Amit Goswami

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Amit Goswami is a theoretical nuclear physicist and member of The University of Oregon Institute for Theoretical Physics since 1968, teaching physics for 32 years. After a period of distress and frustration in his private and professional life starting at the age 38, his research interests shifted to quantum cosmology, quantum measurement theory, and applications of quantum mechanics to the mind-body problem. He became best known as one of the interviewed scientists featured in the 2004 film What the Bleep Do We Know!?. Goswami is also featured in the upcoming documentary about the Dalai Lama entitled Dalai Lama Renaissance (which is narrated by Harrison Ford).

Contents 1 Professional life 2 Science and spirituality 3 Literary activities 4 Musings 5 Quotations by Amit Goswami 6 See also 7 Works 8 References 9 External weblinks 9.1 References in print 9.2 Audio references 9.3 Criticism

[edit] Professional life

Originally from India, Goswami received his Ph.D. from Calcutta University in physics in 1964, from where he moved to the United States early in his career. Fully retired as a faculty since 2003, he is now engaged in far reaching national and international speaking engagements. He teaches fairly regularly at the Ernest Holmes Institute, the Philosophical Research University in L.A.; Pacifica in Santa Barbara, CA; and UNIPAZ in Portugal, and is a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where he was a senior scholar in residence during 1998 to 2000.

[edit] Science and spirituality

In the late 1980s Goswami developed an idealist interpretation of quantum mechanics, inspired in part by philosophical ideas drawn from Advaita Vedanta and theosophy. Calling his theory "monistic idealism", he claims it is not only "the basis of all religions worldwide" but also the correct philosophy for modern science. In contrast to materialistic conventional science, he claims that universal consciousness, not matter, is the ground of all existence, in congruence with mystic sages. Consciousness, deemed as the precursor of physicality, arises from conscious observation through a process intimately connected to wavefunction collapse in a quantum measurement. Once the assumption that there is an objective reality independent of consciousness is put aside, the paradoxes of quantum physics are explainable, according to Goswami.^[1]

As a pioneer of a self-styled multidisciplinary scientific paradigm, he refers to himself as a "quantum activist" engulfing in research on the "Science within consciousness", which comprises and explains the "downward causation" and the up-wards drift in the fields of physics, biology, and psychology and more recently the healing arts, thus resulting in varied theories of integral medicine based on five interchanging levels of existence: the physical, the vital, the mental, the supra-mental intellect and the limitless bliss state.^[2][3]

[edit] Literary activities

Goswami is the author of ten books, including a well regarded and used university textbook on quantum mechanics, and a series of popular works relating to physics and spirituality such as Quantum Creativity, Physics of the Soul, and The Quantum Doctor. His book The Self-Aware Universe is a popularized account of this approach to understanding quantum physics and consciousness, wherein he applies his hypothesis to the mind-body schism stating: "The Universe is self-aware through us."

[edit] Musings

Goswami is in favor of lucid dreaming, which simultaneously allows to adopt the equipotency of the waking and the dreaming state and precipitates creativity. This skill, so he claims, has provided him instantaneous insights regarding superconductivity in regard to the structure of the atomic nuclei. Following this he discovered the self-owned illusion that mind and brain are identical.^[4] Rather tabooed and rarefied topics like death, reincarnation and immortality drew Goswami's interest of research.^[5]

[edit] Quotations by Amit Goswami

Mission statement

• "Consciousness is the ground of all being."

On life changing impulses

• "Then I had a dream that felt like an admonition to me. I heard it so clearly: 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead is correct. It's your job to prove it!' […] One of those [big dreams] can change your life."

On science

• "Old paradigmers […] will take a long time to change."
• "We have to introduce consciousness into science, but to do this consciousness must have some structure to manifest itself. That structure requires mind, vital energies, supra-mentality, soul in other words."^[6]

On mystics and scientists

• "Mystics, contrary to religionists, are always saying that reality is not two things -God and the world- but one thing, consciousness. […] The problem with science has always been that most scientists believe that science must be done within a different monistic framework, one based on the primacy of matter. […] quantum physics showed us that we must change that myopic prejudice of scientists, otherwise we cannot comprehend quantum physics. So now we have science within consciousness, a new paradigm of science based on the primacy of consciousness that is gradually replacing the old materialist science. […] the new paradigm resolves many […] paradoxes of the old paradigm and explains much anomalous data."^[7]

[edit] See also

• Consciousness causes collapse
• Integral thought

[edit] Works

• The Cosmic Dancers: Exploring the Physics of Science Fiction, with Maggie Goswami, Harper and Row, 1983, hardcover, ISBN 0-06-015083-1
• The Self-Aware Universe, Tarcher, 1995 reprint, softcover, ISBN 0-87477-798-4
• The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist's Guide to Enlightenment, with Deepak Chopra, Quest Books, 2000, hardback, ISBN 0-8356-0793-3
• Physics of the Soul: The Quantum Book of Living, Dying, Reincarnation and Immortality, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2001, softcover, ISBN 1-57174-332-4
• Quantum Mechanics, Waveland Press, 2nd edition, 2003, hardback, ISBN 1-57766-321-7, (intermediate to graduate level textbook)
• The Quantum Doctor: A Physicist's Guide to Health and Healing, Hampton Roads Publishing, 2004, softcover, ISBN 1-57174-417-7
• List of articles and essays by Amit Goswami^[8]

[edit] References

[edit] External weblinks

[edit] References in print

• Institute for Theoretical Physics
• Is Consciousness Quantum? Article discussing Goswami's ideas in a metaphysical context
• Scientific Proof of the Existence of God Interview with Amit Goswami by Craig Hamilton, What is Enlightenment, issue 11

[edit] Audio references

• Beyond the Ordinary Webradio-Interviews with A. Goswami (2004)
• Amit Goswami MP3 audio Shift in Action, sponsored by Institute of Noetic Sciences

[edit] Criticism

• Quantum Quackery by Victor J. Stenger, Skeptical Inquirer
• Quantum Quackery by Michael Shermer, Scientific American
• Quantum Confusion: Does Modern Physics Support the Psychics? by Robert Novella, The Connecticut Skeptic Vol. 2 Issue 3 (Summer '97) pg 3
• Discussion of Amit Goswami's Science Within Consciousness by the idealist Peter B. Lloyd
• Critic of Goswami's philosophy from the viewpoint of Integral Thought by Ken Wilber (in German)