Thu 22 Mar 2007
The Secret: Is there a quantum physicist in the house?
Posted by Darren under Faith , New Age , Popular Culture , Science , Spiritual Realm , Superstition
Today I started reading The Secret, and came across the following quote:
Quantum physicists tell us the Universe emerged from thought! (Page 15)
I admit my knowledge of quantum physics is sorely lacking … is this statement accurate? If so, what exactly does it mean? I know what it means in "The Secret" context, but what does it mean in the world of quantum physics (if anything)? (I'm not trying to be a smart-ass by the way, this is a serious question!)
I'll post some thoughts on the content of The Secret as I get farther in the book. For those who haven't heard of the book, it's basically the best-selling New Age repackaging of the 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking. Available via Amazon, eBook version from eBooks.com (this is the version I got) or your local bookseller. I'm reading it because I'm writing one of my research papers on it. My initial impression is that the power of positive thinking stuff is generally good, but the "thought magnet" stuff and the implication that thoughts create reality is simply unnecessary at best. [Edit: As I read further into the book, I'm becoming more increasingly concerned. I think this book could actually be harmful.]
5 Responses to “The Secret: Is there a quantum physicist in the house?”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
April 22nd, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Try it before you judge it. Its real and its fantastic! Have a nice life. RJ
May 20th, 2007 at 10:46 am
That quote is, at best, a personal opinion. Short of getting into a detailed and technical discussion of how the "universe" (by which I take it they mean the observable universe) got here, suffice it to say no one really knows. There are some theories, primarily based on string theory, that attempt to explain it, but even the best are unsatisfactory at the level that quote implies. (By observable, I mean anything we can receive light from, and hence, hope to "see" in any sense.) While someone who researches quantum physics my have made that statement, it is, in my opinion as a professional astrophysicist and cosmologist, completely unscientific.
May 25th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Thank you CMH! One problem with (as a layman) trying to determine who's telling the truth with regards to this sort of statement is that there's so much junk pseudoscience out there (especially on the Internet) masquerading as real quantum physics that's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff! The words "quantum physics" have unfortunately almost become interchangeable with the word "magic" in popular thought. I appreciate you taking the time to clear this matter up.
May 27th, 2007 at 6:28 pm
"The universe emerged from thought"–I don't think that's what quantum physics is actually saying, but having just read Decoding the Universe, I have an idea where the thought comes from. The idea is that information is at the heart of reality, to an extent that has not been previously recognized. You can run wherever you want to with that, I suppose. But if you go where The Secret has apparently gone, you've left science behind and moved on to something entirely different.
I haven't read The Secret, but based on what I've heard about it, it's pretty wacky stuff, and not exactly endorsed by hard science. Nor by Biblical Christianity.
February 13th, 2012 at 2:14 am
Even I got confused reading the statement in 'the secret'-"quantum physics tell us that the entire universe emerged from thought".