Relational Holism and the Possibility of Quantum Administration:

Farfetched Ideas or Ascendant Worldview?

Prepared by: Matthew S. Mingus School of Public Affairs and Administration

Western Michigan University Walwood Hall, 227 East 1201 Oliver Street Kalamazoo, MI 49008-3856 616-387-8942 (office) 616-387-8935 (fax)

616-969-1929 (mobile) Matthew.Mingus@wmich.edu

Submitted to: Goktug Morcol and Linda Dennard Editors Extraordinaire

(now published) Date: August 28, 1998

Relational Holism and the Possibility of Quantum Administration: Farfetched Ideas or Ascendant Worldview?

Materialism can be defined in two ways: the “tendency to prefer material possessions

and physical comfort to spiritual values” and the “opinion that nothing exists but matter and its

movements and modifications” (Allen 1984, 453). This essay focuses on the development of a

non-materialistic view of reality that emerges as ideas from quantum theory are applied in place

of the Cartesian mind-body duality, with its dependence on materialism. Most succinctly, the

new view of reality does not deny the significance of matter or of consciousness – instead, it

argues alongside Danah Zohar (1990) that consciousness is analogous to the “wave” in the

quantum wave-particle duality and that matter is analogous to the “particle.” This emerging

philosophy may be termed “relational holism” and its application in the field of public

administration termed “quantum administration.”

It is the primary task of this essay to describe the philosophies of Henryk Skolimowski

and of physicist Amit Goswami in an attempt, albeit a brief one, to add some flesh to the idea of

quantum administration by developing a richer conceptual underpinning. As such, if readers

gain some terminology and some ideas that allow them to communicate more clearly about

quantum administration then this author will consider his task to have been accomplished. If

readers grasp why the acceptance of a quantum reality mandates the need for a new

administrative model then this author will feel like an overachiever.

The organization is to discuss quantum administration, provide an outline of

Skolimowski’s philosophy, summarize the philosophy of physicist Goswami, and then state a

case for relational holism as a modified version of the philosophies of Skolimowski and

Goswami. Skolimowski and Goswami are used in this essay because they provide extensive and

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coherent explanations that reality is created by consciousness. As such, they each argue for the

primacy of consciousness over matter and for the universal connectedness of consciousness.

In contrast, the dominant philosophy, materialism, argues either that mental and spiritual

aspects of reality are somehow dependent on matter or that they do not even exist (Zohar 1990,

94). Ilya Prigogine’s work with chemical reactions, however, provides persuasive evidence that

molecules are capable of knowing what other molecules are going to do, and adjusting what they

do accordingly (Wheatley 1992, 106-107; Zohar 1990, 188-230). What is this if not

consciousness, at the molecular level, demonstrating a basic ability to communicate?

Ultimately, this essay argues that Skolimowski and Goswami fail to capture the full

meaning of quantum reality by insisting that “matter” take a back seat to “consciousness.”

Relational holism, on the other hand, appears to avoid this error of moving so far away from

Newton that one might think his experiments were fabricated.

Quantum Administration

It is apparent that portrayals of quantum theory are few in the public administration

literature because of the newness of applying the concept to this field and perhaps because of the

difficulties of applying concepts from the physical sciences to the social sciences. Morçöl’s

(1997b, 316) content analysis of new sciences articles in public administration uncovered only

two articles with an explicit quantum focus (i.e., Overman 1996; Overman and Cahill 1994). If

Morçöl’s review is accurate then the 1997 symposium in Administrative Theory and Praxis

doubled the subfield (specifically, quantum administration) with additions from Karen Evans on

quantum theory and visualization and from Nancy Murray on metaphysics, quantum science, and

public administration philosophy.

The late Sam Overman (1996, 489) characterized quantum administration as a “world

with different foci: on energy, not matter; on becoming, not being; on coincidence, not causes;

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on constructivism, not determinism; and on new states of awareness and consciousness.” He

also underscored that quantum administration focuses on “the spiritual characteristics and

qualities of organizational life” and that “quantum theory can appear almost mystical and

superstitious.” In making these observations, Overman is describing the approach of a Goswami

or a Skolimowski rather than recognizing relational holism, which might argue instead that the

administrative concepts and principles of the past simply need to embrace their wave aspect as

well. In essence, Overman shifted the focus from matter to waves, from the material to

consciousness, rather than recognizing that quantum administration could include both.

Overman (1996), Karen Evans (1997), and Nancy Murray (1997) each help to describe

how quantum theory may alter public administration if one dares to cross apply what quantum

physicists have learned about the microscopic world (the now familiar examples of non-local

causation, wave-particle duality, and participatory collusion or observer impact) to the

macroscopic world writ large. While Albert Einstein did not feel the need to generalize the

behavior of quanta to the macroscopic world; quantum theorists such as Neils Bohr did feel this

need because they prefer not to cope with the cognitive dissonance that is involved in rejecting

the self-similarity of the microscopic and macroscopic worlds (see Werner Heisenberg’s

comment in Evans 1997, 357). In fact, administrative theorists frequently find value in the

metaphorical application of concepts from the natural sciences to the broader world of the human

sciences (e.g., Morçöl 1997a, 1997c; Overman 1996; Schön and Rein 1994; and Behn 1992).

This essay views quantum theory and public administration – Overman’s metaphorical

application of quantum administration – as evidence of movement toward an even more

profound change in the reigning scientific paradigm than a shift from Newtonian physics to

quantum physics. It is simply not enough to offer one’s vision of quantum administration as a

highly productive alternative to command and control models as is expertly done by Margaret

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Wheatley (1997) or to stress the epistemological implications of quantum theory by discussing a

possible shift from the correspondence theory of truth to a coherence theory of truth as

accomplished by Evans (1997). Instead, this essay argues that the ontological foundations of the

new paradigm must be examined – what is the nature of reality? The proposed answer,

illuminated by the work of Henryk Skolimowski and Amit Goswami, is that particles have both a

material and a conscious existence. Science of the 1900s has focused too heavily on atoms in the

viewfinder of a microscope as the basis of reality whereas Skolimowski and Goswami might err

in the other direction, denying that there is any material basis to reality.

The administrative result of this orthodox materialism has been a focus on control as the

endpoint of public management whereas the developing philosophy insists that systems self-

organize and that managers should free employees up to help this process of self-organization by

replacing red tape, procedure books, and step-by-step planning documents with trust, initiative,

and creativity (Wheatley 1997). The common machine metaphor for the organization is derived

from the Newtonian belief in universal laws and principles whereas the developing philosophy

more closely fits an organism metaphor because organisms grow and adapt in order to survive

and flourish – each particle of each atom knows what it takes to sustain life. This essay

encourages public administrators to embrace these ideas as they strive to overcome the decades

of socialization in the ways of dichotomous thought that may now be rooted firmly in their

unconsciousness.

In appealing for such a movement away from such dichotomous thought, Fox (1980, 366)

argued quite persuasively, drawing upon the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that,

. . . in opposition to atomistic reductionism, organisms cannot be understood by breaking them down to ever smaller subunits and reconstructing them by causal laws. Behavior is a structure or form and is not reducible to its parts. . . . One has no way of getting from the parts back to the whole of behavior.

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Fox’s (1980, 369) position, quite in common with that of Skolimowski, is that we must

relearn to value “experience” as that which happens to the “self” before “thought.” In this way,

as in a quantum reality, we are truly part of the world before we can rationally observe or

measure that world. “Categorical thought is derivative” of our experience and “we cannot

divorce the emotive or value aspect of the intention from that which is intended – from the

objects with which it mingles to form two moments of a united phenomenon” (377).

Similarly, Evans (1997, 356) highlights the failure of a dichotomous approach by

drawing upon Aristotle’s four causal categories – material causes, efficient causes, formal

causes, and final causes – and explaining that Newton’s mathematical model of the physical

universe fails to account for the later two causal categories. These two categories are basically

planning or design, and desire or will. Desire or will is at least partly an unconscious and

intuitive act rather than a rational act or an act of control (359).

Kaaren Hedblom Jacobson (1997) extends this concept from the individual to the

organization by explaining the impact of the unconscious upon the rational organization.

Jacobson explains that when one of Carl Jung’s four psychological functions – thinking, feeling,

sensation, and intuition – is repressed, the compensatory principle of the human psyche causes

negative manifestations of the function to emerge. For example, she describes the need of the

traditional (or Weberian) organization to emphasize facts (sensing) and reasoning (thinking), and

argues that the result is both a diminished capacity to sense and think because these

overemphasized traits are “depotentiated” as well as a tendency to develop “compulsive and

obsessive ties with people, objects, and unimportant details” (Jacobson 1997, 291).

This essay outlines a developing epistemology, exemplified in the philosophies of

Henryk Skolimowski and Amit Goswami, that is taking hold in the world and that is, not so

incidentally, quite supportive of a quantum view of reality. It does not, however, argue that

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materialism must be entirely left behind as Skolimowski and Goswami might argue. That would

simply be setting up a new dichotomy whereas the pattern of dichotomous thought in “science”

is part of the existing problem.

Skolimowski’s Philosophy

In The Participatory Mind: A New Theory of Knowledge and of the Universe (1994)

Skolimowski argues for a theory of knowledge in keeping with his philosophy that reality is co-

created by the human mind. ‘Mind,’ as we shall see, is far more than just the brain. To

adequately understand his participatory epistemology requires that one first understand how

Skolimowski says the mind co-creates reality; the concept of a spiral of understanding unique to

each species, culture, and individual; the significance of and types of participation; and the

concept of participatory truth.

The Co-creation of Reality

Since the time of Descartes, the mind has increasingly been considered in separation from

the body and even the soul. In fact the study of the mind has increasingly meant the study of the

analytic powers of the brain to interpret data from the five senses. Skolimowski has a far broader

view of the mind as encompassing all the ‘sensitivities’ of a particular species as well as the

ability to process them. Sensitivities include all the capacities through which we live our lives –

the five senses, intuition, divine inspiration, the ability to empathize, the capacity to make love or

write poetry. Skolimowski (1994, 9) states, “Sensitivities are the artists which receive and

transform, which nourish us aesthetically and inform us intellectually; they are the countless

windows through which we commune with reality.”

Sensitivities are the key to evolution in that species develop new sensitivities to expand

or augment their consciousness, and by extension, the universal consciousness. For example,

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Skolimowski (1994, 13) argues that as the eye evolved, reality was given a visual aspect for the

first time:

No eye to see, no reality to be seen. It is the eye that brought to reality its visual aspect. The existence of the eye and the existence of a visual reality are aspects of each other. One cannot exist without the other. For what is the seeing eye that has nothing to see? And what is the visual reality that has never been seen? As with all sensitivities, this new sensitivity enabled us to co-create, to articulate the

world in new ways, to elicit new aspects from the world. Thinking is but one of our sensitivities,

and it “nearly always occurs within a larger framework of our experience, and of the experience

of the species, and this experience makes thinking much more than mere cerebration”

(Skolimowski 1994, 23). The Western focus on thinking may be characterized in this way: Just

as many students of statistics try to use the most advanced techniques they have been taught,

believing wholeheartedly that these tools must be superior to simpler tools (that appear earlier in

the textbook and might be more appropriate to the task at hand), the modern analytic

epistemology focuses on rational thought and proposition-based knowledge because they are

more recent in the evolutionary development of our species. Older sensitivities are forsaken;

perhaps to be discovered again at a later date.

Skolimowski’s (1994, 27-28) philosophy is that “things become what our consciousness

makes out of them through the active participation of our mind.” This concept fits well with

quantum physics in that reality is not an object ‘out there’ to be studied, it is something that

develops as the observer or measurer interacts with the world. Quite literally, people co-create

reality as they articulate their experiences. Perhaps this is why many people learn best by

teaching others or why people occasionally fail to know what they believe until they hear

themselves speaking to someone else (see, for example, Vygotskii 1978).

This view of the mind-as-builder (or co-creator) is essential to understanding the

development of Skolimowski’s participatory epistemology. He even speculates that the

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relationship between the two sides of the brain is one of dynamic balance, changing from

moment to moment. Skolimowski (1994, 246-247) references Nobel Laureate Sir John Eccles

who stresses that we know very little at present about how the neurophysiology of the brain

might explain the workings of the mind. This is strong support that brain and mind are not

synonymous terms.

The Spiral of Understanding

If reality is co-created, the spiral of understanding is an articulation of a given reality (or,

in Skolimowski’s words, a given cosmos). Rather than representing an absolute reality that

would imply a static rather than evolving reality, or a relativistic or subjective reality that would

claim a different reality for each mind (or no reality at all), the spiral of understanding is a noetic

concept based on participation, which makes it trans-subjective (Skolimowski 1994, 114). It is

species-specific in that the sensitivities available to a given species outline its spiral of

understanding and culture-specific in that cultures inculcate their members with manners for

processing reality. The universe is open, undetermined, and evolving, so that the essential

creativity of all life enlarges the spiral of understanding through new articulations, new

knowledge (90).

As a classical musician undergoes years of extensive training, she becomes capable of

perceiving in music that which is only background noise to those with ordinary sensitivities.

This example demonstrates that it is the mind that hears and not the ears. “The richness and

multifariousness of the experience of reality is in proportion to the organism’s capacity to receive

and decipher it . . .” (Skolimowski 1994, 17). In this way, each of us has a unique outlook that

builds upon the spiral of understanding of our culture and our species. The mind filters all

sensory input based on the spiral of understanding of what the universe holds, and in time, we

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fail to see the smog as we drive into work or we experience having a glass of wine with our

spouse differently than we did the first time. Much of the commonplace world is filtered out.

If every experience is new (i.e., truly forms new knowledge) the input from the human

sensitivities would be immense and perhaps overwhelming. Skolimowski (1994, 333-334)

stresses that only significant, transformative experiences have the capability of changing our

spiral of understanding.

Significance of and Types of Participation

Participation is key to Skolimowski’s philosophy because, as just mentioned, our spiral of

understanding is culture-specific and we each participate to delineate the boundaries, mores, and

dictates of our culture (national, organizational, family, and so forth). Skolimowski has in

common with Jürgen Habermas not the view that instrumental rationality is vile, but that the

Western world bows to objectivity as a deity and thus maintains cultures that lack balance.

While Habermas seeks to replace a degree of instrumentalism with communicative rationality or

discourse (Braaten 1991), Skolimowski argues that thinking or rationality (even if based in

discourse) is just one of many sensitivities available to the human species and that Western

societies in particular need to accept a model of the universe (the participatory mind) and an

epistemology (participatory truth) that values the other sensitivities as well.

Participation, empathy, responsibility, and wholeness are intimately intertwined in

Skolimowski’s model (1994, 152-153). For example, deep participation means empathy or

strong identification with the subjects being studied, and, as part of the whole we cannot

participate without accepting responsibility. The significance of participation is summed up by

Skolimowski (151):

The idea of participation is among the most complex and beautiful in the history of the universe. Nothing could happen in the evolution of life and the universe without participation. . . . The degree, depth and richness of our participation

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determine the richness and meaningfulness of our life. Those who for one reason or another refuse to participate impoverish their lives. Four types of participation are outlined: linear, preprogrammed, co-creative, and creative

(Skolimowski 1994, 153-157). Linear is low level and involves shallow context. For example,

we stop at red lights so other cars may have the chance to proceed or we cannot both stand in the

same place at the same time.

Two varieties of preprogrammed participation exist, genuine and pseudo. The former

occurs, for example, in playing a game such as football where the rules are clear, available to all

participants, unchanging during the course of the game, and consistently utilized. Appropriate

preparation and creative intervention determines who succeeds or wins. Pseudo preprogrammed

participation, on the other hand, occurs when we believe the rules are clear and ample room for

creative intervention exists but hidden rules understood only to a privileged few also have an

impact on the outcome. Co-creative participation exists when we help make the rules and can

negotiate rule changes as necessary.

Creative participation is in the realm of the great geniuses like Einstein or Bach, whose

work is “so impressive and awesome to ordinary mortals that they think it might come from

God” (Skolimowski 1994, 156). Indeed, many of these artistic and scientific geniuses have

commented that they serve as vassals or channels for a unified consciousness. In terms of

participation this might mean that Bach, for instance, was somehow working with each potential

listener, all at the same time.

Skolimowski argues that co-creative participation is where the participatory mind

receives fulfillment, and that pseudo-participation, which is commonplace, leaves humans the

most frustrated and muzzled. Indeed, Skolimowski (1994, 182) later argues that “All therapy is

an attempt to bring the person back to meaningful forms of participation.” By implication then,

good participatory administration might include both the administrators and the clients or

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consumers in designing a program and in making continual adjustments and modifications to the

program. Administrators would empathize with the clients or consumers and would need to

learn their language and their culture. Skolimowski (165) refers to this in the following manner,

“Simply, we have to make a transition from objective consciousness to compassionate

consciousness. This transition will be of momentous importance.” He never claims this

transition will be easy to make.

Participatory Truth

The erosion of materialism is traced by Skolimowski (1994, 301-302) to the discovery of

atomic phenomenon:

We all know that Newtonian physics started to totter at the end of the nineteenth century, that is with the discovery of radioactivity and other phenomena that could not be fitted or explained within the structure of Newtonian physics; and therefore within the structure of the laws of nature as envisaged by physics; and therefore within the structure of reality as conceived by this physics. Obviously what was at stake was the established concept of truth and the established concept of reality. In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Thomas Kuhn (1970) provided for truth when

observations and theories are coherent within a given paradigm. Kuhn’s philosophy that the

nature of reality can only be determined within the conceptual framework of the reigning

paradigm (“established concept of truth” in the above quote) is used by Skolimowski (1994, 309)

as an example that we keep unsuccessfully seeking to uphold the notion of a universal or

absolute truth. Instead, Skolimowski (310-311) offers up this philosophy for humans:

. . . all truth occurs within human discourse. There is no truth without language. There is no language without participation. . . . In outlining the boundaries and the matrix of participation, culture determines truth, which is bound by its context, which is intersubjective within a given culture. . . . For our truths are only the distilled fragments of our unfolding knowledge. At this point it should be evident why “sensitivities” and the “spiral of understanding’ are

developed as part of this participatory philosophy. Our sensitivities must include speech,

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hearing, and the cognitive ability to develop and utilize language for truth to be based in

discourse. The context of culture is woven into the spiral of understanding so that it makes sense

why an absolute truth is not necessary. In fact, if all cultures held one standard of truth then the

philosophy could not be said to be participatory.

Because it is inclusive, this participatory truth accepts the use of the scientific method as

one suitable context for truth. For example, a subculture such as the discipline of physics may

work quite hard during the educational process to make sure that new members ultimately accept

the scientific method as the discipline’s context or standard for determining truth. However, a

key premise is that physical truth, such as the right brain/left brain distinction, “is not a

privileged kind of truth, let alone the arbiter of all truth” (Skolimowski 1994, 319)

The bottom line according to this philosopher is that we can only know species-specific

truth and that truth is a “vehicle of becoming” rather than a way to describe “things as they are.”

Truth is experiential and participatory, therefore, each one of us holds a piece of the truth and

any one of us may never be able to grasp the whole truth because we can only share our

experiences through the secondhand vehicle of language. In Skolimowski’s (1994, 339) words,

“Knowledge is a structuring of the significant and distilled experience; which we subsequently

legitimize by expressing it in sharable and intersubjective patterns and forms.”

Goswami’s Physics

While it is not difficult to see the connections between Skolimowski’s philosophy and

quantum theory (e.g., his “everything is connected through consciousness” approach might

explain quantum theory’s experimental support for non-local causation), Amit Goswami (1993)

writes directly from a quantum theorist’s viewpoint in The Self-Aware Universe: How

Consciousness Creates the Material World. In his preface Goswami describes his personal

decade-long struggle to come to grips with the differences between what he had been taught and

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what he believed to be true. The story of this struggle confirms that the discipline of physics

indoctrinates new members so strongly that few physicists would question its standard for truth.

A sketch of quantum theory precedes the discussion of Goswami’s ideas to provide background

material for those readers who may need it.

A Sketch of Quantum Theory

Albert Einstein established the broad validity of quanta in 1912 and Danish scientist

Neils Bohr extended this theory over several decades to depict a subatomic world unlike the

mechanistic world theorized by Sir Isaac Newton (Gribbin 1984, 51-78; Capra 1983, 75-97).

While Einstein did not feel a need to apply subatomic behavior to the larger reality of everyday

life, many other physicists could not cope with the level of cognitive dissonance involved in

applying quantum theory in a selective manner (see Evans 1997, 357). As such, quantum

theorists have generally struggled with the paradoxes they observe at a subatomic level and

expend considerable energy explaining why these paradoxes do not appear at the macroscopic

level of our everyday existence. Many physicists have turned toward Eastern Metaphysics as

part of this quest (Murray 1997).

In essence, quantum theory specifies a world where electrons and other particles

spontaneously disappear from one atom’s orbit and appear in another atom’s orbit, and where

“reality” does not exist separate from the observer. Fritjof Capra (1983, 88) describes quantum

reality in this manner:

Modern physics thus pictures matter not at all as passive and inert but as being in a continuous dancing and vibrating motion whose rhythmic patterns are determined by the molecular, atomic, and nuclear configurations. We have come to realize that there are no static structures in nature. There is stability, but this stability is one of dynamic balance . . .

Unlike the materialistic world theorized by Newton where particles or matter are

associated with concrete reality, invisible fields form relationships between particles or matter in

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a quantum world and these fields are reality as much as physical matter is reality (Zohar 1990;

Wheatley 1992, 50). People generally understand that invisible fields like gravity and

magnetism have clear and measurable impacts, and quantum theory describes a world in which

there may be many such fields that are not yet fully understood. The contrast between Newton

and quantum is emphasized well by Danah Zohar (1990, 98) as she discusses materialism:

Quantum-level matter, we must remember, is not very “material,” certainly not in any sense that would be recognized by Descartes or Newton. In place of the tiny billiard balls moved around by contact or forces, there are what amount to so many patterns of active relationships, electrons and protons, mesons and nucleons that tease us with their elusive double lives as they are now position, now momentum, now particles, now waves, now mass, now energy – and all in response to each other and to the environment. One possible extension to administration is that quantum theory pushes us to understand

that relationships and patterns of relationships are as important as the parts of the whole (Evans

1997; Overman 1996; Wheatley 1992). One hundred individuals (i.e., particles) do not make an

organization. These people have the capability to form 4,950 dyads, 161,700 triads, 3,921,225

groups of four, and so forth. This abundance of potential relationships forms the internal

organization and it is even more complex to look at the connections with the world external to

the organization. The free will (i.e., waves) of one hundred individuals may lead to numerous,

extremely diverse outcomes, depending on which potential relationships are nourished and which

relationships fail to thrive. The more traditional notion of a hierarchical, bureaucratic model of

organizational structure means that only a few dozen of these relationships, or at most a few

hundred, would be given credence.

Another concept one is confronted with in quantum theory is that of “non-local causality”

or “action at a distance” (Overman 1996, 83; Murray 1997, 375-376; Wheatley 1992, 41). In

fact, the whole notion of cause-and-effect relationships may not be useful in quantum reality

because as-yet-undefined fields may be guiding what our traditional scientific paradigm pushes

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us to either perceive as cause-and-effect occurrences or to ignore, or because causation is too

complex and too interconnected to be monitored. Our traditional model is analytical in that we

try to separate the world into parts and show that A causes B. Evidence of this is that the

primary goal of traditional policy analysis is prediction (deLeon 1998, or look up prediction in

the index of Stokey and Zeckhauser 1978). Predictive models usually assume causation and this

takes on forms such as (1) if A causes B, then government might be able to create more (or less)

of B by changing the supply of A and (2) if A causes B, then government might be able to plan

for B by monitoring the incidence of A.

The indeterminate quantum model represented most closely by the Copenhagen school of

thought suggests that one cannot analyze the world in terms of independent elements that add up

to form the whole (Capra 1983, 85-86; Evans 1997, 360). The reasoning is that the world is

overflowing with potentialities until the moment of observation when the “wave function”

collapses (Overman 1996; Evans 1997). The likelihood of a particle like an electron being at a

particular place at a particular point in time is discussed in terms of probabilities (Goswami

1993, 35). At once this stresses both co-creation, because the observer helps to determine what

is observed or perhaps even forces reality to take on an observable form, and non-local causality,

because the observer may have this impact while not having a physical way of interacting with

what is being observed. While not the only school of quantum theory, this indeterminate school

is dominant (Evans 1997, 358; Morçöl 1997a, 300-302). One possible explanation for this

dominance is that “for massive macro objects, quantum mechanical predictions match those of

classical physics” thus suppressing such “quantum effects as probability and discontinuity” in the

everyday reality that we directly observe (Goswami 1993, 45).

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Monistic Idealism

Goswami is a University of Oregon physicist who argues that not only does quantum

physics lead to the demise of material realism, but extends this in an attempt to support the

philosophy of monistic idealism. As the subtitle of his book indicates, monistic idealism is the

philosophy that consciousness (or ideas) is the primary substance of reality and that matter is an

epiphenomenon of consciousness. This is not akin to “I think therefore I am” because

consciousness is not to be associated with the brain or the mind, and not even with the

individual. Consciousness is unitary – we all share the same consciousness (Goswami 1993, 48-

62). While our brains may have separate existences and separate thoughts, they are created by

our shared consciousness just like the material objects that we observe in the everyday world.

As Goswami (281) states, “There is no self-nature in either the subject or the object of a

conscious experience apart from consciousness.”

The “monistic” part is that the philosophy rejects the concept that the mind (function) and

the brain (structure) belong in two separate realms of reality. Goswami (1993, 51) rejects this

dualism like many philosophers because the philosophy cannot explain how the two realms

interact without contradicting the law of conservation of energy, which holds in quantum

physics. In this philosophy it is consciousness that collapses the quantum wave function in the

presence of mind-brain awareness (97-99). Without “awareness,” the wave function remains as

a bundle of probabilities. Goswami (97) insists this makes common sense as well as good

physics:

An omnipresent God collapsing the wave function does not resolve the measurement paradox . . . When is a measurement complete? When the transcendent consciousness collapses the wave function by means of an immanent brain-mind looking on with awareness. This formulation agrees with our commonsense observation that there is never an experience of a material object without a concomitant mental object, or without, at least, awareness.”

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Otherwise, Goswami (1993, 174) continues later in the book, there would be causal

circularity, “There is no completion of the measurement without awareness, but there is no

awareness without the completion of measurement.” In this way consciousness is “the ground of

all being” in Goswami’s monistic idealism, rather than being derived somehow from matter or

separated somehow from the reality that contains all matter.

Self-Consciousness Verses Transcendent Consciousness

Goswami would seem to agree with Skolimowski that participation is important, although

“choice” is the word he selects. In trying to identify the key characteristic that defines self-

consciousness, Goswami (1993, 108) indicates that:

In every moment, we literally face myriad alternative possibilities. From these we choose, and as we choose, we recognize the course of our becoming. Thus our choosing and our recognition of choice defines our self. The primary question of self-consciousness is to choose or not to choose. Thinking and feeling are each excluded as the key characteristic because they are both

commonly stimulus responses. After all, Goswami argues, it makes little sense to define the

“self” by a response that may be difficult or even impossible to alter. For example, we all cringe

after a movie when someone turns the lights on. That may be mostly a physical reaction,

however, if it was a really good movie we all experience a feeling of loss that it is over and a

sense that time has passed quickly because we were caught up in the illusion of the story.

Distinctly though, Goswami (1993, 109) presents the unconscious as the part of ourselves

that is conscious of all things at all times, even while we are sleeping. We are not always

consciously aware that we are actively perceiving the world. For example, how many times have

you been driving home from the office and then noticed that you are pulling into the driveway?

Do you simply think of this as “autopilot” and then shrug off the experience? In Goswami’s

philosophy this example would demonstrate that the “unconscious” is a higher form than the

“conscious” because it is in more direct and constant contact with the transcendent consciousness

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that is the ground of being, the ground of reality. In this paragraph both the conscious and the

unconscious are part of self-consciousness, but it is the transcendent consciousness that collapses

the wave function causing one potentiality to become reality rather than any of the other

quantum potentialities. Since we are unconscious of this underlying process, many of us feel

isolated or even alienated from one another even though we are connected at the essence of our

being (Goswami 1993, 175). Meditation can ease this distress by putting our self-consciousness,

particularly the conscious part, in closer contact with the transcendent consciousness.

Comparing Goswami and Skolimowski

Obviously this brief description of Goswami’s physics and philosophy must necessarily

fail to do justice to his entertaining and enlightening 300-page exegesis, yet it should convey the

fundamentals of his philosophy. This section provides a brief discussion of how the philosophies

of Goswami and Skolimowski’s are related and therefore provides further clarification of

Goswami’s ideas.

How does Goswami’s notion of a transcendent, universal consciousness equate with

Skolimowski’s participatory truth? Skolimowski does not ground his philosophy in quantum

physics and is therefore not attempting to explain the “measurement problem” of quantum

physics that is the heart of Goswami’s book. In fact, Skolimowski’s writing is more about

ecophilosophy, which he equates closely with feminist epistemology. Skolimowski (1994, 309)

characterizes participatory truth as a replacement for the correspondence and coherence theories,

and states that it is species-specific, culture bound, evolving, determined by the spiral of

understanding, and that “it is a happening” since it is participatory. As such, Skolimowski is not

concerned with equating truth with reality, particularly not a static reality. Instead, truth occurs

within human discourse in a postmodernist fashion. Truth is different for each culture and

species because the sensitivities of the species and the mores of a specific culture form the

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outlines of the spiral of understanding. This appears to be significant for Skolimowski because

the spiral puts limits on what truth would be reached through the vehicle of human discourse.

Goswami, on the other hand, has no counterpart for the spiral of understanding. He is

focused on describing reality, which he believes is created by a transcendent consciousness. The

material world is thus an epiphenomenon of this transcendent consciousness. Each self-

consciousness may participate in some way in defining what the transcendent consciousness is,

or does, yet Goswami’s philosophy makes no room for this consciousness to be different for each

culture or subculture as Skolimowski tries to do.

A key similarity of these two philosophies, though, is the shift away from materialism

and toward the view that consciousness creates the material world. Skolimowski generally uses

the phrase “the mind co-creates” rather than Goswami’s “consciousness creates the material

world.” This means that Goswami’s philosophy is clearly not materialist while Skolimowski

may appear to cling in some way to materialism. As Skolimowski (1994, 333) describes the

components of experience, one of them is “‘reality’ out there” – a concept that he never quite

defines although he states that inward experiences can be transformative even though they are

“not derived from or inspired by the outside reality.” These choices of wording seem to confirm

that Skolimowski (1994, 27-28) must see some level of reality separate from that created by the

mind although this would contradict his philosophy of noetic monism – the doctrine that “things

become what our consciousness makes out of them through the active participation of our mind.”

Although these philosophers come from very different disciplinary backgrounds, there is

a striking similarity in their movement toward concepts that allow some view of consciousness to

be the fundamental basis of reality rather than some view of matter. The apparent difference on

the issue of materialism may even be limited to semantics because Skolimowski thinks of ideas

as spirit (akin to a transcendent consciousness) and he may simply lack the background in

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quantum theory that would allow him to equate ‘reality’ out there with the probabilities of a

quantum wave function.

Argument for Relational Holism

It is possible that Newton described the particle aspect of quantum reality as well as one

could without incorporating the wave aspect that is integral to its existence. That is quite an

accomplishment considering that it has taken the better part of this century to develop what may

still be an incomplete understanding of quantum theory. As mentioned at the onset of this essay,

relational holism may provide a middle road between the acceptance of Newtonian models that

have been dominant this century and the all out denial of materialism that is attempted by

Goswami and Skolimowski. This essay has focused on these non-materialist philosophies

primarily because it is nearly effortless in our society to be immersed in the ways of Newton.

Relational holism furnishes a more appropriate view of reality because it recognizes that

reality exists as matter, consciousness, and the constant interplay between them (Zohar 1990, 99-

104). It is the interplay – or the relationships – that connect matter and consciousness to make

the philosophy holistic. In terms of quantum administration, this philosophy provides broad

support. For example, Evans (1997) eloquently argues that quantum administrators can develop

a desired future state by helping the organization to envision this desired future and by blocking

out thoughts of alternative futures that are not desired. Why not? If consciousness is

purposefully directed toward specific quantum probabilities and concrete steps are taken in the

direction of those probabilities and away from other probabilities, then it stands to reason that the

probability of the quantum wave functions collapsing in the desired direction would continually

increase. The main reason for this “logic” is that the quantum wave function and the associated

probabilities are in a constant state of collapse and renewal. Reality, if you will, is interactive

and thus we can forgo the constant search for one element that can serve as the ground of reality.

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As such, the familiar Western model that divides the scope of information into the

subjective and the objective, and then gives primacy to the objective by naming it “science” and

equating it with knowledge, appears fruitless. If this appears to be leaping too big a chasm,

consider that matter is generally equated with the objective. Objective is that which can be

touched and measured. It is associated with the cold, hard facts. Traditional policy analysts seek

objective data to the extent possible because they wish their findings to be indisputable based on

the available scientific evidence, yet even they are finding that there is a role for the subjective

world. For example, Peter deLeon (1998) has stressed that the positivist (which he equates with

the objective orientation) and postpositivist (equated with the subjective orientation) policy

analysts each have self-defeating characteristics that can be overcome only by using both

approaches in a consonant manner. Perhaps this is because reality is indeed holistic and thus

subjective and objective, rather than being distinct approaches that can be individually valued on

their own merits, are intertwined as two parts of one reality. If this statement makes sense to

you, then you are grasping the concept of relational holism. The idea is not that the public

administrator needs to value both the objective and the subjective, but rather that one cannot

exist and be discussed without the other existing and being discussed.

Evans (1997, 360) would seem to agree with this approach when she states, “our intuitive

experience of wholeness as the dynamic interrelatedness between complementary aspects of the

world is an indication that we have tapped into” an “innate consciousness in the universe.”

Even Eugene J. Meehan (1994, 41), who seeks to salvage the scientific approach by basing his

epistemology on verifiable data collected by the five senses, seems to recognize the

interrelatedness that is explained by relational holism when he states:

The data that reach the central nervous system are an unanalyzable fusion of the characteristics of the content of reality, the effects of the transmitting medium on those characteristics, and the further effects of the operation of the sensory apparatus on the prior combination. In practical terms, the three elements are

21

properly regarded as constituting a “black box,” in the engineering sense of the term. This serves as evidence that even a hardy empiricist like Meehan may need a little

mysticism to complete his theories. Again, Evans (1997, 357) focuses on the issue more

directly,

No longer can we assume that our experiments tell us anything concrete about pre-existing states of reality – we might have a probabilistic understanding of some future potential reality, but cannot with any degree of accuracy make statements about the state of our experimental material prior to our measurement of it. (Evans 1997, 357) Where Meehan accepts a “black box,” Evans stresses the probabilistic nature of reality.

Meehan accepts an unclear explanation for how we can observe and describe an absolute reality

while Evans accepts that reality is nothing more than probabilistic quantum wave functions until

after our elaborate experiments take measurements.

In conclusion, the philosophies of Skolimowski and Goswami can help illuminate the

possibilities for quantum administration because they stress consciousness and its impact on

reality rather than stressing materialism. Nevertheless, it is felt that relational holism provides a

more coherent philosophy because this framework allows for both the material and non-material

aspects of reality and is thus far more in tune with the concrete world of our everyday lives.

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