Science and Human Transformation: Subtle Energies, Intentionality and Consciousness [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

"function<->structure<->biochemistry"

On the next page, Tiller asks "what is the glaring omission from equation 1?"

"Electromagnetic radiation, of course!"

Well, I laughed so hard I had to put the book down for a few moments. Sadly, the book never recovers from this silly beginning. The appendices on Fourier Transforms and antenna theory are wasted print. Except that Tiller mentions the subjects within the main body of the text, in my opinion these are thrown in purely for appearance sake, as if to trick a technologist into reading the book. But alas! Let me detail a specific example. As a materials scientist, Tiller has undoubtedly made bona-fide use of the concept of the "inverse space" domain, where "real space" is transformed by Fourier into a "universe" measured in "wave numbers" and having units of reciprocal length -- much as I routinely use the Laplace Transform and work in the mathematical "s-plane" (where everything is measured in reciprocal time) for my transient models of the thermal properties of semiconductor packages. Thus (immediately after the silly start already panned) Tiller's book jumps into a discussion of how we can overlay this "inverse space matrix" onto the real one; the significant difference between the two being a difference of scale of twenty orders of magnitude. Whence does this scale difference arise? From the fact that the physical universe is comprised at the atomic scale of matrices of atoms and molecules separated from each other by roughly 1E-10 meters. Still don't see it? Here we are, living at the scale of meters, and we're made up of building blocks ten orders of magnitude smaller. So if you create an inverse space matrix from atomic dimensions, you'll have units of 1E+10 reciprocal meters. Voila! Twenty orders of magnitude of difference. If our bodies and universe coexist within those two matrices, is it any wonder that (as suggested in the _Holographic Universe_ model) that the entire span of the universe is accessible within the very confines of our own bodies and minds?

Only when you take a step back and go, "wait a minute! Just how big is a reciprocal meter, anyway?" And you then realize that the entire concept, though somehow initially appealing, is an "apples and oranges comparison." You simply can't compare the size of 1E-10 meters to 1E+10 reciprocal meters! Worse yet, this premise is founded on an arbitrary measurement system that happens to use the meter as its basic scale (which just happens to be approximately the size of our bodies). Let's start over: what if we'd decided that the Angstrom unit was to be the fundamental unit of scale? (That would make sense, actually, being precisely 1E-10 meters, and a rather natural unit of scale for atomic lattices.) But if we did, then the "inverse space matrix" based on atomic lattices would be the same "scale" as the physical atomic matrix (because the reciprocal of 1 Angstrom is 1 reciprocal Angstrom). Further, as you went to bigger and bigger distances in the physical universe (10, 10000000, 1E10 Angstroms - where you get to us), you'd be going to ever smaller inverse distances (1E-1, 1E-6, 1E-10 reciprocal Angstroms) and you'd have to conclude that the inverse space matrix of the entire universe resides within the confines of a single atom (and odds are it's not one of yours :-) ).

Well, obviously I've got serious issues with Tiller's fundamentals, so I'm unlikely to be swayed by the rest of his meanderings. And it doesn't help any when he discusses his experiments with self-sharpening razor blades in Plexiglas pyramids. At first, he thinks he gets positive results, so he conducts (one of his few) more rigorously controlled follow-up experiments and is then disappointed to find nothing. His final conclusion is not that maybe his initial positive results were wishful thinking, but rather that significant "metaphysical" results always disappear when you look too closely. As a scientist, that's supposed to convince me of something here? Duh ....

And as for the other "experiments" he describes in his book, I'm afraid they left me cold. For instance, he could have used the space taken up by the appendix on Fourier Transforms instead for a more thorough log of his lab experiments on psychokinetics. As it is, almost all of his experiments include a disclaimer to the effect of "but I haven't yet done double-blind studies" (so the results may be artifactual). Usually, real "science" doesn't take place (and results aren't published) until after double blind studies are finished. Remember "cold fusion?" Tiller's book is not likely to encourage another real scientist anywhere to follow his lead -- certainly not to admit it!