QUOTE(paxx @ Oct 27 2007, 07:16 PM)
At this point Quantum theory will never become “law” it is already known to be wrong. But it is still one of the best tool boxes they have for this area of study.
The only three cool thing in Quantum that people can relate to magick
1. The possibility to be in multiple places at once. (a photon will traverse every possible solution of a maze at once to get to the other side)
2. Instant effect (beyond the speed of light). Partials will change instantly when their twin is changed.
3. The discovery that the observer can effect the results.
Now those three things are huge, but they are not the things usually brought up when connecting Magick and Science.
Science is now on the cusp of being able to create a pocket universe (a mini big bang so to speak), instead I am reading how opening my chakras or third eye will let me see or feel energy that is in different quantum dimensions (paraphrasing but I would not be surprised to see that in print).
The only good approaches to Science and Magick that come to mind are Peter Carroll’s and William A . Tiller. Carroll on the pure theory side does not make claims of anything justifying anything. William A Tiller takes a purely scientific approach to proving the most minute existence of magickal phenomena.
His books are not for the feint of heart, but they are what is needed to get a firmer grasp on the whys of Magick.
Do we need the whys? No not really, but we do if we want to use science to prove it exists.
Body and mind control is now accepted by the scientific community, why, because people can repeatedly do things like go to only theta waves at will (mental equivalent of stopping the heart) and then come back out, or show the full spectrum of brain waves at once. Or stopping the heart or slowing it down to almost stopping it.
What has that done? It has given medical researchers new tools, and added a ton of funding to the research of long term effects of specific meditations. It has opened holistic medical schools where traditional and non traditional treatments are taught and researched ultimately providing better care.
You are talking about various interpretations of quantum mechanics. The flaw with it is division of the microscopic world and the macroscopic world. When does one system cross over into another and how big is the observer affect. That is the only paradox. Considering things, it the most accurate model ,yet,. People just disagree in certain little things and various interpretations. If it just applies to the microscopic systems, then the affect itself may be negligible. I bolded an above statement of your's, which only applies to the microscopic or sub atomic world. They have to do with sub atomic interactions have to weak of a nuclear force violate conservation of parity and charge conjunction and other things around that area. The reason why quantum physics is stressed in the "magickal" community comes from the theme of magick is the art of changing reality with will. I am not going to go into those depths, but most magickal systems take the approach to reality being subjective. Quantum Mechanics has the same view, but is iffy on the depth of the affect. To be totally honest, I believe magick to be simply a different paradigm to psychokinesis playing with probability. By the way, the instant affect thing plays into locality and non locality, meaning that something can be transported instantly to its location without a medium or such things as time and other varibales playing into it. Also, that pretty much states that such information can be exchanged between to exact particles at the same time, meaning if one changed, the other did to. That, however, has not been tested.
QUOTE
It is interesting to note that light and other electromagnetic effects were also once thought to be transmitted instantaneously, until observational evidence proved otherwise. The hypothesis that nonlocal connections are absolutely instantaneous is impossible to verify, as it would require two perfectly simultaneous measurements, which would demand an infinite degree of accuracy. However, as David Bohm and Basil Hiley (1993, pp. 293-4, 347) have pointed out, it could be experimentally falsified. For if nonlocal connections are propagated not at infinite speeds but at speeds greater than that of light through a "quantum ether" -- a subquantum domain where current quantum theory and relativity theory break down -- then the correlations predicted by quantum theory would vanish if measurements were made in periods shorter than those required for the transmission of quantum connections between particles. Such experiments are beyond the capabilities of present technology but might be possible in the future. If superluminal interactions exist, they would be "nonlocal" only in the sense of nonphysical.
If you study magick and psychology, you will know that the belief, or whatever you want to call it, allows for the mind to accept the possibility for such things happening. You can argue that this paradigm allows one to tap into whatever facilities are necessary for a controlled affect on reality on whatever scale. So the belief is what does it, not the understanding of said mechanics. I used to study magick very in depth, but then I realized I did not need it. I can accomplish the same thing someone else can just by using my mind.