Quantum Non-locality and Spirituality
By Victor Sinow
Bi-smi llāhi r-raḥmāni r-raḥīm.
Greetings of peace and wishes of abundance with the coming of the Spring season! In this edition of “Science and Spirituality,” let us discuss the heart connection that is central to our Sufi path and practice.
Under the guidance of Shah Nazar Seyyed Dr. Ali Kianfar and Seyyedeh Dr. Nahid Angha, students in their Tariqa are taught the essential nature of a heart-based connection with a true teacher. As Dr. Kianfar revealed when speaking about Surah 9 of the holy Quran, “the student, the teacher, and God – this relationship should be a straight line. You see nothing but the One. The idea is understanding the reality of Oneness. So when we speak about a teacher, we speak not about the teacher that your mind chooses, rather, it is that teacher that comes by the light to your heart.” Connected in this way, without regard for physical distance, a teacher sustains and nourishes a seeker on the path of self-realization and self-purification. Indeed, in the Uwaisi tradition, place is no barrier to a true heart-based connection either, as shown in the direct transmission of spiritual enlightenment from the Prophet (PBUH) to Owais al-Qarani despite neither of them having physically met.
In modern society, those unacquainted with the wisdom of spirituality will find occasion to question the idea that a teacher-student heart-based connection is possible. One scientifically inclined might ask: how can the influence of a teacher, separated from his/her students by distance and time, guide and impact the actions of those students? Pointing to the results of Einstein’s theory of relativity, that same person might believe that no influence from one entity can travel faster than the speed of light and influence events and outcomes related to a second entity. Thus, it would seem impossible for the light and grace of a teacher to open the eye of the heart of a devoted student in meditation and guide them toward witnessing the Divine Unity.
This generally accepted outcome of the theory of relativity, that no influence from one region can travel faster than the speed of light and influence events in another region [3], finds pause, and even refutation, in the predictions of quantum mechanics. Dissatisfied with the state of metaphysical and philosophical understanding of quantum theory, physicist John Bell (d. 1990) quantified a relationship to which statistical outcomes of experiments would have to conform if the prevailing wisdom about speed of light influences were universally true. This relationship, known as Bell’s Inequality, is mathematically reflected as follows:
Sϱ(a,a′,b,b′) ≤ 2 [3]
The inequality is derived using the “Principle of Local Causality,” the assumption that “the result of a measurement on one system be unaffected by operations on a distant system with which it has interacted in the past.” [2] It places measurable expectations on the outcomes of spatially separated experiments involving entangled particles (particles that affect one another despite physical separation). If direct and indirect causes and effects of events are no further away from each other than permitted by the velocity of light, [1] then Bell’s Inequality must hold.
Astoundingly, the predictions and experimental results of quantum mechanics do not conform to this inequality! Since Bell first published his results in 1964, every experiment performed to check the validity of quantum mechanical predictions in the realm of entangled particles has shown a violation of the inequality. Thus, if one accepts that the experimental evidence indicates that Bell-inequality violating correlations are a feature of physical reality, even when the experiments are conducted at spacelike separation, using conditions that preclude any measurement “loopholes” that physicists have identified, then such acceptance requires the rejection of the assumptions that led to the formation of the inequality in the first place. The most basic of those assumptions is the “Principle of Local Causality.” In rejecting this assumption, we see laid bare a quantitative and experimental framework for reality that is beyond ordinary understanding and defies physical intuition based on sensory experiences. Within this vast and unexplored domain of being, behind the veils of what we can see and feel with our senses, a student-teacher heart-based connection, unbound by constraints of physical distance and classic conceptions of cause and effect, can flourish. When a heart filled with pure intention and longing for divine connection encounters the energy and love of a true master, their hearts entangle, and the master resides with the student in the realm of the divine, guiding and nourishing for eternity.
Notes and References:
[1] Myrvold, Wayne, Marco Genovese, and Abner Shimony, “Bell’s Theorem”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2024/entries/bell-theorem/>.
[2] Bell, J.S., “On the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox.” Physics 1 (1964), pages 195-200.
[3] Bell, J.S., “The theory of local beables. TH-2053-CERN, 1975 July 28. Reproduced in Epistemological Letters, March 1976.