My Big TOE – A New Scientific
Model of Reality
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My Big TOE (Theory of Everything) is a radically new scientific model of reality unifying physics and metaphysics, mind and matter, purpose and meaning, the normal and the paranormal. It brings together the entirety of human experience, including our objective and subjective worlds, under one seamless scientific understanding. Laying out the implications for us as individuals and for humanity as a whole, it provides a new perspective on the nature of our reality and our purpose within it.
Who Are We? Why Are We Here?
We all seek to know the answers to life’s most fundamental questions, yet there is a fundamental clash between the explanations proposed by standard contemporary science and the world’s major religions and spiritual traditions.
Many scientists today subscribe to some form of materialism, the idea that every aspect of our human experience can ultimately be reduced to, and thus explained by, physical processes. The materialist paradigm suggests that only things which can be objectively measured are real or important. It also implies that life in the universe evolved by chance, has no ultimate purpose, that we have no free will, and when our brains and bodies die our consciousness forever ceases to exist.
Most religious and spiritual traditions, in contrast, assert that our consciousness continues after death, we do have free will, the universe exists for a reason and life does have ultimate meaning. Mystics and sages from all cultures and ages have assured us that introspection – the systematic investigation of our own minds – yields irrefutable subjective insights into the ultimate nature of reality. And indeed, millions of people alive today have had spiritual or paranormal experiences that convinced them beyond a doubt that their consciousness is not limited to the physical world.
My Big TOE bridges these seemingly irreconcilable views by showing the way towards a new scientific paradigm shift that unifies both the objective and subjective worlds under one overarching, elegantly simple, theory of everything.
What is My Big TOE About?
The key insight of My Big TOE is that consciousness – not matter – is the fundamental “stuff” of existence. Think of our universe as a fully immersive virtual reality in which we play human avatars who learn to cooperate and make good choices. Looking at the world in this way provides answers to questions in physics, philosophy, psychology and religion that have so far defied rational explanation.
Who Developed My Big TOE?
My Big TOE is the result of more than 30 years of research by nuclear physicist Tom Campbell. Tom not only had a long career as an accomplished physicist working for organizations such as NASA, he also pioneered modern research into altered states of consciousness. This unique twofold qualification enabled him to develop a scientific model of reality based on the insight that consciousness is fundamental.
What Does "My Big TOE" Stand for?
The name was chosen not only for its pun potential – there is a specific meaning to each of its components. They are best understood in reverse order. Click on the tabs to find out more:
The "My" in My Big TOE is not meant to demonstrate pride of authorship – far from it! The point is simply to stress that the My Big TOE scientific model only describes reality as explored and experienced by Tom Campbell. Our conscious experience of reality is necessarily subjective: it depends on our personal interpretation of the data we take in. We cannot share our subjective experience with anybody else – we can only describe it in words, concepts and metaphors that others, in turn, have to interpret in terms of their own experience base.
This is why Tom does not ask anyone to simply believe him or blindly buy into his model. My Big TOE is not about belief – it is about first-hand experience and understanding. It can serve as an eye-opener, a stepping-stone for others to see the possibilities and wonder of a larger reality. But every individual must develop their own Big TOE, based on their own subjective experience.
There’s a big difference between a Big TOE and a Little TOE. The master theory physicists are searching for is a Little TOE because it would only describe the physical phenomena within our universe. If you believe that physical reality is all there is, that would indeed seem to explain everything. Yet, as anybody can learn to experience for themselves, the physical universe is only a small part of a much bigger, more fundamental reality: consciousness.
Consciousness is the superset (the Big Picture) of which our physical reality is but a subset (the little picture). This also matches our everyday experience: the seemingly objective physical reality is not nearly as important for our lives as our subjective mental states, sensations and experiences: our loves, likes, fears, wants, needs, beliefs, expectations, and our qualitative perceptions such as the sound of music, the taste of chocolate or the smell of roses. A Big TOE, therefore, must both explain the Big Picture – the subjective as well as the objective – and derive the little picture from the big one. This is exactly what My Big TOE does.
Since Albert Einstein, physicists have been searching for a Theory of Everything (TOE), the ultimate, single framework to explain all known physical phenomena in the universe — so far, without any success. Einstein’s general relativity, our best theory to date for describing gravity, seems incompatible with quantum field theory, our best theory for unifying the three non-gravitational forces. My Big TOE does not unify general relativity and quantum field theory, but shows how both can be derived from an underlying, ultimate reality: consciousness. My Big TOE models consciousness as an evolving, self-modifying digital information system, which is the source of our physical reality.
What Does My Big TOE Explain?
Besides putting all of modern science on a new foundation, My Big TOE resolves a multitude of fundamental questions, puzzles and paradoxes for which science, philosophy and religion have failed to provide coherent rational explanations.
Click on the tabs to explore some of the key questions answered by My Big TOE.
Quantum physics
- Why do particles only exist in probability until "measured" or "observed"?
- How do entanglement, tunneling and other quantum phenomena work?
Relativity theory
- Why is the speed of light in vacuum invariant?
Fundamental questions
- Are time and space illusions?
- Does an objective reality independent of any observers exist?
- Is the moon there when no one is looking?
- What actually are properties such as mass, charge and spin?
- Why does the universe seem fine-tuned for life?
Cosmology
- What existed before the Big Bang?
- What does the universe expand into?
- What is dark energy?
- Are there other universes?
Metaphysics
- Why is there something rather than nothing?
- What things exist?
- Is the universe real?
- Who or what are we?
Mind-body problem
- Does the brain produce consciousness?
- How do the mind and body interact?
- How does the placebo effect work?
Epistemology
- Can we ever know anything objectively?
Moral philosophy
- Do we have free will?
- Is morality relative or absolute?
- How can we be truly happy?
- What is love?
- Where do our fears come from?
- What is ego?
- Are beliefs good or bad?
- How do people get depressed?
- Do we need to love ourselves to be able to love others?
Fundamental questions
- Is there a God?
- Do we have a soul?
- What is the meaning of life?
- Is there an afterlife?
What happens after we die?
- Do Heaven and Hell exist?
- Is reincarnation real?
- Is karma real?
The problem of evil
- Why is there so much evil and suffering in the world?
- Why does life seem so unfair to many people?
Moral questions
- Is having faith a virtue?
- Is there value in obeying religious commandments?
- Will we be punished for bad behavior?
The supernatural
- Do miracles exist?
Spiritual growth / consciousness evolution
- What is our purpose as human beings?
- How can we grow the quality of our consciousness?
- Is there a link between spiritual growth and ethical action?
Fundamental questions
- Are we all one?
- What is enlightenment?
- How does meditation work?
Spiritual concepts and terminology
- What are the chakras?
- Does spiritual energy exist?
Evidence against a matter-based reality
Mainstream science, firmly wedded to the materialist paradigm, denies the reality of paranormal phenomena.
My Big TOE, in contrast, rationally and logically explains why paranormal phenomena are, in fact, normal if consciousness is the fundamental reality.
The paranormal becomes normal
Near-Death Experiences, Out Of Body Experiences, telepathy, remote viewing, remote diagnosing and healing, looking into the past and probable future, and other paranormal phenomena are rationally explained by My Big TOE as being artifacts of a consciousness-based reality.
My Big TOE also explains why paranormal phenomena do not occur and cannot be induced as regularly and reliably as physical phenomena.
Learning through first-hand experience
Importantly, My Big TOE also explains how you can learn to experience paranormal phenomena for yourself, thus verifying through your own personal experience that reality is fundamentally immaterial.
While My Big TOE does indeed answer all of these questions, not all of these answers may yet be found on this website. The introduction to the theory on this website will be gradually expanded. In the meantime, you will find the entire model explained in the My Big TOE book trilogy. You can also use the video search tool on this website to find videos related to a specific question or topic.
