Slides of my talk titled “Physics and the Indian Spiritual Tradition” given at the Ramakrishna Mission Institute of Culture, Kolkata, India, on February 10, 2018.

1. Physics and the Indian Spiritual Tradition
Giulio Prisco, RMIC, Kolkata, February 10, 2018
Physics and the Indian Spiritual Traditions
Turing Church
Hacking Religion, Enlightening Science, Awakening Technology
https://turingchurch.net/
giulio@ turingchurch.net

2. In memory of Rumjhum Munshi Pundit
Where / When / Who / What is Rumjhum?

3. Different concepts of Divinity
in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions

4. Different concepts of self and afterlife
in Eastern and Western spiritual traditions
Nirvana, Reincarnation, Resurrection

5. Open Individualism
A “minimalist” theory of reincarnation
“The central thesis of I Am You - that we are
all the same person - is apt to strike many
readers as obviously false or even absurd….
In this book I explain how this is possible.
Moreover, I show that this is the best
explanation of who we are for a variety of
reasons…”
- Daniel Kolak

6. One Mind looking at the world
from many points of view

7. Physics is advancing spectacularly
but it’s not yet in contact with ultimate reality
“The outstanding achievement of twentieth-
century physics is not the theory of relativity
with its welding together of space and time,
or the theory of quanta with its present
apparent negation of the laws of causation,
or the dissection of the atom with the
resultant discovery that things are not what
they seem; it is the general recognition that
we are not yet in contact with ultimate
reality.”
-Sir James Jeans
2018: + QFT, SM, quantum matter

8. Technology is advancing exponentially
The transhumanist vision

9. The simulation hypothesis
A newcomer in scientific theology
(actually a very old idea)

10. Simulation theology
The simulation hypothesis is indistinguishable from Western
religions
“These simulators would have created our world, they would be able to
monitor everything that happens here, and they would be able to
intervene in ways that conflict with the simulated default laws of
nature…
An afterlife in a different simulation or at a different level of reality after
death-in-the-simulation would be a real possibility. It is even
conceivable that the simulators might reward or punish their simulated
creatures based to how they behave.”
- Nick Bostrom

11. The Game of Life and Cellular Automata
Simple simulated physics and mathematical Life

12. Intelligent life in Conway’s Life
“It’s probable, given a large enough Life
space, initially in a random state, that after a
long time, intelligent self-replicating animals
will emerge and populate some parts of the
space…
The existence of universal computers in Life
implies that the nervous systems of self-
reproducing patterns can be arbitrarily
complex. Eventually, ‘intelligent’ species
might evolve from the same sort of selective
pressures that operated on earth.”
- John Conway

13. Cellular automata and digital physics
CA-like networks underneath space and time
“One needs something in a sense
‘underneath’ space: something from
which space as we know it can emerge.
And one needs an underlying data
structure that’s as flexible as possible…
A network - or graph - just consists of a
bunch of nodes, joined by connections.
And all that’s intrinsically defined in the
graph is the pattern of these
connections.”
- Stephen Wolfram

14. The quest for Akashic physics
and the permanent memory of the universe
Ralph Abraham and Sisir Roy suggest that
space and time emerge from a dynamic
cellular network, a graph with a huge
number of nodes and internal dynamics
similar to cellular automata. The graph
“contains all times” and fluctuates in an
internal time-like dimension, not to be
confused with ordinary time.
This is a possible theoretical foundation for a
cosmic “Akashic memory” field that stores
permanent records of everything that ever
happens in the universe.

15. Mysterious quantum
Particles or waves? Here or there?

16. Mysterious quantum: Entanglement
FTL correlations or one and the same fish?

17. Mysterious quantum: One world or many?
If one, which one?
What / Who makes the choice?

18. One Mind makes the choice
ATHMAN = BRAHMAN
“The only possible inference from these
two facts [natural laws and free will] is, I
think, that I… am the person, if any, who
controls the 'motion of the atoms'
according to the Laws of Nature. In itself,
the insight is not new…
ATHMAN = BRAHMAN (the personal self
equals the omnipresent, all-comprehending
eternal self)…”
- Erwin Schrödinger

19. Quantum matter
Long-range entanglement and coherent collective
excitations in condensed matter

20. Long-range entanglement and coherent collective
excitations in the brain
The brain as quantum matter
”Memory is a printed pattern of
order supported by long range
correlations.”
- Hiroomi Umezawa
“Umezawa proposed a model of
brain dynamics based on the
dynamical generation of such long
range correlation in the way they
are normally treated in many-
body theory.”
- Giuseppe Vitiello

21. Superfluid vacuum theories
Long-range entanglement and coherent collective
excitations in the quantum vacuum
“The elementary particles (electrons, neutrinos,
quarks, etc.) are excitations of some more
fundamental medium called the quantum vacuum…
The electromagnetic and gravitational fields, as well
as the fields transferring the weak and the strong
interactions, all represent different types of
collective motion of the quantum vacuum…
[Gravity], both classical and quantum, and the
Standard Model are not fundamental: both are
effective field theories which are not applicable at
small length scales where the ‘microscopic’ physics
of a vacuum becomes important… ”
Grigory Volovik

22. The unknown microphysics of the quantum vacuum
“Empty” spacetime as quantum matter

23. Similar physics in the brain and the vacuum
Mind-like processes in the quantum vacuum

24. Zooming into the fractal depths of the QV
Matter and mind all the way down?

25. Super-intelligence in the quantum vacuum
God-like Mind in the structure of spacetime

26. The mind is part of the Mind
After death the mind leaks out into the Mind
“[When] the metabolism driving
quantum coherence [in the brain] is lost,
the quantum information leaks out to
the spacetime geometry in the universe
at large.”
- Stuart Hameroff
“[If] at death, quantum entangled
variables reflecting the living state in
some way can escape the now dead
classical body, perhaps souls can exist
and can in some remotely conceivable
manner, reincarnate.”
- Stuart Kaufmann

27. An abstract, impersonal God
woven in the fabric of spacetime
“There is a universal proto-conscious mind which we
access, and can influence us. But it actually exists at
the fundamental level of the universe, at the Planck
scale…”
- Stuart Hameroff
“The attribute of awareness is present in the quantum
vacuum …”
- Mani Bhaumik
Bhaumik suggests the idea of an abstract, “divine”
intelligence encoded in quantum fields, woven in the
very fabric of space throughout the universe, that
spawned the universe and continues to direct how it
unfolds.

28. The cosmic God learns from life
and becomes also a personal God
“Moreover in another respect the thing
that he had made was his superior, and his
teacher. For as he contemplated this the
loveliest and subtlest of all his works with
exultation, even with awe, its impact upon
him changed him, clarifying and deepening
his will. As he discriminated its virtue and
its weakness, his own perception and his
own skill matured…”
- Olaf Stapledon

29. Man and Dog
God and Man

30. A personal, loving and caring God
could grant resurrection and afterlife

31. The quest for Akashic engineering
An ideal fusion of Eastern and Western thinking
“The day science begins to study non-physical
phenomena, it will make more progress in one
decade than in all the previous centuries of its
existence.”
“[All] perceptible matter comes from a
primary substance, of a tenuity beyond
conception and filling all space - the Akasha or
luminiferous ether…
To create and annihilate material substance,
cause it to aggregate in forms according to his
desire, would [place Man] beside his Creator
and fulfill his ultimate destiny.”
- Nikola Tesla

32. A material simulation hypothesis
Multiple levels of reality in one physical universe
“[Suppose] we construct a large
block of matter engineered to have
the standard model (without
gravity) as its excitations…
Is the world in [the block] real?
Sure it is; the block and its
excitations are certainly real, and if
the standard model was well
simulated it may support observers
who could communicate with
laboratory observers.”
- Leonard Susskind

33. Mormon materialism, spirit matter, theosis
Mormon Transhumanism
“The end point of engineering knowledge
may be divine knowledge.
Mormon theology permits is to think of
God and humans as collaborators in
bringing to pass the immortality and
eternal life of man. Engineers may be
preparing the way for humans to act more
like gods in managing the world.”
- Richard Lyman Bushman

34. The Russian Cosmists
Christian Transhumanism
The philosophy of Nikolai Fedorov and the Russian
Cosmists is a precursor of contemporary
transhumanism.
“Fedorov's active, forceful, masculine Christianity…
Main themes in Cosmist thought include the active
human role in human and cosmic evolution; the
creation of new life forms, including a new level of
humanity; the unlimited extension of human
longevity to a state of practical immortality; the
physical resurrection of the dead;…the exploration
and colonization of the entire cosmos…”
- George M. Young

35. Gaining access to deeper reality
and “magic” science / technology

36. Becoming cosmic engineers in God’s control room
Transforming the universe and resurrecting the dead

37. Physics and the Indian Spiritual Tradition
Giulio Prisco, RMIC, Kolkata, February 10, 2018
Physics and the Indian Spiritual Traditions
THANK YOU!
QUESTIONS?
https://turingchurch.net/
giulio@ turingchurch.net