Research in Energy and Information Fields around Matter and Organisms

Dear Colleagues,

There has been belief in energy and information fields within and around matter and organisms, including humans, for thousands of years. For example, qi energy is fundamental to traditional Chinese medicine, including acupuncture, and to the martial arts. The universal energy of prana is discussed in Hindu and Vedic scriptures and is seen as a fundamental property of matter and space. The Sufi tradition calls it barakah, and the Hawaiian Kahuna tradition calls it mana. Indigenous cultures talk of spirit in all of nature. Religious paintings show halos about saints. Clairvoyants and mystics have described energy fields for centuries.

Belief in a physical world and a spiritual or non-physical world dates back thousands of years, to the Babylonian, Egyptian, and Sumerian cultures.

The coexistence of these worlds is reflected in the currently evolving ideas of mind and matter and their relationship. Beliefs about this relationship range from those of philosopher Rene Descartes, who espoused a dichotomy, to physicist and Nobel Laureate Eugene Wigner, who believed the two worlds were a continuum, and to Erwin Schrodinger, a founder of quantum theory, who believed in one consciousness, the world as an idea. Physicists, such as John Wheeler and Eugene Wigner and mathematician Roger Penrose have stressed the importance of understanding the role of consciousness in our experience of the world and the problems with its absence in conventional physics. Is consciousness a field around the body or located in the brain? Is there a boundary to the body? Is there a boundary to the mind, to consciousness? How does the self relate to consciousness? What is the self? How do we influence our consciousness? Wigner has stressed the importance of understanding “life” as well as mind, which includes how we feel and moral sense.

The idea of a field was new to science in 1737. The effects of static electricity had been known for millennia, but it was not until the pith ball electroscope was invented that scientists could begin to reveal the behavior of charge and the electric field. One hundred years later, Maxwell published his treatise on electricity and magnetism. We generally infer the presence of these fields by their effects on charges and magnets. In high schools, iron filings reveal the presence of a magnetic field. Today, we have dozens of methods that we can use to measure electric and magnetic fields.

Scientists have made encouraging progress in addressing aspects of energy and information fields. We know the body has an electromagnetic field, for example, from the brain and the organs, a thermal field, chemical fields, DNA in the air, pheromones, an acoustic field, and biophotons. DNA has been interpreted as an information field. A broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation, referred to as a biofield, including ultra-weak photon emission, may be a product of fundamental biological processes, including cell division. Significant effort has focused on descriptions of the electromagnetic fields around the body and the implications for health assessment and treatment, and how they appear to be affected by our intentionality and consciousness. Some researchers associate a complex electromagnetic field with consciousness. More progress is needed to understand these fields and to improve the measurement technology for the different modalities.

The quantum vacuum has properties that are strikingly similar to the historical concepts of a universal energy and information field. Quantum electrodynamics (QED) describes the presence of a field of fluctuations within the quantized electromagnetic field. This fundamental zero-point field is present everywhere, even in the absence of matter and at the temperature of absolute zero. It consists of virtual particle–antiparticle and virtual photon creation and annihilation processes. This field is considered fundamental to the fabric of the universe. Its presence is manifested through the Lamb shift and other phenomena in QED that have been experimentally verified to 14 decimal places, the most precise predictions in modern physics. Modifying the quantum vacuum field has been used for many purposes, for example, to control spontaneous emission, to modify dispersion forces, to enhance chemical reactions, to transfer heat in the vacuum, and to tune attractive and repulsive Casimir forces. It may also be involved in cosmological phenomena. Recent efforts have begun to measure the virtual vacuum field directly.

Does the quantum vacuum play a role in consciousness or in other aspects of our experience? One proposal involves the interaction of vacuum fluctuations and microtubules. Other researchers report that electromagnetic brain oscillations are generated by microtubules. Are there aspects of the relationship between the quantum vacuum and matter that we do not yet understand? All matter, animate and inanimate, has a fundamental interaction with the quantum vacuum and has a unique signature. Can consciousness or intentionality affect this random vacuum energy field? Is quantum entanglement a factor?

Are there other quantum phenomena that are important? For example, it has been suggested that squeezed light is present in biological systems, just as it is in photosynthesis. Mutations are not random in some plants. Are there other fields, possibly of biological origin, that we simply do not understand? Are there energy or information fields around stars or galaxies? Such fields have been suggested with testable hypotheses. Are there time symmetric fields that are affected by events in the future as well as the past? Are some fields classical in nature? These are some of the many questions that lie along the mind matter continuum (or interface) and that may help to understand different energy and information fields. Of particular interest are fields that extend significantly beyond their source and that lead to new paradigms.

Energy and information fields might be involved in understanding the behavior of other species. Ants can build pontoon bridges to reach food that is in water. To describe this complex engineering project, scientists use words such as self-assembly and self-organization. Termites in desert areas make extremely complex mounds that are meters high, the construction of which involves many different activities over decades. Hunting dogs organize themselves into different groups with different roles. Can thinking or can communication construct an information field? Bacteria live in a chemical environment that can serve as an information field, for example, sensing a quorum or warning of threats or encouraging approach. Some plants and animals produce protective or toxic chemicals in response to the environment.

Research is needed to clarify what is known about energy and information fields and to determine what potentially useful approaches to them are, with scientific models and testable hypotheses. All behavior is in some kind of context. Probably one of the primary challenges to investigating human and inanimate energy and information fields is the development of good operational definitions or models of these fields as well as the development of reliable methods to measure or infer the presence of these fields. Movement toward a credible, repeatable measurement technology would provide an enormous impetus for this research. Research in energy and information fields may enlarge our scientific understanding of matter, of many organisms, including humans, of our universe, and lead to breakthroughs in health, in relationships, and in the growth of community.

Prof. Dr. G. Jordan Maclay
Guest Editor

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