Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

HOW SCIENCE CAN HELP US LIVE IN PEACE

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

HOW SCIENCE CAN HELP US LIVE IN PEACE

DARWIN, EINSTEIN, WHITEHEAD

MARKOLF H. NIEMZ

TRANSLATED BY JAMES D. DUNN

Universal-Publishers Irvine • Boca Raton

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

How Science Can Help Us Live In Peace: Darwin, Einstein, Whitehead

Copyright © 2018 Markolf H. Niemz. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the

prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other

noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Universal Publishers, Inc. Irvine, California & Boca Raton, Florida • USA

www.Universal-Publishers.com 2018

978-1-62734-247-6 (pbk.) 978-1-62734-248-3 (ebk.)

Cover design by Ivan Popov.

Whitehead image on cover cropped from 'Alfred North White-head. Photograph.' . Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY

Publisher's Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Niemz, Markolf H., 1964- author. | Dunn, James D., translator. Title: How science can help us live in peace : Darwin, Ein-

stein, Whitehead / Markolf H. Niemz ; [translated by] James D. Dunn.

Description: Irvine, CA : Universal Publishers, 2018. Identifiers: LCCN 2018938427 | ISBN 978-1-62734-247-6

(pbk.) | ISBN 978-1-62734-248-3 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882. | Einstein, Albert, 1879-1955. | Whitehead, Alfred North, 1861-1947. | Dualism. | Philosophy and science. | Reality--Philosophy. | Knowledge, Theory of. | BISAC: SCIENCE / Philosophy & Social Aspects. Classification: LCC Q175 .N54 2018 (print) | LCC Q175

(ebook) | DDC 501--dc23.

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

5

The Big Picture

5

Contents The Big Picture 9 Self-Delusion 19

Interhuman Self-Delusion 21 Economic Self-Delusion 24 Political Self-Delusion 28 Religious Self-Delusion 32 Mistaken Reality 41

Two or Not Two? 43 Shankara’s Rope 48 Darwin’s Finches 50 Einstein’s Spacetime 57 Whitehead’s Processes 69 Mistaken Light 81

Wave or Particle? 82 Diary of God’s Creation 84 Light’s Perspective 88 The Searchlight Effect 96 “I Am the Light of the World.” 106

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

6

The Big Picture

6

Mistaken Freedom 115

Free or Not Free? 116 Spatial Degrees of Freedom 117 Temporal Degrees of Freedom 120 The Free Will 124 Freedom and God 134 Mistaken Happiness 143

Having Luck or Being Happy? 144 Neural Messengers of Happiness 148 Being Happy Through Mindfulness 155 Being Happy Through Humility 163 The Appeal by the 14th Dalai Lama 168 Awakening to a New Self-Awareness 175

The Personal Self 177 The Verbal Self 183 The Cosmic Self 188 “It’s Living Us.” 198 Talk with the Author 205 Comments by James David Dunn 213 10th Anniversary Lucy’s Children Foundation 217 Notes 222 Picture Credits 235 Contact the Author 238

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

7

The Big Picture

7

to us all

There’s a perspective from which reality does not

split into space and time.

From this perspective, nothing separates you from me

and nothing separates life from death.

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

8

The Big Picture

8

What fool takes a selfie in view of this beauty?

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

9

The Big Picture

WELCOME TO AN UNUSUAL VIEW OF LIFE AND THE COSMOS!

There’s no holding back. I’ll get right to it. This book is devoted to the most vital core of life and health of humani-ty. What would a doctor from a distant galaxy say to us if we asked him for his medical opinion? To cut it short, with-out hesitation his diagnosis would be self-delusion!

Whoever suffers from delusion believes something that does not correspond to reality. Undaunted, he clings to his delusion although it would never withstand critical scrutiny as it handicaps and blunts each day of his life. Paranoia and megalomania are just two examples of delusions. Someone who suffers from paranoia feels that he or she is always being observed or followed—perhaps by extra-terrestrials or foreign agents. A sufferer of megalomania might feel equal to a super hero who is far better than anyone else. Psychia-trists define a delusion to be a “chronic thought disorder” whereby the patient is not aware that his or her grasp of reality deviates from “normality”.

But what would it mean if “normality” does not match reality—if we assume that the “normal” thinking of the self as an individual is false? The Latin word individuum literal-ly means “inseparable”. It represents the smallest element of a group (like society), that is indivisible and stands alone

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

10

from all of the other elements. It is certainly true that we see ourselves as the smallest elements of humanity—but do we also stand alone from each other? This might be true physi-cally, but all that we feel, think and do is deeply influenced by the world around us and more profoundly than we can ever imagine—by others. Whoever believes that it is possi-ble to stand apart from the world and not give it notice or any consideration, has a self-conception that is widely sepa-rated from reality. He or she suffers from self-delusion! And that shall precisely be the hypothesis we will work with in this book:

The concept of the self as an individual is false and today’s greatest obstacle standing in the way of peace.

This hypothesis didn’t just fall out of the sky. No one comes into this world with the idea that he or she is an indi-vidual. Our two sons have taught me that “the self” can be a long and time-intensive experience at times. As soon as children learn their first words, they speak of themselves in the third person. Only after they see themselves in the mir-ror and begin to discover their own bodies, they eventually develop the idea of their self. This self is not fixed in stone as many people presume. We grow up and live in a world that has an enormous influence on everything that we feel, think and do—and it is always changing! Parents, teachers, friends and our fellow man affect our actions. So, isn’t it grossly incorrect to see one’s self as an individual?

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

11

My hypothesis has far-reaching consequences for both justice and human accountability: If we aren’t individuals in this world, we can’t be individually responsible for any of our actions. Yet we’re jumping to the wrong conclusion if we say that everyone may do whatever they want. A crime is always a crime. But culprits are never solely responsible for what they do—the environment shares a part as well. No one is an island; no one is good or bad alone. Whoever de-mands justice must never take their eyes off the big picture for which we have a common responsibility.

So what is “the big picture”? It is our world—reality— and often far different than we imagine. The Greek philoso-pher Plato described this 2500 years ago: His cave parable1 tells us that humanity seems trapped in a cave and can’t see the way out which is hidden by a stone. It illustrates how our view of reality is distorted (see figure 1). As long as we are not able to change the way we see things, we will think dancing shadows are reality. Only after exiting the cave will we experience reality. Fig. 1: Plato’s cave

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

12

So, let’s take a look at reality as our next topic and put the self aside for now. As a physicist, I hope to shed some light on the darkness out there. The modern view of our world is strongly influenced by science which quickly runs into trouble whenever it attempts to reduce reality into any direct observation—its primary source of knowledge. Scien-tific advancement always requires a sound intuitive base to rely upon. Without it, even dedicated scientists must con-stantly grope in the dark. Many of the most brilliant physi-cists have contributed to quantum theory, a description of the microcosm. We owe a great debt of gratitude to the intu-ition of Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Werner Heisenberg and Erwin Schroedinger because we can picture a quantum world today even though the pictures are still blurred.

Pictures are useful, but they often conceal a great dan-ger: If we are looking for the truth that lies within them, they can lead us down the wrong path. The authors of holy scriptures were well aware of this when they warned us not to make images or pictures of God. Pictures are incomplete and hide the reality that lies within them. Just for example, what do you see in figure 2? Fig. 2: What do you see here?

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

13

Nine out of ten readers would tell me that they see a sunset over the ocean in figure 2. But any picture is only a snapshot of an instant in time. There is no motion of time in it like in a movie. Figure 2 shows in reality a sunrise and not a sunset!

The light of the sun provides us with all the energy necessary for life, so light is an ingredient to reality. One of the greatest mysteries in physics has always been involved with the nature of light. What is light? No one has ever been able to answer this question conclusively. Albert Einstein once said: “Fifty years of intensive thought haven’t brought me any closer to the answer of the question ‘What are light quanta?’ Of course today every poor fellow thinks he knows the answer, but he’s only deceiving himself.”2

I learned in school that light was sometimes a particle or sometimes a wave, according to which experiment we try. But they both can’t be light at the same time. Particles are always spatially localized, while waves are not. Particles and waves are only pictures that we use to help us under-stand light, yet pictures don’t match reality. I think I know why mankind will never understand what light really is: Light is always a step ahead of us. It moves at the speed of light which we human beings can never reach because we are bound by our mass. How could we understand some-thing which is too fast to even get ahold of?

Light is a very good example that shows how easily we mistake reality if we dissect it microscopically. But this is precisely what is being practiced today almost everywhere in modern science. Particle physicists dissect atoms into “elementary particles” hoping someday to find a universal

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

14

“world formula” which can help them to better describe the world. They are pasting together a theory of everything3 feverishly, but an atom that has been dismantled loses its atomic characteristics and is no longer an atom! Molecular geneticists dissect complex forms of life into parts with the hope that they can someday get a closer look into the secret of life. They render a living thing into many parts and find genome after genome, but a dissected thing that was alive is no longer alive! Science is best suited to describe facts or processes in our world, yet it cannot explain why something is the way it is.

What can we learn from this? To get closer to the na-ture of reality, we can see that it doesn’t work to dissect it into pieces. Reality is a single totality which can only be understood as a whole. Even the thought of a world that I must face and choose to investigate would be fundamentally wrong. There is never a “world and me”, but at best a “world with me”. Nature is us! All suffering that we cause to her and all love that we give to her we do to ourselves. If we just think about it a little bit, we can see that reality is one big picture that can neither be dissected into two parts nor into seven billion “human individuals”.

We will apply this new view of reality to freedom and happiness in the chapters ahead. They stand very high on our list of values that help to give us meaning during the course of our lives. But it seems that we must still learn how to cope with them once they are granted to us. Very few people are aware of what true happiness is: to live! Not to mention freedom—who can really say that they live beyond all the temptations and hazards of life?

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

15

Freedom and happiness have much more to do with each other than we might first expect. We get an important clue from the English language: “Unfettered joy” comes to us not by chance. It is an old phrase from a treasure trove cherished from many generations of experience and shows us that happiness comes with being free from desires. Our will for possession and power always takes us in the wrong direction. Money generates more and more greed and never brings peace and happiness.

This is the common thread that runs through every page of my book: I question our concepts of the self, reality, light, freedom and happiness deeply. From all of this, a new self-awareness arises which we may awake to if we truly value ourselves. I won’t give anything away yet. I am going to share it with you. So be prepared to read something very inspiring peppered with food for thought!

I am happy that you have taken notice of my book and that you have permitted me to familiarize you with a very unusual view of life and the cosmos. It is your choice to decide how you will use the words that you will read. I do not intend to bring you around to my line of thinking or to change your views in any way. I want precisely the opposite thing from you: I expect you to question and scrutinize eve-rything that you will be reading in this book. Only in this way will it be possible for a world view to develop among us human beings—a world view that is whole and in unity with everything that we know about life and the cosmos.

Markolf H. Niemz

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

16

The Big Picture

16

Life is giving.

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

17

The Big Picture

17

Most of our institutions separate us: We have a currency that makes us compete with one another; we have countries that fight one another; even our religions separate us—from others and from God! All of this makes us believe that we could also shut ourselves off from nature. We fool ourselves into thinking that we could exploit her at our conven-ience. Nature wouldn’t be the same as us anyway. Gradually (and hopefully not too late) we’re learn-ing that we were wrong. Whatever we do to this wonderful planet, we do to ourselves. What can we do? We must wake up and change our self-awareness. As soon as we discover that we are one humanity that yearns to live in unity with nature, we will become mindful. We will dis-cover life again as a precious gift—a gift from the earth, from nature, to us. We are not here to take, but to give. Life is giving.

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

The Big Picture

18

The Big Picture

18

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Self-Delusion

19

Self-Delusion

SELF-DELUSION IS THE PRIMARY CAUSE OF ALL SOCIAL CONFLICTS.

A few years ago, British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins published a controversial book: The God Delu-sion.4 He treats religion as a profound psychiatric disorder that has inflicted many negative effects on modern society. Dawkins not only sees religion to be directly responsible for inciting fear and terror,5 but he also blames religion for the spiritual traumatization of children and youth in families who follow religious beliefs.6 No matter how disputed his points are, it is to Dawkins’ credit that he takes damage to our society seriously and that he looks for solutions.

But Dawkins as well as his critics are overlooking an important point: People, not religions, wage bloody “holy wars” and traumatize other people. Religions are not living beings that could take responsibility for anything. We alone are responsible for all misdeeds in our society. But who are we? Most of us view ourselves as persons—with bodies and minds—separated from others as we struggle through our lives. Today more and more people consider this life to be their one great chance to find and “to realize” themselves. This way of thinking gives rise to many questions: Who or what is the self? Isn’t it just the same thing as me? Could a self—if it were actually real—still realize itself?

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Self-Delusion

20

The main point of this book comes from my conviction that individuality has developed to such an inflated state that it is the primary cause of all conflicts our society suf-fers from today. I don’t mean “God delusion” like Dawkins, but self-delusion. People just can’t see things through the hearts and minds of their fellow man, nor does it seem that they have any interest in doing so. In almost every case, they focus on themselves at the expense of others. I separate self-delusion into four types and combinations:

– interhuman self-delusion, – economic self-delusion, – political self-delusion, – religious self-delusion.

Interhuman self-delusion is the cause of all suffering that human beings inflict on each other, and consequently it is the cause of the other three types of self-delusion as well. It has likely been inherited through evolution—from power struggles that we also see in the animal world. But there is one significant difference: Animals fight with each other for food and procreation. Food and procreation are vital for continuation of its own kind. When human beings face each other, there are almost always other predominant and self-serving factors at play: greed and power. Economic self-delusion comes from greed; political and religious self-delusion come from greed for power and control. In the pages ahead we will look at all four types of self-delusion, put a finger on the breeding grounds that cause them, and give each of them a specific name.

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Interhuman Self-Delusion

21

Interhuman Self-Delusion It’s easy to see that the role of the self—the ego—continues to expand. In earlier times the tribe or local community was still the center of life, but today, with few exceptions, it revolves around the individual, and this tendency continues to increase. Yet this tendency has its limits. We are bound by a finite space on this planet. We now face a very differ-ent world that had ever been before: Virtually in every sphere of our lives we are influenced by the presence of our fellow man. Throughout the day we have to consider views and opinions of people whom we know and whom we don’t know if we want to get along with others. Freedoms that we can give to each other must get smaller and smaller. Who-ever thinks that he or she can flourish freely as a member of a society without consideration or deference to its other members, destroys the very same society to which he or she belongs. It starts at the most basic level when two people are not in the position of appreciating each other’s point of view (see figure 3). They only see themselves and not the good things that a society can offer. Fig. 3: Interhuman self-delusion

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Self-Delusion

22

Where do we encounter interhuman self-delusion? It can spread wherever relationships among people exist: in a partnership, in the workplace, or in public life. It typically comes with physical or mental intimidation or force—for example, spousal violence or bullying at work. Whoever thinks that he or she is the sovereign judge in any situation, has the tendency to stifle others and consciously or uncon-sciously may wish to apply force. The fact that television industries broadcast their violent programs during the very best broadcast times is inconceivable to me—whoever is responsible must be suffering strongly from self-delusion. The same is true for the makers of computer games where violence is downplayed and young minds are consumed with the thrill of killing and spreading mayhem for joy. Our doctor from a distant galaxy would think we are mentally ill or deranged: We prefer entertaining ourselves with violence rather than promoting non-violence among all of us.

Where does interhuman self-delusion come from? The answer is overwhelmingly clear: It all starts with egotism. Egotistical behavior is inherent in all of us when we come into this world. Without a reasonable share of egotism, we would quickly lose our zest for living. But egotism becomes a destructive threat when it takes control and turns into an addiction. This addiction leads to interhuman self-delusion. It is tragic for affected people to have no idea that they are shooting themselves in the foot. They cannot fathom that they must rely on others and their environment.

How can we stop interhuman self-delusion? The best medicine is thorough general education for all of mankind. It’s really the key that we need to be able to get to the heart

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Interhuman Self-Delusion

23

of how complex things relate to each other. An ego that is constantly centered around itself will never understand the subtle interrelation that exists between itself and its envi-ronment. It will not see how its behavior changes its envi-ronment and how this environment reacts in turn to it.

But history teaches us that education alone is not suffi-cient to turn us into social beings. Understanding must be added—understanding that the concept of the self as an individual is just an illusion. How to acquire this under-standing? Well, for example, through books like this one! I make the proposal that every scholar be required to com-plete a project before graduation in which he has been act-ing positively on his environment and has experienced the feedback himself. It will be present all of his life. This pro-ject should be graded like major subjects. Today we often grade the performance of a scholar only—not his contribu-tion to the well-being of others. Performance-oriented edu-cation promotes egotism: Children are groomed to compete with each other instead of supporting one another.

These experiences continue to affect adults as they grow older. Whenever we learn in school that everything in life depends on asserting ourselves, we will do much the same thing in a partnership. Failure has already been pre-programmed in such a partnership. Partners who are serious about living together know that it’s not about asserting one-self, but it’s about discovering new freedoms together. The success recipe for a happy partnership between two human beings is simple: You must always value higher those things that you can achieve together than what either one of you can achieve alone! This is how to seize self-delusion.

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Self-Delusion

24

I don’t know how things are where you are, but I feel that our society today is colder and more anonymous than what it had been 20 years ago. I’m not alone in my beliefs. Many people share this experience. How can it be that the warmth between all of us continues to fade more and more by each day although we are all the more interconnected to each other with computers and mobile telephones? Do we still perceive each other with hearts and minds whenever we communicate on media like facebook or twitter? We face a clear and present danger, and the danger is ourselves: If we only care about ourselves, no one will care about us! Economic Self-Delusion The greatest challenge that we face in the struggle against self-delusion is that it is able to change its outward appear-ance. As it camouflages itself, it escapes the power and jurisdiction that we have over it. This activity strongly re-sembles a virus. Human control is very similar to an im-mune system and it is supposed to protect us from harmful influences. Whenever physical or mental force is prosecuted in many countries, self-delusion quietly spreads in econom-ics. Who of us is aware that stock-market reports brought to us in numerous news magazines are nothing more than sub-tle propaganda for economic self-delusion?

Shares and equities originally served to provide a cor-poration with fresh capital so that it could invest in its own infrastructure. But nowadays they have become juggling acts used for business speculation. In the markets money is used just like gambling in a casino. It does not make any difference anymore whether future investments are being

Unive

rsal

-Pub

lishe

rs.c

om

Economic Self-Delusion

25

put on the progress of companies (see figure 4), on foreign exchange rates of currencies, or on the price of rice in a foreign country. The last thing that speculative markets think about is that food might become unaffordable for mil-lions of people. Markets have no feelings. All that matters is that the achieved profit is as high as possible. Our world—a self-service outlet? Fig. 4: Economic self-delusion

To profit upon the misfortunes of others is one of the worst examples of economic self-delusion—and it is conta-gious. Countless advertisements flurry back and forth on the internet where people try to rip off their own (!) species. I am getting spam emails every day that guarantee a fortune or that ask me to match my bank account information. What kind of human beings are wasting their precious life time trying to exploit others?

Unfortunately, politicians are not immune to economic self-delusion either. Corruption is still the first order of the day in many countries. Hush money is never for the com-