Posts tagged reciprocality

A phase conjugate mirror is a nonlinear optical effect to precisely reverse the direction of propagation of each plane wave in an arbitrary beam of light, thereby causing the return beam to exactly retrace the path of the incident beam. This is called wavefront reversal and is similar to holography (wavefront reconstruction) but is dynamic and not static. Here is another way of thinking about such properties. Imagine you are holding an inexpensive laser pointer in your hand and were to point it at a phase conjugate mirror. No matter what angle you point the laser towards the mirror, the light will never reflect off of it at an incident angle. Instead it returns back to you or rather the laser. So in a way it will appear to be absorbed 100 percent by the mirror rather than reflected – though such is not the case. These techniques can be used to remove noise from within optical systems. There happens to be an area of advance study at DARPA (inventors of the Internet – sorry Mr. Vice President ) who are using it to create retro-reflectors for the purpose of invisibility cloaks. Did we just teleport away onto a Cleon Bird-of-Prey in the movie Star Trek? Perhaps so . . .
	In other areas of quantum coherence we come across peculiar things such as zero resistance in terms of friction as well as electrical transmission or conductance. With superfluidity, liquids lose their viscosity and actually flow up and over walls as illustrated in the image below. If the container to the left was not enclosed or self contained, all of the liquid would flow out of it!

These are some fun things about quantum coherence and of course when we deal with the quantum world we know that we are indeed dealing with awareness and the observer who is at least partly responsible for collapsing multiple superpositional states into one vector state. We are talking about a reciprocal relationship, in this case, where the relationship between two items is represented by paired or multiple linking fields in a related moment of record.

We see this effect in the case of Schrödinger’s cat.  We also see it happen, as illustrated in such a fun way by Dr. Quantum, in the mysterious double split experiment.

 

Make no mistake, some physicists do wonder about quantum dynamics at the macroscopic level for superpositional states, state vector collapse, where we fit in, and where we might find manifestations of quantum coherence at higher temperatures. Perhaps a non-local and non-temporal state offers conditions similar to extreme low temperatures and quantum coherency?

 

Deep Awareness

Being a contemplative and speculative person, I wonder what correlates might exist in the area of conscious awareness and quantum coherence.  Is there something at play where we might tune our awareness in a way analogous to temperatures approaching absolute zero? Might things such as group focus, chanting or unity prayer produce mysterious results in a coherent totality or sub-totality?

The Buddhist reference a state called Deep Awareness as a state of “untainted” omniscience mind.  Such a state might mirror the principles found in quantum coherence where magnetic flux and other noise is not tolerated by superconductive and superfluidic systems.  Indeed, within quantum coherent states any magnetic flux or increase in temperature becomes a vortex, barred from mixing with the uniform coherence that simply envelopes, out of contact, any such noise.  One has a sense here of stillness and perhaps that saying about still waters running deep bears a metaphor of truth.

Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “If you touch one thing with deep awareness, you touch everything.” That to me is the essence of quantum coherence as it might be applied to our conscious awareness and our reciprocal relationship with the world as a whole.

Deep awareness might be a conscious state of quantum coherence and as such lead to novel phenomena at the macroscopic level.  So it seems to me that we might have, within our power, the ability to approach our reciprocal relationship with the world from a state of coherence where we are able to move through events or moments that are free from disturbing influences, tribulations and turbulence.  In this state we find little resistance and a reflecting back of our own shinning light to us, its source, when it is mirrored in the external existence of our very own retro-reflector.

Perhaps then, we might each thrive with a more coherent state of mind. By doing so we would hold ourselves open to the universe and each other and allow for the movement of energy in more productive and meaningful ways.