Visualizing The Quantum / Ground Analogy
Visualizing an Experience of the Ground of Being
Here is one artist's rendering of the experience of the "Ground of Being." In it, one senses oneself as amidst a great reality that is both transcendent (something that’s beyond or above the range of everyday physical perceptions) and immanent (a reality that seems to interpenetrate the things of the world and we ourselves). The "Ground of Being" is sensed as an omnipresent reality of which we are part but which reaches well beyond us and the world's objects, i.e. is both transcendent and immanent.
Visualizing Quantum Foam
Here are two artists' renderings of the frothy “virtual particles” that physicists suggest are constantly snapping into and out of near existence.This "Quantum Foam" becomes the quarks, gluons, photons and other fine particles which in turn become the world’s matter, light, electricity, living bodies and gravity. This dynamical Quantum Vacuum Field is omnipresent and is the foundational field and reservoir of energy beneath our universe. (Istock Photo)
Visualizing The Quantum / Ground Analogy
Christianity Reimagined, Chapter 8, suggests that the Quantum Vacuum Field and the Ground of Being are strikingly parallel. Both are omnipresnt. The Ground of Being and the Vacuum Field are both understood as fields of energy which manifest into forms and objects. Both are understood to be connected to consciousness.
The one difference between them is that the Ground of Being is experienced as having an emotional tone, joy or love, in a way the Quantum field has never been claimed, (though that may be a limitation of the measuring devices).
Though we cannot prove this yet, we may hold that these two models are two ways of understanding and engaging with a single field. That is, the Quantum Vacuum Field and the Ground of Being may be subjective and objective aspects of a single field.
