation of a spectrum with which to derive meaning.
The DESIGN of the experiments for QM reflect the use of recursion to elicit patterns on a photographic plate. The DESIGN of the I Ching in its use of recursion to derive hexagrams is the same – the only difference being in that we do not use ad hoc methods to get the patterns in the photographic plate – we use the mapping of all POSSIBLE outcomes and so arrive at the level of wave interfence patterns far quicker than QM experiments 😉
read the links carefully – you may learn something 😉
Chris.
there are three links on this site you need to read through – first two are ‘background’ – last one I just put up showing wave interference derived from IC hexagrams – see the last one first if you like, it might wet the appetite to go further into all of this:
https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/messages/92/4342.html?1115081939
https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/messages/92/4340.html?1115125083
https://www.onlineclarity.co.uk/I_Ching_community/messages/92/4360.html?1115200743
My, my, I didn’t realize my comments would cause such a storm of defensive reaction. My apologies.
For Hilary, I offer this. In our understanding and usual approach to matter there is a very large difference between an atom (particle of matter) and a photon (sub-atomic, ie. smaller than an atom, particle of light). We don’t normally think of matter as appearing as a particle and a wave unless you subscribe to deBroglie’s view that there are “matter waves”. If you say that there is fundamentally no difference then you are saying that there is fundamentally no difference between you and light. I’m not saying I disagree (I actually think that this is a valid or perhaps more valid way of thinking of it than what is normally considered consensus reality), but rather offering that so that you might decide if that is what you want to say.
As for proper and improper, I’d offer that improper questioning of the I Ching is its own reward as Carl Jung mentions in his foreward in Wilhelm’s version. “Abuse of a cult untensil such as the ting (i.e. the I Ching) is a gross profanation. The I Ching is evidently insisting here on its dignity as a ritual vessel and protesting against being profanely used.”
For Chris, I’m always happy to learn something new. I don’t consider offering a different viewpoint to be a “failure” of anything except perhaps communication. I will read with delight your suggested offerings. If I have a profound revelation I’ll certainly let you know.
For all I would offer this:
“Everything phenomenal or temporal is but a reference, but a metaphor.” Goethe, Faust
“Everything eternal is but a reference, but a metaphor.” Nietzche
I’m suggesting that it’s all metaphor and what you choose either empowers you or takes it away. For myself, I choose the I Ching’s power to aid in self development. It doesn’t have to be anything else or more.
Thanks!
Thank you, Rapier, for all your comments. Very much appreciated!
It’s becoming very apparent that you know more about QM than I do… which is not hard, mind you 😉 The book I was reading (written by a physicist, not in the New Age pseudo-science genre) did say that photons or atoms would behave in the same way in the two-slit experiment: that you got wave patterns by firing one *atom* at a time, unless you turned on the observation device – and so on.
I find that this kind of goal-free, playful conversation with Yi opens my eyes, in small ways, to new meanings of hexagrams, not to mention new perspectives on the weirdness that is modern physics. I haven’t forgotten that there are other kinds of conversations. Like you say, it’s a matter of what you choose – also, I think, of what is right for you at the time.
Quantum Entanglement and the I-ChingI
I am reading Brian Greene’s, “Fabric of the Cosmos,” and I appreciate the simple and clear way you explain the wave-particle phenomena.
Are you familiar with another strange quantum effect, whereby paired electrons, or paired photons can be checked for their rotation along one of three axes. You must decide which of the three axes to measure on each of the paired electrons (or photons) because once you have measured one axis, you cannot then measure either of the other two for that electron, traveling in opposite directions away from one another.
Whether you will find left rotation or right rotation is random, but if you check corresponding axis for both of the paired electrons, they will always be spinning in the opposite direction. This will be true if you measure check them when they are five feet apart, or (in theory) if they are 5 billion light years apart.
The phenomena that if you test a random property of one electron, its result will determine the result of checking the same random property for it’s partner even though they are too far apart to have any direct, instantaneous connection, is called “non-locality.” It is totally counter-intuitive.
Einstein could not accept non-locality, and he proposed as an alternative, that the paired particles were in a sense programmed at the moment they parted company, so that each of the three axes were coordinated, and remained coordinated as they traveled apart. That explanation would make the phenomena mundane, and not mysterious or amazing.
However, it appeared that you could not test whether Einstein was correct, or whether the coordination of of rotation of paired particles was a non-local event, because if you used a detector to check the spin on one of the axes of the first electron, and then checked the spin on a different axis of the second electron, there would be no way to know whether the spin of the second access was random, or if it was “programmed” in advance along with the second axis of the first electron because you must decide which of the three axes of each of the two electrons to check.
If my explanation has become confusing, I suggest looking up quantum entanglement, and there is probably a more clear explanation than what I have given. Or, Greene’s book, cited above gives an explanation which even I understood (in principle if not in detail) after going over it only 5 or 6 times.)
As it turned out, a physicist named John Bell had an insight about the mathematics of three axis, each of which having two possible rotations, and he was able to predict the proportion of this outcome vs. that outcome if the experiment were to be repeated a large enough number of times, with each combination of the three axes being tested an equal number of times. The predicted outcome is different if Einstein was right than it would be if there is really quantum entanglement. The difference exists because the statistical probability of the various combinations of possible outcomes differs if each of the three axes is pre-coordinated, vs. if the coordination only takes place as a result of the same axis on both electrons being subjected to a detector, but remaining separately random if the spin of different axes on each of the electrons is checked.
The results confirmed quantum entanglement.
OK, so now I am getting to the I-Ching connection.
I grasped the principle of Bell’s insight immediately, but I cannot feel satisfied until I really understand the math. On each of the two electrons, there are three things, each of which has two possible values. Figuring out how many combinations are possible is what the math is about. Three things, each of which can have two possibilities ought to come to 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 There are two, paired electrons, each with 8 possibilities, so, taken together, the two in combination give 8 x 8 = 64 possible outcomes. Hey, is this starting to sound familiar?
I realized that a trigram can be used to represent the three axes of an electron (each line is one of the three axes, and wither a line is yin or yang represents a right or a left rotation). There are two electrons, each represented by a trigram, so all the possible combinations of the paired electrons can be represented by a hexigram.
I started out just thinking that the I-Ching could help me visualize the mathematical combinations, so that it could be an aid to understanding Bell’s experiment. But I am also wondering if there is some underlying depth beyond an analogous grouping of possible combinations: Whether there is some deeper connection between the aparently random manefestations of I-Ching divination, and the play of random. quantum manefestations in the world.
I feel excited by this mental leap, and will probably not fall asleep easily. Before budget cuts, when they had to turn all the lunitics out on the street, this is the type of a mad rant which could get you locked up (anyone see the movie: “A Beautify Mind?”) Fortunately, I keep my clothes on reasonably straight, comb my hair (mostly) talk in full sentences (guess I’ll never be President) pay my bills, and manage to present myself as a successful professional in a small town. Guess I’m safe for now from the men in the white coats!