Nothing I See Means Anything: Quantum Questions, Quantum Answers

Nothing I See Means Anything: Quantum Questions, Quantum Answers

By: David Parrish  

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Average Customer Rating: 5.0 out of 5

Starting with a layman's examination of Freud's psychology, the author moves seamlessly through existentialism, cognitive systems, medical theory, quantum physics, and mysticism to arrive at his unique synthesis of them all.

Publisher: Sentient Publications

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Great synthesis of psychology, spirituality and physics - I have read over 5o books exploring a synthesis of the subjects I collectively refer to as consciousness and Dr. Parrish's is the most informative. He ties together physics, psychology and spirituality from a non-dualistic point of view,. The subject matter may be difficult to grasp yet the work is concise. Although some may need to learn more about tangent concepts introduced, the work is convincing and offers a deep, meaningful worldview.

Customer Review: 3 out of 5
Rough around the edges - David Parrish says that the fields of psychology, mysticism, and quantum physics have all contributed to the notion that the reality we percieve in the world is not an objective reality, but a reality which is colored by our beliefs and our conditioning. Modern psychology, mysticism, and quantum theory have all elucidated the fact that we are particpants in creating and altering our reality.

Parrish says that modern psychology has shed the Freudian notion that our behavior is determined by subconscious obsessions and desires, and external events that are beyond our control. In its place existential and cognitive psychology have for the most part disavowed the subconscious mind and have embraced a more seamless and holistic consciousness, a consciousness of freedom in which we are responsible for our own acts.

Likewise, mysticism, which can be defined as a pathway to understanding reality through a "transcendence" or direct experience, has for centuries taught us that the subject/object duality is a grand illusion, and quantum theory has once and for all demonstrated through theory and experiment that in the subatomic realm there are non-local connections between particles that have been intertwined.

Parrish does an admirable job of drawing toghether the three disciplines, especially psychology and mysticism, however, his understanding of the principles of physics are a bit disappointing for the knowledgeable reader when he attempts to describe such subjects as entropy, the EPR proposal, Bell's theorem of inequality, and some of the basic tenants of quantum theory.

For example, he defines entropy as a state of chaos when, in fact, entropy is simply the tendency of systems to move toward equilibrium--a system's most probable state. He says that the old scientific paradigm is characterized by chance and separateness, while the new paradigm is one of wholeness and harmony, when, in fact, the old scientific paradigm was deterministic while the new paradigm--quantum theory-- is characterized by chance and probability of the purest form. He describes Bell's theorem in terms of "non-local causation", and energy fields, but Bell's theorem of inequality put the final nail into the coffin of hidden variables such as energy fields as an explanation for non-local events. And he misrepresents the EPR argument when he says, "They proposed through errorless mathematical reasoning that if quantum theory were correct, then a change in the spin of one particle in a two-particle system would affect its twin simultaneously, even if the two had been widely separated in the meantime." Instead, Einstein argued the opposite position. And not to belabor the point, he states: "Research has found that in the world of subparticle matter, the state of consciousness of the observer determines the outcome." This completely misstates the "observer affect". Many experiments have been conducted in which a conscious observer is unnecessary in the collapse of the quantum wave function. In an experiment conducted by investigators at the University of Rochester and featured in the November 1991 issue of "Scientific American", researcher Leonard Mandel said, "The mere possibility that the paths [of the photons] can be distiguished is enough to wipe out the interference pattern." Extracting information from a system alone can collapse the wave function.

Parrish's main premise is valid and I think he succeeds in demonstrating that the emerging fields of science have come to an understanding that the universe is an undivided whole, and that we are responsible for creating our own reality, but by the end of the book he destroys his own premises by dividing and subdividing consciousness into layers, and making religious references to God, spiritualism, and miracles. The book begins with so much promise, but it quickly spins out of control. For that reason I give it three stars.

This review by David Kreiter: Author of Quantum Reality: A New Philosophical Perspective.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
Value-added, transformational reading - Nothing I See Means Anything is an excellent, insightful, and VALUE-ADDED review of Freudian, existentialist, and cognitive systems psychology, quantum physics, and mysticism. Although I had studied all these subjects previously, I gained a great deal reading the way this book distilled and integrated them. As I read it, many times I said to myself, "This is incredible!" I also enjoyed the unique way the author tied these topics to spirituality and specifically to A Course in Miracles. I feel very fortunate to be exposed to this work.Hidden Dimensions

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
The newly discovered order of reality - David Parrish, M.D. is a Freudian psychoanalyst and endocrinologist. In "Nothing I See Means Anything" he explores the limitations of existentialism and our understanding of consciousness to integrate concepts from three fields: psychology, quantum physics and mysticism. In a chapter entitled "The Emerging Holoverse" he makes this interesting observation: "This scientific paradigm, in which all physical phenomena can be reduced to the mechanics of their elementary units, has been very successful and has led to many important discoveries. However, there gradually developed a growing dissatisfaction with the ideas of separation. These ideas were being gradually replaced with a feeling that the whole was much greater than the sum of its parts. While analysis and reduction are helpful, twentieth-century physics has become increasingly inclined toward an integrated and unified field approach to problem solving."

Parrish frequently cites physicist David Bohm's concept of the "implicate order" and his conviction that "we are in the middle of such phenomena by virtue of the time-space continuum, enfolded holographically in the universe, or holoverse. Other authors have explored Bohm's ideas: Talbot (The Holographic Universe) Radin (Entangled Minds) and Laszlo (Science and the Aksashic Field) come to mind. What Parrish brings to the party is his perspective from psychology, for example: "The existentialist views the traditional concept of consciousness as a human process in which self-awareness imposes an illusion of distance between oneself and the object of one's focus, causing a sense of separation from events and objects."

This is by no means a quick read; never a fan of psychology, I found myself having to reconsider ideas that had initially seemed to me improbable, after following Parrish's full explanations, which included insights such as the following: "It is man's persistent cognitive focus on the observed reality of measurement, separation and chaos! Man just has not felt he is entitled to view a reality of harmony, unity, trust, and love, but has retained suppressed cognitive distortions and misthoughts of scarcity and lack that remain fixed on fear, guilt and aggression. Mental distortions, with their projected limited perception of an observed material reality, severely restrict consciousness." Parrish credits Ken Wilbur with a concept of six levels of reality, ranging from the physical and biological, the mental, subtle and causal, through the ultimate source and nature of all other levels. This truly is an absorbing and intellectually challenging book; I agree with other reviewers who have called it important and potentially paradigm-shifting.

Customer Review: 5 out of 5
A solid book on how the Universe really works - I like this book because it shows Dr. Parrish's journey to the Quantum/Matrix understanding of the universe. A small very useful book!

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