Elusive Consciousness

Author(s): Narendra Bhandari, Surendrasingh Pokharana, Jitendra B Shah
Publisher: L D Indology Ahmedabad

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up, or essentially what an observer wants to observe. Each experiment, thus, gives only a partial view and all views taken together take us nearer to the real nature of the particle.
3.2 Gross and subatomic worlds:
Quantum physics divides the universe into two parts, the gross (macro) and subtle "micro". The macro world (galaxies, planets, rocks, dust and the objects that can be seen with unaided eyes) are governed by laws of classical physics. Micro-world (atoms, elementary particles etc that cannot be seen without employing a magnifying device (such as an electron microscope ) are governed by the laws of quantum mechanics. The laws of classical and quantum mechanics are quite different. The gross matter has only a limited number of properties. For example, things we see around in daily life exhibit only a few properties like weight, volume and shape. Even though the gross matter is made of protons, neutrons, electrons etc, their existence cannot be perceived directly. As we closely examine these subtle entities of matter constituting the micro- world, they exhibit additional properties, such as electric charge, magnetic moment, wave-particle duality etc. The essence of this discussion is that in the domain of elementary particles, as one goes to finer and finer constituents of matter (from atoms, to protons, to quarks, and so on), it exhibits increasingly newer and more complex properties or attributes (quantum states). It is difficult to perceive all of these attributes at any given instant in gross matter, although they coexist all the time. It is not possible to comprehend or quantify all these states at all times, because they manifest differently at different times under different situations. This is the true nature of reality. According to Jain concept of matter, as we go down in size, paramanu', the smallest particle of matter ( which is not the same as an "atom" in modern physics), may have infinite attributes that are impossible to comprehend. This is neither a limitation of the instruments (or the technique employed for measurement) nor a limitation of the experimental prowess or analytical ability of the observer (consciousness), but is due to the inherent nature of things which prevents them to exhibit all their properties simultaneously at any given instant of time. Understanding the true nature of an entity requires consideration of all of its attributes that represent the manifold aspects of its existence (paryaya) for a complete description.
A recent development in this context is the Orch-OR theory of Hameroff and Penrose (2014) where they put forward an idea that nature is neither deterministic
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