Okay, it’s been a little while… I should probably break your brain again.
Well, maybe “break” is too strong a word for this one…
Bruise?
A minor thought-stopping at worst…
Anyway, it’s about physics and spirituality and symmetry, and how we look at the world.
And it might sting a little, because I have to call bullshit on a couple popular spiritual ideas…
But don’t worry. It’ll all work out in the end!
It’s the next entry in the Essential Ideas series… and it’s definitely something you need to know.
The Essential Idea is this…
There are no forces of nature.
Startling, I know… But it’s true.
There are no “forces” of nature.
Physics, now, is all about symmetry.
And that’s important to know for a couple reasons…
One, it’s just good to have a basic grasp on current science…
And by “current,” I mean: science that came about sometime in the last hundred f’ing years.
(I’m going to refrain from bitching at length over how our educational system is still teaching kids ideas that are centuries out of date—and how those early conceptual prejudices make it so much harder for us to learn the more beautiful, contemporary concepts!!!)
(!!!!!!)
But two, in terms of spirituality, people are still trying to tie their beliefs into those really old ways of thinking.
And that really needs to stop.
Because if we ever want science and spirituality to be on speaking terms again, we all need to be using the same language.
And that means speaking a language that modern science can actually work with…
And that means no more forces.
The thing is, spiritual authors have their hearts in the right place.
They’re trying to bring the world back together. (Mostly.)
And the hope is that by drawing analogies to familiar physical processes, it makes the spiritual beliefs somehow more legitimate.
Less woo-woo and mysterious… And more palatable to serious science…
Like the “Law of Attraction.”
Supposedly, it’s a law that describes how the universe responds to your thoughts and beliefs and draws things into your life…
And that’s “totally legitimate,” because it’s just an attractive force of nature… “like gravity.”
Now, aside from it actually being a bunch of fictional bullshit designed to make money…
The other problem with that whole “legitimizing process” is that they’re speaking the wrong language.
Because there’s no such thing as an attractive force of nature.
At least, not in physics…
Not anymore.
Physics began leaving that whole “force” business aside back in 1915 with Einstein’s general theory of relativity.
In the modern world, not even gravity is “like gravity.”
Gravity isn’t a disembodied force.
The earth isn’t reaching out and drawing you in…
There is no “attraction.”
Gravity is nothing but geometry.
Ripples and curves in the structure of spacetime.
Which I know sounds really freaky and esoteric…
But that’s just because the shit we’re taught in school cemented our conceptual foundations in ideas that were laid down in the late 1600’s!
(!!!!!!)
At some point, I’ll do a full article on Einstein’s gravity…
It’s such a beautiful concept! And something that everyone should know.
But for now, the important point is that gravity isn’t a force…
It’s geometry.
And that’s partially why real physicists don’t take ideas like the Law of Attraction seriously… (Setting aside the fictional bullshit reason.)
It’s like trying to legitimize crystal healing to modern medicine by appealing to its impact on the four humors!
It’s just too ugly and archaic to even be considered as a respectable idea.
But what about the other three forces?
You might remember from school that there are four:
Gravity, electromagnetism, and strong and weak nuclear…
Well, those other three aren’t “forces” either.
And they’re even more abstract than gravity.
They’re all based on multidimensional symmetries…
Rotations in abstract mathematical spaces that hold no obvious connection to the world we see around us.
I know, I know… Even more freaky and esoteric.
Stay with me…
We talked before about Emmy Noether.
About how she began a revolution in physics…
And banished the concept of force, and replaced it with the more elegant concept of symmetry…
But I didn’t go into what a symmetry actually is.
Well, a symmetry is a glimpse into the fundamental structure of reality.
It’s like an alchemical formula that transforms one element into another…
And like a Rosetta Stone, that translates seemingly isolated descriptions of the same underlying universe…
Even more simply: a symmetry is a connection that defines a relationship.
And physics is all about symmetry.
And that actually does give us a link between science and spirituality…
Kind of…
One Song
As it turns out, there is an idea in popular spirituality that’s pretty compatible with contemporary physics…
It’s the idea that the universe is nothing but a frequency realm of vibrating energy.
Now, just to be clear, the universe is not made of energy…
That part’s crap.
And the universe can’t be reduced to the idea of “higher and lower vibrational rates” either…
That part’s also crap.
And then there’s the part where spiritual authors can’t define what a “vibration” is…
Or what’s vibrating…
Or what any of their terminology means…
Or… Okay, fine…
Basically every detail about the popular frequency realm concept is crap.
But… the sentiment is good!
We just need to lift that sentiment out of the sloppy, archaic, substance-based style of thinking that it’s stuck in…
And give it a shiny new foundation that’s based on symmetry!
And for that, we need to get a little nerdy.
And we also need pictures!
Here’s one you’re already familiar with…
It’s a bunch of frequencies, vibrating at different rates.
Gaze wistfully at it for a minute…
Because we’re about to trade it in for something better.
The first thing we want to do is get rid of the wavy lines, and replace them with rotations around a circle…
Every point on the wavy line represents a phase in the wave.
It goes down, and comes back up again, until it returns to where you started.
And as it rotates, the state of the system changes.
Same concept. Different visualization.
But there’s a benefit to visualizing the circle, because the circle has something the wavy line doesn’t…
Symmetry.
See, symmetry is what allows you to transform one state into another, while another aspect of the system remains unchanged…
I know… abstract again…
Take the arrow as an example:
The arrow isn’t symmetric.
If you rotate the arrow, it’s easy to see the change.
But a circle is different:
The circle is symmetric.
It doesn’t change at all when you rotate it.
At least, not when you rotate it around a central perpendicular axis…
(If you rotate your screen to the side, the circle becomes an oval, and you can see the difference.)
It’s a one-dimensional symmetry.
In contrast, a sphere is symmetric no matter which way you rotate it in three-dimensional space.
A three-dimensional symmetry.
Now…
If you put the arrow in the circle… (Defining a state by assigning a phase angle.)
The symmetry tells you how you can rotate the system from one state to another.
In this case, by rotating it around the circle’s symmetry axis to change the angle of the arrow.
That might represent changing the state of a system over time…
Or it might mean translating from one point of view to another.
(Lay your phone on the table. If you want to change the direction of the arrow, you can either rotate your phone—or you can get up and move around the table and rotate your own point of view… The two are equivalent.)
And that’s basically a simple version of modern field theory!
It’s all phase rotations and symmetry.
The spaces that get rotated are more complex than circles and spheres in three-dimensional space…
But it’s the same basic idea.
Just imagine that any time the phase arrow points to the left, it represents a particular particle with certain properties…
And anytime the phase arrow points to the right, it represent a different particle with different properties…
Well, the symmetry tells you the relationship between the two.
How to transform one into the other—and thus, how the “particles interact.”
The “forces of nature” aren’t forces at all.
They’re rules to transform certain states and properties into other states and properties…
Whether that means the states of particles, or the state and structure of spacetime itself!
And the reason we have four fundamental forces—four separate symmetries—is just because we haven’t been able to figure out how to connect them yet!
Electricity and magnetism used to be separate too.
But we discovered the symmetry that “unifies” them…
Revealed that they were really just two ways of looking at the same thing!
And so now you should know what it means when you hear the term “unified field theory.”
Because the belief is that there’s probably only one fundamental symmetry.
And the four separate symmetries we have now, aren’t really separate…
Any more than electricity and magnetism were.
So, now that the essential idea is in place…
Go back to the spiritual concept of a vibrating frequency realm…
Except forget about “energy” and “higher and lower vibrations.”
Reality is way too beautiful for such a crude, one-dimensional model.
Drop all that crap, until only the sentiment remains.
Visualize the ripples and waves and patterns traveling across the surface of a lake…
Rotating phase angles that change and intersect and interact.
Or better yet, think about music…
Ripples and waves and patterns traveling through the air.
Well, that’s what the universe is.
And that’s what YOU are.
Ripples and waves and patterns in the fabric of reality itself.
Different “particles”—different patterns.
Different “properties”—different patterns.
Different forms and movements and vibrations—different patterns.
And “physics” is about the symmetry that connects it all.
The underlying alchemy that transforms anything into anything else…
Any point of view into any other…
Physics isn’t about the attractive and repulsive forces that we experience in everyday life…
It’s about the unity that lies beneath.
Sooner or later, we’ll figure it out.
We’ll all be speaking the same language.
And we’ll finally be able to see the universe—and everything in it—for what it actually is…
One song.
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In any case, thanks so much for stopping by! – \m/ – Z
About Zach Herbert
I teach people to do cool things with their consciousness, and break their brains with beautiful ideas.
Professional heretic. Unlikely mystic. Host to rebels, misfits and independent thinkers.
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Tracey says
This is very interesting but if the law of attraction is rubbish, do we have any way of affecting the circumstances of our life?
Zach Herbert says
Well, as written, the Law of Attraction is certainly rubbish. Despite all the hand waving and misunderstood references to quantum physics, it’s really no more substantial than believing in tossing a penny in a wishing well, or blowing out birthday candles! Maybe those things work.. maybe they don’t. But there’s certainly no scientific backing for any of it!
Having said that, consciousness is just as much a part of the fabric of reality as everything else. So there’s every reason to expect that consciousness has SOME impact on the world around us! The questions ultimately become: in what way? and to what degree?
My personal approach to all that is that it never HURTS to do visualizations and think positively and all that. But that should never be ALL we do… Work hard. Take steps in the real world. Plan and strategize and use every resource at your disposal to achieve your goals. Then add the positive thinking stuff on top! If it somehow skews the odds in your favor, that’s great! If all it does is improve your mindset and keep your momentum forward while you work… well, that’s great too!
But there’s NO scenario where it’s a good idea to just sit back and wish. And hope that the universe will magically do all the work for us!
Violet says
Wow, cool explanation! The Unity That Lies Beneath. A good title that, for a film or song, perhaps. I think that when we can fully identify with that unity, the pregnant Void, so to speak, then life can be experienced from wherever you focus , wherever you point the arrow, like a pin wheel stopping after a spin, with each section expressing its own ‘truths’ about experience. For me, at this stage in understanding, or ‘truth’, my greatest desire is surrendering into that place of possibility, without being driven by agenda, need or preconceptions about what life should be, (which seems super hard in this part of the pin wheel we are currently sharing), so that at this kind of still point, the point of empty potential, I can know that unity intimately.
David says
Great lesson.
When will there be a meetup? Preferably here in LA? 😉
Brixton says
Great article! I’m wondering if you’re using it as a primer for string theory or whether you eschew string theory? The way I look at it, string theory is the (complex and not well understood) scientific theory that underlies societal beliefs as far ranging as the butterfly effect (popular usage outside tested chaos theory) Catholocism’s communion of saints, the Jewish law of attraction and even that kickass tree of souls in Avatar.
I also love what you say in your response to Trace — important message. Thank you.