edgar-mitchell

Invisible Realities 125
other hand, has always believed that consciousness is fundamental, and
that internal visions, voices, and insights are absolutes to be taken literally—
messages from The Great Beyond. Their meanings were obvious. As a result
of this historical, though artificial division of viewpoints, beliefs about
the nature of the universe have become more entangled, complex, and
torturous to reconcile, though each has certain evidence to support the
viewpoint. Paradoxes abound, with the entire edifice of our knowledge
resting upon two fractured, incomplete, competitive, and teetering foundations—physical
measurement and mystical insight—largely because there
has not been an acceptable model for mind and consciousness.
Today mathematical models of reality require a multidimensional universe
and an ineffable quantum reality in order to make a strong, but less
than complete picture. Interpretations of quantum mathematics by the
most eminent of scientists require a phalanx of observers to “collapse the
wave function” of the universe to its existing state. Mystical models require
a spirit world, a hierarchy of angels, deities, and demigods ascending
to heaven, and a progression of levels descending to hell such as that represented
in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Both scientific and religious models seem
a bit strained, having to make outrageous claims to account for the mysteries
of our world. As I pondered this, it reminded me of what would have
happened had the makers of our Apollo spacecraft not consulted each other
during design. Nothing would have fit when they finally assembled the
various components. Science and religion have a similar problem with regard
to the interface between them.
But there are alternative models of reality, and it wasn’t long after my
return from the moon that I began to actively assemble my own. I saw that
if we allow certain mind attributes to be fundamental to the processes of
the universe, with mathematics as creation of mind—a language—and if the
mystic allows that visions, voices, and insight are simply information the
mind needs to interpret, then the artificial, but historical division between
mind and matter suddenly collapses, and the most perplexing paradox in
both camps evaporates; the dualism is resolved. The universe begins to
look again like the universe we inhabit. The problem is one of giving interpretation,
meaning, to information. It is the story of quantum mechanics
that serves to illuminate these issues.
Centuries ago, long before the days we now associate with the genesis of
quantum physics, a great debate was taking shape. In the time of Galileo,
astronomers who had fashioned glass lenses from sand and peered at the
world around them saw how the instruments were capable of shaping light
and magnifying objects. The question that troubled these first astronomers
and early thinkers was that light seemed most easily described mathematically