Everything Is Connected

The left brain has the nasty habit of putting a label on everything. This labeling tends to separate each labeled item from every other. The net effect is that we perceive the world as a collection of separated objects. But this may not be the correct view. In reality, everything may be part of a unified whole. Here are three topics that support the idea of universal connectivity at three different levels: macro, subatomic, and mental.

Action at a Distance

When Newton proposed the law of gravitational attraction, he raised the paradox of action at a distance. If you recall, the force of attraction between two bodies is directly proportional to the product of the two masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between the two bodies. Despite the fact that the two bodies may be separated by thousands of miles of empty space, the two bodies still influence each other. What's going on? How can this happen when they are not in contact with each other? It would appear that somehow the two bodies are connected by something. But what?

Field theory is one attempt at explaining how bodies can interact without being in contact with each other. The idea is that a gravitational field exists between the two bodies and that field is what connects the two bodies. To me, field theory doesn't explain anything. It's a cop out because it creates a new set of words to try to explain action at a distance. Field theory is simply a metaphor that helps us visualize action at a distance, but it does not really get to the root of the paradox, the paradox being how can one body influence another when there is no physical contact between them.

One thing is sure. Something is connecting all bodies with mass. But what?

Bell's Theorem

The EPR effect, named for Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen, is very curious and unexplainable with the current scientific models. If two subatomic particles have interacted in the past, they will continue to influence each other in the future. They can be separated by light years and still changes in one will instantaneously produce changes in the other. John S. Bell formalized the EPR effect as Bell's theorem. This theorem has been experimentally verified and has been expanded by David Bohm who sees the entire universe as a "single structure of indivisible links". In other words, everything is connected.

Something is connecting all subatomic particles. But what?

The 100th Monkey Effect

Rupert Sheldrake, a British biologist, was observing a colony of monkeys on a Japanese island. For years, the monkeys could not eat the plentiful sweet potatoes on the island because they were covered with sand. Then, a young female monkey named Imo made a breakthrough discovery. She carried her sweet potatoes to a stream and washed them. Imo taught this behavior to her parents, who taught their relatives over the next few weeks. After about a month, approximately 100 monkeys had learned this behavior. Then, something very unusual happened. It seemed as though a critical mass had been reached with the 100th monkey. Almost immediately, every monkey in the colony was washing sweet potatoes in water. And almost as suddenly, every monkey on nearby islands and on the mainland began doing the same thing.

The monkeys appear to have been somehow mentally connected by a common pool of knowledge and learning. What applies to monkeys probably applies to human beings as well: we may all be connected. The idea is not new. Great thinkers from Plato to Jung have echoed the idea that all of us are connected at some level of consciousness.

Something is connecting our minds. But what?

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