I'm aware that both Capra and Strassman do make conjectures, like who doesn't? even our modern physics theories are still just THEORIES.
I do have some sympathy for the idea that quantum physics could be related to things previously considered mystical or magical or whatever. But I also think that one should be very careful about what one can legitimately claim about it....
It's reasonable, perhaps, to argue that aspects of quantum physics (non-local stuff like entanglement, etc) could
allow (or perhaps better:
fail to rule out) such proposed phenomena as telepathy; whereas classical physics does predict that any such action at a distance would not happen, if I understand rightly. [But I'm not a physicist, and will happily be corrected on either of those points...]
But that's as far as it goes at the moment, as far as I'm aware. Until and unless testable (falsifiable) predictions are made, based on the idea that (to continue with the telepathy example) quantum entanglement mediates telepathy (I'm leaving aside the question of whether telepathy exists: personally, I'm not unpersuaded by the evidence, though I acknowledge it's controversial); then it
isn't a theory, in the scientific sense of the word.
As I understand it, quantum theory is a theory in the proper sense: a model that makes precise predictions, which - as it happens, since it's a successful theory - fit the evidence very well.
The idea that quantum theory can be extended to explain mystical phenomena, or meditation, or whatever, is not a theory in that sense. It is mere speculation (perhaps interesting speculation, perhaps quite fun to discuss in the right context), rather like - again, if I understand rightly - string theory: It doesn't make predictions that could be falsified, rather it offers untestable interpretations.
We're not even sure exactly how the universe works, so we can't really be sure about anything.
Sure, we can't be 100% sure about anything. That's obvious, and rather uninteresting. Yes, our certainty about anything is less than 100%; but if you can say something about absolutely everything, then it's probably not worth saying. Practically, one has to set a criterion (whether explicitly, as in science; or just intuitively, as we do all the time in everyday life) for how much uncertainty you're willing to put up with. I don't know for sure that Russia exists, but there's so much evidence for it, that it would be folly to act as if it didn't. Conversely, there's so little evidence (is there any?) that any of these quantum mysticists' ideas accurately reflect reality (there may be no evidence
against them, but if you believed everything for which there was no evidence against, then you'd believe virtually any nonsense); that it would be equally foolish, imo, to act as if there were any truth in them.
ETA: Having said that... as I said, I'm sympathetic to these quantum mystical ideas; i.e. I like the ideas, aesthetically. There are neat parallels. Perhaps even suggestive parallels. But until there's more than that; until there's an actual THEORY (
); I'll treat such ideas like I treat, say,
Doctor Who or aspects of some religious stories: something I find enjoyable and beautiful and interesting, but wouldn't claim to have any real bearing on truth, nor imagine would have much relevance to a scientific discussion.
In order to know one thing, we must know everything else. Science only uses the most relevant parts.
Not sure what you mean by this... do you mean scientific practice is insufficiently holistic, too often confined to one level of analysis? If so, perhaps that's a fair point, but the answer to that isn't to give up on science and speculate wildly on a whim: without the rigour of science, our evolved minds are even more likely to be confined by their ingrained perspectives, and we'll have even less chance of approaching truth. The answer, surely, is to do science better.
Or if you're thinking in absolute, black-and-white terms, and suggesting that you really have to know everything in order to know anything, presumably the implication of that is that knowledge is impossible. But surely it's only absolute certain knowledge that's impossible; and if that's the case, why worry about it? Be practical, accept less than perfect knowledge (since that's all you get) and do your best to bring that knowledge as close to reality as you can. Giving up on knowledge seems rather a shame.
ETA: An obliquely related (both to the above semi-tangent; and to the OP's question) thought: the scientific method is a psychedelic method. Or, to put it more like an existentialist book title, 'Science is a Psychedelia'...
One of the things that can be done chemically (specifically, arguably, by psychedelics) is this: seeing past, or breaking down, the normal evolved and/or socially trained filters and perspectives of perception, emotion and cognition. Another way of getting past these filters is through the rigour of the scientific method. Indeed, that is - I'd contend - rather the point of the scientific method. Not quite what the OP intended, I think: I guess this is a level of analysis issue... I'm suggesting the scientific method achieves a particular abstract thing (the cleansed doors of perception, if you like) also attributed to psychedelics; but of course it does it in a a distributed manner across people and times, and it doesn't match psychedelics experientially, by any means. (Although, actually, no I take that back: in my experience, the experience of doing science has moments that are on the psychedelic spectrum. For example, when a result or a theoretical implication undermines your natural intuitions about something. I don't know, maybe I experience science as psychedelically tinged because my psychedelic experiences tinge everything... or maybe it's because much of the science I'm doing at the moment involves peering into people's brains, including my own, and seeing pretty colourful blobs appearing in them. :D)
Oh and, as Marx noted, opium can be done by religious means.
