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"When the province of physical theory was extended to encompass microscopic phenomena through the creation of quantum mechanics, the concept of consciousness came to the fore again. It was not possible to formulate the laws of quantum mechanics in a fully consistent way without reference to the consciousness."
- Eugene Wigner (Hungarian American theoretical physicist and mathematician, received half of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1963.) ("Remarks on the Mind-Body Question," in Symmetries and Reflections, p.171) |
"The universe does not exist 'out there', independent of us. We are inescapably involved in bringing about that which appears to be happening. We are not only observers. We are participators. In some strange sense, this is a participatory universe."
"No phenomenon is a physical phenomenon until it is an observed phenomenon." - John Wheeler (American theoretical physicist and professor at Princeton) (Quoted in Robert J. Scully, The Demon and the Quantum (2007), p. 191.) (Quoted in Denis Brian, The Voice Of Genius: Conversations with Nobel Scientists and Other Luminaries, p. 127.) |
"As a man who has devoted his whole life to the most clear headed science, to the study of matter, I can tell you as a result of my research about atoms this much: There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter."
-Max Planck (German theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918) [The Nature of Matter], speech at Florence, Italy (1944) (from Archiv zur Geschichte der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797) |
"In the new pattern of thought we do not assume any longer the detached observer, occurring in the idealizations of this classical type of theory, but an observer who by his indeterminable effects creates a new situation."
- Wolfgang Pauli (one of the pioneers of quantum physics, and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1945) "Matter" in Man's Right to Knowledge, 2nd series (1954), p. 10 |
"Although I think that life may be the result of an accident, I do not think that of consciousness. Consciousness cannot be accounted for in physical terms. For consciousness is absolutely fundamental. It cannot be accounted for in terms of anything else."
- Erwin Schrödinger (one of the founders of quantum theory, and winner of the 1933 Nobel Prize for Physics) As quoted in The Observer (11 January 1931); also in Psychic Research (1931), Vol. 25, p. 91 |
"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet."
- Niels Bohr (received the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1922 for his contributions which were essential to modern understandings of atomic structure and quantum mechanics) Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007) by Karen Michelle Barad, p. 254, with a footnote citing The Philosophical Writings of Niels Bohr (1998). |
"The atoms or elementary particles themselves are not real; they form a world of potentialities or possibilities rather than one of things or facts."
"Whether we electrons, light quanta, benzol molecules, or stones, we shall always come up against these two characteristics, the corpuscular and the undular." - Werner Heisenberg (German theoretical physicist, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1932 "for the creation of quantum mechanics") Physics and Philosophy p. 186 CF also On Modern Phsyics p. 13. Quoted in Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner. Quantum Enigma: Physics encounters consciousness' p. 132 |
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