The View Beyond: Magic and Enchantment at the Frontiers of Physics

with Bernard Carr

The history of physics might be regarded as the expansion of our consciousness to ever larger and smaller scales, as illustrated by the enchanting image of the Cosmic Uroborus. At each stage in this expansion, the frontiers in both the microscopic and macroscopic domains reveal a world that is magical in that it deviates from common-sense reality and imaginal in that it is a creation of mind. Until empirical data emerges to support the model, it might therefore be regarded as bordering on philosophy and this usually engenders scepticism from more conservative physicists. We have now reached a special stage at which the micro and macro physics/philosophy frontiers have merged. This occurs at the top of the Cosmic Uroborus, where the very small (M-theory) meets the very large (the Multiverse) and the physical Universe itself originates (the Big Bang). So does this represent the completion of physics or the need for a new post-materialist paradigm, accommodating mind and the realm of imagination? I take the latter view and argue that a feature of the next paradigm must be a higher-dimensional perspective which radically revises our concepts of space and time. In this case, an even more magical and enchanting reality may be revealed.