The latest news from leading edge physics sounds even more like science fiction than usual. We live in personal parallel realities, ‘relative worlds’. This is the reality of Hugh Everett’s famous many worlds theory, presented back in 1957. It has now been confirmed in a leading edge physics experiment. The implications are remarkable.
Everett called his theory ‘Relative State’ Formulation of Quantum Mechanics. It means the physical reality is relative to the individual. Relativity in physics is of course well known, with respect to Einstein’s theory of relativity. That means that where you are, and how fast you are going, are always relative. Einstein showed there is no absolute frame of reference. Everett’s theory means the same is true of physical reality itself. There is no absolute or general definition of the real world because the physical reality itself is different for different people.
This strange idea is what has now been confirmed in a breakthrough experiment by Proietti et al. (2019). This is a scientific revolution that has been a hundred years in the making. It began with the discovery that the quantum world is only real when it is observed. This is the infamous ‘measurement problem’ in quantum mechanics. It seems the physics makes no sense. As the pioneering physicist Bryce DeWitt wrote:
The distress which this reorientation caused continues to the present day. Basically physicists have suffered a severe loss: their hold on reality.
The Solution
Everett did actually solve the problem, very simply. He shows that the world of each sentient being is a different type of world to our natural and accustomed understanding. This is the ‘relative state’, which means the state of the world relative to this person. And this type of world is inherently only real where observed. Which is what is now confirmed in the experiment.
The first implication is that different agents have different versions of the physical world. We live in personal parallel physical realities. And that opens the door to certain popular myths that turn out to be true. In this type of world your expectations are constantly biasing what is likely to happen in your relative world. This phenomenon would explain the new age idea of manifestation.
The idea is that you visualise the thing you have set your heart on, and it is drawn toward you. This is the ‘law of attraction’. And it is nonsense, of course. But the one thing that the visualisation does do is give rise to expectation. And expectation gives rise to confirmation bias. And confirmation bias alters what gets observed. In the world as we generally understand it, this just means we are mistaken. But in the relative world, it means that the altered observation defines the reality.
So the crazy idea about manifestation should work. But it is not because anything is drawn toward you. It is we who are drawn toward the outcomes we imagine and expect. It still sounds ludicrous is because it is utterly obvious you cannot alter physical reality with the mind. The US military conducted research into psychic phenomena for four decades with nothing to show for it. But the reason this works is not because the world itself is changed. It works because this changes which version of the world one is drawn toward as we pass into the multiple possibilities of the quantum world. It still sounds crazy, of course, which is why the rest of this site is dedicated to explaining the physics behind these ideas.
That was an attempt to put the whole idea across in a few paragraphs. The rest of this page was an attempt to cram a whole web site into a page. More revision soon!
Avant Garde Science
The Relative World
The breakthrough experiment by Massimiliano Proietti (2019) and his team confirms the surreal reality of Everett’s explanation. This also makes it clear why comprehension has been such a hard leap. The world is only real where it is observed, and this applies separately for each individual. This seems utterly nonsensical in the field of physics, which is why his solution has been endlessly rejected. Here the full explanation is presented.
It means we live in different versions of physical reality, different relative worlds. As described in ‘Quantum Bayesianism’, the modern update of the Copenhagen interpretation:
This means that reality differs from one agent to another. This is not as strange as it may sound. What is real for an agent rests entirely on what that agent experiences, and different agents have different experiences. (Fuchs et al., 2013, 3)
The nature of the relative world and the experimental evidence are described in The Relative World.
The World Hologram
Despite all this, the whole concept is still widely ignored because there is no fundamental explanation, the ‘ontology’. This is the new idea presented here. The first step is to define the agent.
In all of physics in the current worldview the agent is always the observer, meaning the physical entity that makes observations. But in the relative world the agent is something quite different. The agent is the mind that formed by those observations. This is the central point of Everett’s formulation of quantum mechanics, the way the world works at the fundamental level.
The agent in Everett’s theory, the protagonist of reality, is the mind, defined as the whole of one’s experience. This is a field of information so utterly familiar we never notice it. This is the ‘perceptual reality’. This is the internal representation of the real world that we observe. This is the brain app that displays what the reality looks like. This is how we engage with the world. This is the human navigation system. It is defined by the record of observations.
The extraordinary thing about the perceptual reality is that although it is actually ‘in here’ it is experienced as ‘out there’. This field of information is mentally projected out onto the real world, as shown below. That is how our perception works – otherwise it would not be much use. This is what enables us to operate in the world. It takes the form of a spatially-distributed, three-dimensional image, like a hologram, The World Hologram.
The Superworld
As described by cosmologist Max Tegmark in his paper Parallel Universes, the quantum universe contains all possible worlds. And as he explains, that means there are lots of identical copies of you. Every possible world with an identical copy of you is a real world.
As Deutsch asks, given there are multiple identical copies of oneself:
… which one am I? I am, of course, all of them. Each of them has just asked that question, ‘which one am I?’, and any true way of answering that question must give each one of them the same answer. (1997, 279)
So, all of the copies of you are actually you, as seems obvious. For the physical body, the ‘observer’, this makes no difference. All the identical copies of the body are superposed but ‘energetically separate’. But for the mind the situation is very different.
When all the copies of your mind are superposed, there is just one mind. But this must mean your mind is in all these worlds, all at the same time. When identical slides are superposed on a projector, the result is the sum of the images. If you superimpose identical copies of a picture you just get that picture. The result is simply the same picture.
The same is true for your mind, your world hologram. So there is only one of your mind, and it is in all of these worlds, all at once, simultaneously. So for this mind, the reality is all of these worlds all at the same time, superposed. The result is a superposition of worlds.
This explains the relative world of Everett’s formulation. It is determinate only where observed, by this mind.
The Holographic Universe
This explains a great paradox in the new physics, the ‘holographic universe’. This is a discovery that has been a total mystery. As stated by physicist Kostas Skenderis:
The idea is similar to that of ordinary holograms where a 3D image is encoded in a 2D surface, such as in the hologram on a credit card. However, this time, the entire Universe is encoded. (Beall, 2017)
The superworld explains this surreal but well-known phenomenon with a logical natural cause. The relative world is defined by the observations, and the mind is the sum of the observations. As the mind is a world hologram, the relative world is a Holographic Universe.
Strange Attractors
Living in this other type of world, the relationship to reality is fundamentally different. Your world is only real where you observe it. So if you alter which version of an observation is made, this alters which version of the observed event becomes real in this world. Fantastic though it sounds this is exactly what happens with ‘confirmation bias’.
Confirmation bias is when we see what we expect to see rather than what is really there. Essentially, the unconscious alters the observation so it conforms to what is expected. In the ordinary world this just means my perception is off. But in the personal relative world, defined only by my observations, something strange, indeed preposterous, happens instead. The events of that altered observation are what become real in my world. This is the direct and inevitable implication of the physics of the relative world.
This means positive thinking is essential self-defence. Anticipating happiness, health and success, rather than expecting the worst, is vital because either way these are self-fulfilling prophesies. A positive attitude greatly increases the chances of a happy and successful life. In terms of psychology this is nothing new, but in the personal world there is a global effect. Positive thinking tends to lead to a better world all over.
The expectations tend to act as ‘strange attractors’. This is a tendency for a complex system to gravitate toward a particular type of behaviour. The image below shows the famous ‘Lorenz attractor’, a 3D example from mathematics.
The way confirmation bias makes this work is described in Strange Attractors.
The New Empowerment
This means it is possible to direct the game of life. A rational new explanation for the myth of a spiritual empowerment arises. We can take charge of this process. We can generate and strengthen expectations deliberately. This is done through ‘creative visualisation‘, a well-known practice. This means formulating images of desired events. When these are brought to mind repeatedly, this induces expectation for these types of events. A strange attractor is created. Fulfillment of the desires becomes more and more likely. Affirmations, meaning statements about these events can also be very powerful. In other words, prayer works if you do it right.
This explains the new age idea of manifestation, also known as the ‘law of attraction’. You can make your wishes come true just by keeping on visualising them. In the ordinary world of modern science this is naked twaddle. You cannot magically make things happen. What goes on in the mind has absolutely no effect on events out there in the world. But in the relative world it tends to work. Visualisations can generate expectation, which gives rise to strange attractors. So the idea is in the right ballpark. But the visualisations have to achieve expectation to take effect.
It seems like magic, but as Sir Arthur Clarke described in the third of his three laws:
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. (1973)
The new physics reveals the facts and the logic of the great spiritual principles. The technology of these principles is described in The New Empowerment.
Quantum Karma
‘Karma‘ the other side of this coin. This is a longstanding concept of direct cause and effect in Eastern religions. Good actions generate a good future and bad actions a bad one. They were right. It is a real phenomenon. Unconscious expectations are constantly being generated by what one does and how one thinks. And quite unbidden these become powerful strange attractors in the personal world. Thus karma operates in this type of world because we sow the seeds and reap the harvest of our actions and intents. To do well in every way we need to bear in mind that the way we treat our worlds is the way our worlds treat us.
So not only positive thinking but positive action is required. In this light, ‘enlightened self-interest’ is the only path to full success, doing well by doing good, treating others as you would wish to be treated, loving thy neighbour as thyself. This is Right Action in the Buddhist tradition.
In the modern world, morality has become a personal choice, but the new worldview means there is a powerful selfish reason to do as you would be done by. The universal spiritual principle promoted by the great religions is totally real. These are real operational principles. But this is just how a relative world works. Dogma has no place here. This is simply logic. It means the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path is the operating manual for this type of world. The full impact of karma is described in Quantum Karma.
The New Enlightenment
This new understanding gives us the means to resolve the truly intractable problems in our global culture. As stated by the pioneering environmentalist Alexander King:
Any durable solution to [humanity’s] external and internal problems can only come from evolution beyond the egoism that motivates every individual. … This seems the only hope of breaking the impasse of both great danger and great promise, in which mankind is presently constrained. (2006, 22)
This is the effect of the new worldview. Karma means that enlightened self-interest is the only rational behaviour. Otherwise one is constantly poisoning one’s future, not only locally but globally.
The inner transformation is the realisation is that the self and the world are not separate in the way we have taken for granted. This is central to the great spiritual paths. Now the implications of the new physics show us a powerful motive for such an evolution. Treating others poorly is driving the personal world onto the rocks, but skilful living brings about extraordinary results. Unfiltered egoism is disastrous for the individual as well as humankind generally.
You are the pilot of your personal world. Without this knowledge we have been playing the game of life with half a deck. Now it becomes clear that ‘being good’ actually means garnering success as swiftly and economically as possible. This is all part of the evolution to The New Enlightenment.
A Marvellous Vision
We have discovered that the the universe is even more extraordinary and miraculous than we could have imagined. We live in parallel relative worlds. And each one of us is a direct participant in the global story of their personal world. We have been pilots asleep at the wheel. As stated by the great physicist John Wheeler:
We are participants in bringing into being not only the near and here, but the far away and long ago. (Redfern, 2006)
He coined the term ‘the participatory universe’, meaning that how we live makes a difference. We are not irrelevant bystanders. As philosopher of science Dirk Meijer writes in the conclusion of his article on Wheeler:
To know that all of us have a role to play in the universe, should matter to each and every one of us and motivate us to take our personal responsibility. When we become real participants, we may truly make our world, and the universe as a whole, a better place for ourselves and all that is living. Ultimately we may even understand our own position in this grand design. (2015, 20)
He ends with Wheeler’s wonderful and famously optimistic insight:
Someday we’ll understand the whole thing as one single marvelous vision that will seem so overwhelmingly simple and beautiful that we may say to each other: ‘Oh, how could we have been so stupid for so long? How could it have been otherwise! (2002).
As physicist David Deutsch describes:
In other words, the problem has been not that the world is so complex that we cannot understand why it looks as it does, but it is that it is so simple that we cannot yet understand it. But this will be noticeable only with hindsight. (2011, 104)
This is paradise and all we have to do is make it so. The potential could hardly be better, as described in A Marvellous Vision.
Scientific Revolution
Why have we not been able to see this? For centuries, art in the western world was stuck in literal representation. The standard form, painting what the eye sees, was endlessly refined. The avant-garde revolution broke this static mould. First impressionism and then abstract art ushered in an experimental new age. New modes of expression emerged with a new type of social impact. Now in the modern world there is an unexpected parallel in the science of physics.
The term scientific revolution was coined by the influential philosopher of science Thomas Kuhn. As he describes, the great advances in our scientific understanding of the world are always great upheavals. As he documented, the major scientific discoveries that contradict the current worldview are automatically rejected. So only an adversarial and eventually overwhelming approach overcomes the stasis. The great upheaval of the new physics is no exception. The radical solutions to the great paradoxes have been studiously ignored. ‘Physicalism’ has been a fundamental requirement. Up until the arrival of experimental evidence the great Scientific Revolution of our time has languished on hold for a hundred years.
The Science
The modern scientific worldview has always been committed to a type of literal representation. This is ‘physicalism‘, the absolute requirement for physical representation. This is essential in the study of physical reality. But the revelations of quantum theory mean this falls down. There is nothing really there unless you look, so something non-physical is going on.
Fundamental intuition tells us physical reality is obviously real, so there is a deep natural reaction to deny the personal world. The resolution is that both types of world are real. This is what has been discovered but not recognised. There is no need to give up our superb scientific understanding, the worldview of the ordinary world. This remains the basis. The personal world is like a special effect in the universe of all possible worlds, a ‘class-of-worlds-as-a-world’. This is the new idea presented here.
This automatically resolves the great paradox of quantum theory, the ‘measurement problem’. The problem is the existence of two different ‘dynamics’, two different ways the physical reality changes over time. They are incompatible. They cannot both be true in the same world. The answer is that they are not. These are the dynamics of the two different types of world. This is the explanation of the famous paradox.
The resulting implication is remarkable. It means that the objective world and the subjective world are physically different. Since this is precisely what is forbidden in physicalism this has been an impossible deduction. Once again, it takes a scientific revolution for a revolutionary concept to be taken seriously.
The result is a new worldview. The impact on our human societies has the potential to generate a whole new age. Quite apart from happiness and fulfillment, this is the way to dodge our home-grown armageddons and make it through 2100 as a viable and successful race. This may be the test that has been failed so universally that there appears to be no other sentient life out there in this vast galaxy.
The physics of the relative world is addressed in some detail in The Science. This describes exactly how the personal world works and the new empowerment operates.
About
This is a manifesto for a spiritual revival. If we can adopt this new worldview we have the means to transform our human condition. We can’t change human nature, but we can evolve to a new intelligence. We discover how to play the game of life for real success, and our race survives to go from strength to strength. The objective of this website is to lay out the principles of the established physics that lead to this new worldview. There is nothing to believe here or take on faith. What is presented is a simple logical analysis which you can follow from beginning to end. You have already seen the outline.
This new concept demonstrates the ontology of the personal world as a direct implication of the known physics. The potential benefits are extraordinary. This provides us with new intelligence about how to make life work for all of us. It provides us with the chance for a whole new era of cooperation and intelligence in the human culture. A better brighter age is dawning if we can take it on.
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