THE CONNECTIVITY HYPOTHESIS

Ervin Laszlo has written a series of books on science, including The Creative Cosmos and The Whispering Pond, in which he advances the need for a theoretical fifth field to account for the reality of consciousness and its effects, drawing on his knowledge of evolutionary and systems theory, physics and cosmology, and the sciences of mind. In this book he brings all this together in a more formal sense by postulating the connectivity hypothesis as the foundation of a new integral science.

The first part introduces the idea of coherence in the physical and living worlds, as well as the sphere of the mind. The physics of non-locality at the micro-level are no longer controversial, and it is an interesting reformulation of the Anthropic Principle fine tuning to see it in terms of coherence. At the level of living systems, there is a quasi-instant correlation between the organism's parts and components. Further work in this area has been accomplished by Fritz Popp and Mae-Wan Ho on the physics of organisms, which can be understood as macroscopif quantum systems. Ervin also sees coherence at the level of evolution of species with adaptively responsive mutagenesis. Coherence in the sphere of the mind will be familiar to many readers, which Ervin calls 'transpersonal coherence' (in some cases this might be better described as interpersonal). He cites the evoked potential experiments of Grinberg-Zylberbaum as well as Montecucco's experiments showing brainwave coherence in groups of meditators. On the somatic side he cites prayer studies, but might also have mentioned telesomatic phenomena, where a person feels the bodily sensations of another at a distance. Moving on to the elements of an explanation, Ervin makes the following proposals: Anomalous coherence in a system implies quasi-instant correlation among the parts and components of that system Such correlation implies system-wide connectivity System-wide connectivity implies in turn the presence of an interconnecting medium In a realist perspective the interconnecting medium is a system-wide field Hence 'anomalous coherence implies a system-wide field'. After a discussion of the nature of fields Ervin sets out the premises and postulates of his system-wide field (psi-field) hypothesis. It presupposes that space is an energy-filled plenum, that the energies filling space are virtual energies of the cosmic plenum (rather than the misleadingly-named quantum vacuum) and that the universal forces and constants of nature arise 'in the interaction of the virtual energies of the cosmic plenum with particles and systems in space and time'.

The postulates state that the zero-point field of the cosmic plenum is a complex field that includes a field of scalar potentials, that information is in the form of interference patterns that code the collective wave function and that these patterns extend throughout the range of scalar wave propagations and endure indefinitely in time. So the connectivity hypothesis itself can be stated (there are also equations) that 'systems of charged particles on all levels, from the level of the single particle to the level of the universe-less-one, encode the psi-field with their wave function,a nd this the resulting integral wave function of the universe informs systems on all levels from the single particle to the universe-less-one'.

The testing of the hypothesis requires it to provide 'the simplest consistent explanation of the coherence coming to light in the various domains of experience'. This needs to be applied to the micro-, macro- and meso-worlds. An interesting question is how this happens in the case of correlated brainwaves or telepathy between bonded people. Ervin proposes that their collective wave function affects the brain and infuses the mind, but it is a complete mystery how this happens! Rupert Sheldrake proposes morphic fields as a bond, a theory that can also apply to the perpetuation of habits and what Ervin calls evolutionary learning. In his sense, Jungian archetypes are also forms of collective wave function.

But what about love, perhaps a word too far in a scientific context? If mystical experience constitutes coherence with the Cosmic Mind, then it has both a cognitive and an affective aspect – insight and love, in which one no longer feels oneself to be separate; indeed the two elements cannot be separated in the experience. We resonate with the 'Divine Wave Function' which is also within us. Perhaps this is a further elaboration of the connectivity hypothesis. Ervin has performed a singular service by formulating his ideas into a consistent whole and calling for the primacy of fields and information as the root metaphors of 21st century science.