Alice and Bob: Dialogue 4 - Quantum Physics and All-encompassing Consciousness - Spiritual Enrichment Through New Insights -

What the Nobel laureate de Broglie described as the vast and grandiose edifice of classical physics being shaken to its very foundations was not greeted with fanfare. Only slowly and very cau-tiously was it integrated into scientific thinking - boldly by those whose careers could not be jeop-ardized any more, cautiously - if at all - by those who still had to make a name for themselves. The public at large, the political and journalistic com-munities prefer to keep all this at arm´s length - lest there is some success in quantum computing or quantum satellites because they refuse to acknowledge incredible or inexplicable things even if there is empirical evidence.The dialogues between Alice and Bob explain this development in the natural sciences and in ontolo-gy. Significant parts of Newtonian physics had to give way to the theory of relativity, with fundamen-tal consequences.Alice and Bob endeavour to explain this develop-ment to the readers in these dialogues which do not requi re any special scientific knowledge. The names Alice and Bob keep occurring in the litera-ture about quantum physics - as two elementary particles which are interlinked whatever their place and distance from one another may be, or, occa-sionally, as two lab students who observe their "personal" particles. Within this series of booklets they observe what happens in far more compre-hensive dimensions.In their first dialogue1, Alice and Bob had estab-lished that there was a sort of rapprochement be-tween materialistic science and immaterial insights; many things cannot be explained by human rea-soning, but exist nevertheless. These include su-perposition, where quantum elements may simul-taneously assume contradictory properties, and instantaneous action at a distance, where so-called entangled quanta transmit information without any loss of time and irrespective of the distance. Other such example are the so-called uncertainty principle, the existence of absolute randomness where ca use equals effect and the significance of consciousness existing, at least, in anything organ-ic.The second dialogue2 elaborated on arguments and convictions which cause people to doubt that there is an immaterial world who therefore rule out any existence of a higher intelligence. Richard Dawkins´ theses were Alice´s and Bob´s main sub-jects.The third volume3 eventually discussed questions of faith and the purpose of life. Alice and Bob also included metaphysical and mystic hypotheses in their dialogues wherever traditional natural sci-ences cannot provide answers.The subject of this fourth dialogue is the question of consciousness in, and perhaps even beyond, anything organic, sparked by quantum physics. Although this seems to have great potential in terms of a beneficial change in being and in the interaction between anything, at least, organic, the empirical world is largely continuing its slumber. Alice and Bob refute this. They first discuss the consciousness of plants and a nimals and its effect on humans up to the cellular level and, eventually, the network of consciousness up to global and cosmic dimensions.The underlying, more recent literature begins with the research of the internationally renowned poly-graph expert Cleve Backster. Polygraphs are appa-ratus for recording physiological indicators and are also colloquially called lie detectors.4 Alice and Bob refer to globally available books by Peter Tomp-kins, Christopher Bird and Robert B. Stone, and the most recent literature. For the sake of simplicity, only the short titles of these sources are cited in the text.