Whole Life Times: Dogging the Issue

August 2004 | Letters from Readers

Dogging the Issue

Yogic Indignation

Et tu, Whole Life Times? A magazine of your caliber praising a totally reprehensible practice and calling it yoga for dogs? How could you? Call it teaching your dog tricks, feeding the vanity of the owners who put diamond collars on their dogs, taking them for walks by carrying the poodles in their arms—please don’t call it yoga!

Dogs do their own natural stretches. In fact, we copy them. Yoga as we humans know it cannot be done by dogs; they do not have the kundalini energy or the inner spiritual awareness.

I am a dog lover myself. I won’t dream of submitting my dogs to the torture of so-called yoga with the dog.

On the other level, if you mean hatha yoga, it is a misconception that it can be separated from the whole concept of yoga, the joining of the soul and the body. This idea of separation has led to a lot of harm to everyone, including humans.

Can you control [a dog’s] breathing, as in pranayama? If not, it is not doing yoga. Hatha yoga must be done with full awareness.

Moreover, if any yoga needs a partner, it is not yoga.

Why don’t they call it by a different name and be done with it?

As for channeling energy for healing, there has to be a transmitter and a receiver for that. You may transmit the energy but the dog has no receiver to catch it and benefit from it. —Rupa Dore, Monrovia

Einstein Revisited

I think [your writer] may have not clearly understood basic physics (“Quantum Physics Made Easy” by Christiane Schull, June 2004). Her article notes some things that are not true.

She states that we would not have telephones, computers, DVDs and film technology without it. Telephones were invented by Philipp Reis in 1860, many decades before the events she describes, and later improved on by others such as Alexander Bell.

Computers deal with electromagnetics, but so do all electrical devices made today. They were not directly affected by the events related to, or the concepts of, the “photo electric effect.” Perhaps I missed something and you could explain the connection?

DVD technology does use optics, electromechanical devices and may use a device based on photovoltaic technology or similar technology. By my reading of Albert Einstein’s work, I don’t really see the direct connection. Film technology is based on chemical technology and I don’t even see it being in the same realm as Mr. Einstein’s work on the “photo electric effect.” Planck and Einstein, dealers in what I call theoretical work, are almost certain to come out in history as greater contributors to the human species than the true inventors to the gadgetry that you describe. Perhaps I am not privy to some information or not sensitive to a correlation.
I hope you can clarify this. I would like to think your publication would not publish ramblings of un-knowledgeable people. —Geoff Sheldon, via e-mail

Physicist Fred Alan Wolfe, quoted in the aforementioned story, responds: The reader’s points are well-taken. Einstein’s discovery of the photoelectric effect in 1905 was the tip of the iceberg as far as quantum physics was concerned. The reader seems to have gotten the impression that the photoelectric effect is the chief quantum physics asset to technology and that’s all there is to quantum physics.

Let me set the record as straight as I can. As the reader correctly noted, telephones were invented way before quantum physics was invented. [However], deep space telecommunication depends on sensitive quantum physics-designed receivers to pick up signals from the Mars Rover and Cassini—now orbiting Saturn.

In the ‘60s, quantum physics led to the development of the laser and without it, modern day surgery would still be using scalpels—now lasers do the cutting with greater accuracy and less body damage. And perish the thought: Without lasers there would be no DVDs, CDs or any laser discs, which operate by using lasers. I assure the reader that his DVD and CD players use lasers in their optics, and lasers work through the principles of quantum physics.

Getting back to the iceberg tip, quantum physics is certainly responsible for the photoelectric effect (Einstein got his Nobel Prize for his discovery of the quantum effect photons have on electrons), which made light meters on cameras work. Hence the modern camera and current high-end digital cameras would not work without quantum physics used in designing and configuring their photocell operation.

Quantum physics is also responsible for the solid state physics discoveries of the ‘50s, when transistors leading to today’s computer chip were invented. Without quantum physics, no personal computers, MAC or Windows- based, would ever have been invented. Again, I assure the reader that the computer chips on the “mother boards” of all computers currently in operation work according to quantum physics design. There still might be some old IBM monsters using vacuum tubes (which didn’t need quantum physics to make them), but I doubt it.

Quantum physics also made possible the superconducting magnet technology (MAG LEV) magnetic levitation trains now running in Japan and planned for the world. By chilling the magnet’s coils to frigid temperatures, Japan’s system saves energy.

I am sure that a number of new materials would not have been invented without quantum physics and certainly we would be in the dark in regard to such discoveries as DNA without X-ray micrographs, which depend on the quantum-wave-like nature of high-energy photons to make them.

Strange, though, the reader didn’t even get into the real reason quantum physics is so important in the film. The technology issue pales in comparison to the larger issue of the relation of quantum physics to consciousness, the effect of consciousness on the world and all the interactions in it that involve human choices.

I hope the reader was not referring to my statements as “musing and ramblings of un-knowledgeable people.” My family sacrificed much for me to get a Ph.D. in theoretical physics at UCLA. —Fred Alan Wolf, Ph.D., San Francisco

Put That in Your Pipe

Having recently “found” a copy of your fine mag, it was by no coincidence that I read the letters to the editor section first. As a Native American, I have been taught that tobacco is but one of the many sacred medicines gifted to us from the Creator. The Creator gave the two-legged humanoid free will, so whatever he decides to put in his pipe, he can smoke it! —Joe Asebedo, via e-mail

Death Row Inmate Has Faith

Amnesty International is calling on all people to become involved and urge their local place of worship to sign up and participate in the National Weekend of Faith in Action on the Death Penalty (NWFA) October 22-24, 2004. The NWFA is an annual initiative that takes place every October and seeks to bring together two important approaches to social justice: grassroots human rights activism and faith-based community action.

The goal is to reach out, educate and initiate an open dialogue with members of your community. Participants in the NWFA will receive an organizing packet, which includes the comprehensive Faith in Action Resource Guidebook packed with information and ideas to help with planning, promotion and outreach efforts. Contact Kristin Houle at 202.544.0200, ext 496. Or e-mail [click to e-mail]. Visit the Web site www.amnestyusa.org. By working together, we can make a difference! —Michael B. Ross, Death Row, CT

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