Particle and Wave

Release Date: 2004

Tracks 1, 2, 3. Sitar & Tamboura
Tracks 4, 5, 6. Sitar, Tamboura & Synthesizers

Cover painting: detail from Appreciation for the Stars #1 by Marlis Jermutus

“The Eastern mystics see the universe as an inseparable web, whose interconnections are dynamic and not static. The cosmic web is alive; it moves and grows and changes continually. Modern physics, too, has come to conceive of the universe as such a web of relations and, like Eastern mysticism, has recognised that this web is intrinsically dynamic. The dynamic aspect of matter arises in quantum theory as a consequence of the wave-nature of subatomic particles, and is even more essential in relativity theory, where the unification of space and time implies that the being of matter cannot be separated from its activity. The properties of subatomic particles can therefore only be understood in a dynamic context; in terms of movement, interaction and transformation.”

– Fritjof Capra

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“The wave/particle complimentary seems to mirror the existential experience of consciousness . . . The ordinary consciousness of the “self”— in the vernacular sense, with no technical philosophic doctrine implied— is much like a particle: “solid,” “isolated,” “real,” encapsulated by the skin and more or less static. When one becomes detached enough for neurological self-criticism—for revising models as one goes along— the “self” appears more like a process and even a wavy process: it “is” a succession of states, rather than a state itself (as Hume noticed) and these states come and go in a wave-like manner, “flowing” between “inner” and “outer.” As one observes them come and go, one learns to choose desirable states . . .”

– Robert Anton Wilson