The Biology of Belief - Bruce H. Lipton [41]
In retrospect, it should have been obvious to me and to other biologists that Newtonian physics, as elegant and reassuring as it is to hyper-rational scientists, cannot offer the whole truth about the human body, let alone the universe. Medical science keeps advancing, but living organisms stubbornly refuse to be quantified. Discovery after discovery about the mechanics of chemical signals, including hormones, cytokines (hormones that control the immune system), growth factors, and tumor suppressors, cannot explain paranormal phenomena. Spontaneous healings, psychic phenomena, amazing feats of strength and endurance, the ability to walk across hot coals without getting burned, acupuncture’s ability to diminish pain by moving “chi” around the body, and many other paranormal phenomena defy Newtonian biology.
Of course, I considered none of that when I was on medical school faculties. My colleagues and I trained our students to disregard the healing claims attributed to acupuncture, chiropractic, massage therapy, prayer, etc. In fact, we went further. We denounced these practices as the rhetoric of charlatans because we were tethered to a belief in old-style, Newtonian physics. The healing modalities I just mentioned are all based on the belief that energy fields are influential in controlling our physiology and our health.
The Illusion of Matter
Once I finally grappled with quantum physics, I realized that when we so cavalierly dismissed those energy-based practices, we were acting as myopically as the chairman of the physics department at Harvard University, who, as described in The Dancing Wu Li Masters by Gary Zukav, warned students in 1893 that there was no need for new Ph.D.’s in physics. (Zukav 1979) He boasted that science had established that the universe is a “matter machine” made up of physical, individual atoms that fully obey the laws of Newtonian mechanics. For physicists, the only work left was to refine its measurements.
Three short years later, the notion that the atom was the smallest particle in the universe fell by the wayside with the discovery that the atom itself is made up of even smaller, subatomic elements. Even more earth-shattering than the discovery of those subatomic particles was the revelation that atoms emit various “strange energies” such as x-rays and radioactivity. At the turn of the twentieth century, a new breed of physicist evolved whose mission was to probe the relationship between energy and the structure of matter. Within another ten years, physicists abandoned their belief in a Newtonian, material universe because they had come to realize that the universe is not made of matter suspended in empty space but energy.
Quantum physicists discovered that physical atoms are made up of vortices of energy that are constantly spinning and vibrating; each atom is like a wobbly spinning top that radiates energy. Because each atom has its own specific energy signature (wobble), assemblies of atoms (molecules) collectively radiate their own identifying energy patterns. So every material structure in the universe, including you and me, radiates a unique energy signature.
If it were theoretically possible to observe the composition of an actual atom with a microscope, what would we see? Imagine a swirling dust devil cutting across the desert’s floor. Now remove the sand and dirt from the funnel cloud. What you have left is an invisible, tornado-like vortex. A number of infinitesimally small, dust devil–like energy vortices called quarks and photons collectively make up the structure of the atom. From far away, the atom would likely appear as a blurry sphere. As its structure came nearer to focus, the atom would become less clear and less distinct. As the surface of the atom drew near, it would disappear. You would see nothing. In fact, as you focused through the entire structure of the atom, all you would observe