By Sam Yau
Copernicus dislodged earth from the center of the cosmos.
Newton discovered the laws of movements of heavenly stars.
Darwin dethroned humans to a humbler origin in evolution.
Einstein’s imagination uncovered secret spacetime’s creation.
With towering discoveries, science proclaims matter over mind.
Laws of nature in the macroscopic world have been settled.
All things nonphysical, idealistic, spiritual have dwindled.
Consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon of the brain.
Myths, philosophy, and poetry are fine to pursue, if only
you know they are peripheral to the neurons in the cortex.
Unverifiable subjective experiences are of little interest.
Alas, with this view, the cosmos is dispirited and disenchanted.
The profundity of human’s inner experiences is diminished.
Then comes Quantum Mechanics of the microscopic world.
This tiniest speck of matter exists as a probability equation,
refuses to manifest itself unless probed by a human observer,
defies the speed-of-light limit of Einstein’s E=mc2 calculation,
appears and disappears into thin air like a little magical fairy.
Once connected, a pair of subatomic particles spin,
across a vast cosmic distance, in perfect coordination.
Independence of observed from observer is no longer preserved.
The myth of a deterministic and objective universe is shattered.
With the mighty edifice of Newtonian Physics now toppled,
the nature of matter before observation remains a riddle.
I hear Quantum Mechanics whisper in my ear:
Even the tiny quark is imbued with consciousness.
For every outer matter, there is an inner awareness.
This is the realm of subjective experience
beyond the grasp of science:
where feelings, intuition,
imagination and meaning reign,
where poetry is composed,
philosophy is ideated,
scientific hypotheses are inspired,
where our soul speaks to us,
and Divinity reveals its Face.