"High Technology and the Ground of Being"

"In the United States and the Soviet Union, scientists compete to perfect optical phase conjugation – a process that can reverse the motion of a beam of light, causing an image scrambled by an irregular medium (such as frosted glass) to return to its original, undistorted form. They hope to use reversed light beams to focus laser weapons on enemy missiles. At Syracuse University an eminent physicist appears before a large audience. A professor of religion introduces him as the man who may save the world from the fragmentation of modern Western thinking and bring people to a platform of transcendental wholeness. The physicist then begins expounding metaphysical ideas based on physics and Eastern philosophy.

"Although it may seem surprising, the military research work and the university lecture share a common foundation in a fundamental feature of the laws of physics. To understand how this is so, let us first consider optical phase conjugation. ...

These examples "of research in optical phase conjugation has bearing on metaphysical questions. Could it be that the universal background of random electromagnetic noise incorporates patterns that are imposed on the physical medium by a transcendental source of order, and which are programed to naturally generate orderly forms and sequences of events? As it turns out, the fact that dispersed information can give rise to localized organization has been used as the cornerstone for a comprehensive metaphysical world view. This is the theory of the implicate order, devised by David Bohm – the physicist in our second scenario. ..."

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