We entered the realm of quantum ideas by way of something seemingly mundane to the modern world, which was a fascination with why objects glowed different colors when heated. But, back when philosophy and spirituality were still tied directly to science, the study of color and light was considered a way of tapping into the Almighty’s mind.

By 700 B.C.E., the ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, and Assyrians had all contributed significant treatises on the topic. Later, the Romans and Greeks added their ideas, and the math to back them up, to what would eventually split off as a whole branch of physics called optics. In the Middle Ages, the Islamic philosopher and polymath, Al-Kindi, and later, the Christian experimenter Roger Bacon began to apply empirical method to the study. But, each text from these early scientists was also slanted to reconcile their findings with their spiritual beliefs.

By the 1700s, observation based on experimentation had begun to replace many mythical undertones, but the controversy over the origins and meanings of light and color was brought to its spiritual zenith in a public clash of titans between Newton and Goethe. As much as either of them were desperately trying to lift the heavy hand of the Church from the throats of science explorers, they were both products of their beliefs – Newton as an alchemist, and Goethe as a philosopher. Both wrote more on theology than on science.

And, this was the foundation from which Einstein and his peers emerged to conjure the revolutionary theories that started the early 20^th century with such radical ideas that they could hardly be believed. In fact, that’s why Einstein didn’t receive a Nobel Prize for E=mc2. The scientific community was so stunned by the implications of it, and how it brought a touch of anarchy to their belief systems, that they chose to wait and see if it panned out before jumping on the bandwagon of its truth.

However, Einstein’s other revelations were well received, especially his ideas on the age-old question of why objects glowed different colors when heated. About thirty years prior to Einstein’s publications, Heinrich Hertz was the first to observe the threshold frequencies different objects exhibited when struck by a powerful beam of light. In essence, he found what made them glow different colors when heated. But, he couldn’t explain why low frequencies of light didn’t have the same effect. In other words, no one knew why something could feel hot and not look hot.

Enter Einstein. Building on Max Planck’s theory of blackbody radiation, he developed the mathematical underpinnings to answer the last part in this ancient question. For this, what had been known as the Hertz Effect, was renamed the Photoelectric Effect, and Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize for it several years after other folks conducted the experiments which proved it to be true.

These equations are still used daily by the astronomical communities to peer into the heavens and make sense of the data gathered. They are also what determines all the beautiful color to the rendered, and amazing pictures taken by the Hubble Telescope.

More importantly, these equations firmly established the idea of light as a particle, namely a photon. That is something Newton and others had tried to do, but could not produce the experimental evidence necessary to bump the wave theory of light from its supreme reign.

What Einstein did was bring us full circle. In the last fifty or sixty years, we have become more at ease with the wholistic notion that light is both a particle and wave. We’ve also come to embrace that light will show itself as either, depending on how we set up the experiment. In other words, we are participants in how things manifest.

The word quantum originally referred to discreet packets of energy, and was applied as a description of how light, as a photon, actually traveled and interacted with matter. Today, it has taken on an entirely different meaning as an all-interconnected realm of possibility.

So, no matter what mathematical or experimental advancements we have made, we have never left the mystical undertones that follow the investigation of light and what it really is, what it represents, and how it interacts with everything.

For further reading, see theses articles from The Sage Age – Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom

Einstein and His Famous Equation
Quantum – What Does it Mean?
Coming to Terms with Light
Dancing to the Same Score – The Particle/Wave Duality of Light

Some succeeded at this task more than others. When the author did find just the right analogy to convey the main point, it became a beautiful passage of words to highlight in yellow.

But, what I found glaringly missing from most of these books was a sufficient nod to the underlying philosophical principles behind the topics. Perhaps that’s because the masses, to whom these books are targeted, find philosophy either boring or too legalistic in nature.

Philosophy is the single most critical element in having any true understanding of the Shift we are currently experiencing. As Billy Joel sang, “We didn’t start the fire.” We didn’t get to where we are from a vacuum. With all of the attention being given right now to minding our mind and being more aware of our thoughts, it’s important to recognize that our thoughts become our beliefs that become our philosophy that shifts our culture and creates the world we live in.

At this moment, there are two main philosophical paradigms vying for dominance as the basis of reality. The first is material realism and the second is consciousness. Both have existed for thousands of years and have traded places over and over again throughout our history as the accepted theory.

The coup being waged now by the consciousness adherents, who see both matter and energy as an epiphenomenon of a wholistic something, is to overthrow the hardcore material realists, who see nature as a machine that they can bend to their greedy will regardless of consequence.

While both philosophies endeavor to vault humans to a central platform of being far more than just voyeurs in the universe, the pop culture currently co-opting the consciousness philosophy espouses that we are critically important co-creators of “All That Is.” That has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry of self-help instruction aimed at creating a self-regulation regiment that will restore Eden on Earth.

But, there’s a real danger in going overboard with that idea. The philosophy of material realism last came into prominence in the West during the Protestant Reformation, which was a revolt against science based on a moral code and idealism. Because it had gone unchecked and unbalanced for so long, the consciousness-type philosophy led to beliefs based on superstition and outright myth.

Now that a consciousness-type philosophy is attempting to rise again, it is serving the beneficial purpose of balancing material realism that is out of control. It is showing that the current way is aggressive, invasive, and destructive to the point of annihilation if it is not constrained.

There is another philosophy that can mediate this balancing act. It’s called existentialism. What most folks know of existentialism is either the famous quote from Nietzsche, “God is dead” or the neurotic parodies of Woody Allen on Nietzsche’s Being and Nothingness. In fact, if it had not been for the enduring quality of Allen’s work, existentialism may have phased out quickly as just another pop culture fad.

But there’s far more to existentialism than that. The focus is still on the human element, but it does help place humanity in its proper position with regard to the whole by leaving a little room for the great mystery of existence in general.

One of the best descriptions I’ve found of existentialism comes from The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which states:

“On the existential view, to understand what a human being is it is not enough to know all the truths that natural science—including the science of psychology—could tell us. The dualist who holds that human beings are composed of independent substances—“mind” and “body”—is no better off in this regard than is the physicalist, who holds that human existence can be adequately explained in terms of the fundamental physical constituents of the universe. Existentialism does not deny the validity of the basic categories of physics, biology, psychology, and the other sciences (categories such as matter, causality, force, function, organism, development, motivation, and so on). It claims only that human beings cannot be fully understood in terms of them. Nor can such an understanding be gained by supplementing our scientific picture with a moral one. Categories of moral theory such as intention, blame, responsibility, character, duty, virtue, and the like do capture important aspects of the human condition, but neither moral thinking (governed by the norms of the good and the right) nor scientific thinking (governed by the norm of truth) suffices.”

It’s good to learn all we can from science and morality. It’s better to hone both ways of knowing in order to have a full understanding of either. It’s best to balance the head and heart equally. When we, as individuals, learn how to do that, the culture will reflect it and balance itself out too. Perhaps then we will be in a position to move beyond this dualistic pendulum swinging between two philosophies and find a new way forward together.